7 ms·

One of the people listed makes $175,000 he can easily afford his own apartment at, conservatively, $3000/month, or he can have a couple roommates and pay around

by s0rce 9y ago

One of the people listed makes $175,000 he can easily afford his own apartment at, conservatively, $3000/month, or he can have a couple roommates and pay around $1000-1400/month. He chooses not to so he can save money and use the amenities at his work. You shouldn't be allowed to live in cars on the street, people paying property taxes are paying for those streets. Free parking is the problem here, you shouldn't be able to leave your car on the street anywhere for long periods, especially not living in it. If you do this you are taking advantage of the system supported by tax paying owners and renters. If the cost of the car registration included the true cost of parking on city streets living in your car would likely be much less attractive for these people who can afford housing but simply choose not to.

liquidise 9y ago
> You shouldn't be allowed to live in cars on the street Why not? You cite taxes. If i am allowed to park my car overnight somewhere, what would disallow me from sleeping in that same car over the same period?
- sanswork 9y ago
  I live in a beach town popular with people driving down the Australian East coast in vans. The problem we have here is that these vans don't have toilet facilities so you end up with people using the bushes along the beach as toilets.
  - sumedh 9y ago
    So catch the people who are using the bushes as toilets don't make it illegal for people to sleep in their cars.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - sanswork 9y ago
      Right so then how do you offset the cost of having to hire rangers to patrol the beach areas at night all year round? And how does that fix the problem where people just wait for the ranger to pass then quickly go and do what they need to do? It's not an easy problem. The town I live in is debating it and working with other coastal councils to try and come up with solutions since the drivers do bring in a lot of revenue to the towns. Overnight washrooms are prone to vandalism that makes them costly to maintain for an example of a problem with an "obvious" solution.
      - sumedh 9y ago
        I agree it's not an easy problem to solve. You are going to need rangers to patrol anyway to see if the cars/vans have people sleeping in them. Have overnight washrooms and have cameras to monitor them(obviously not inside the washrooms) as well as the streets. It's not a foolproof solution and the council still has to make a decision if all the expenses are worth it or not.
        sanswork 9y ago
        >You are going to need rangers to patrol anyway to see if the cars/vans have people sleeping in them. Yes but they only have to do a single pass and they can nab everyone sleeping in their vehicle. To catch people going to the toilet in public they need to be there all the time. >Have overnight washrooms and have cameras to monitor them(obviously not inside the washrooms) What good do cameras outside the washrooms do to stop vandalism inside?
        sumedh 9y ago
        Well if you make those arguments then yes banning sleeping in cars is the easier solution.
        sanswork 9y ago
        Easier but not ideal. Which brings us back to it being a really tough problem.
    - shalmanese 9y ago
      We can solve this problem simply by only allowing people to sleep in cars plumbed into the sewerage system.
- s0rce 9y ago
  What about other people who want to use parking in the neighborhood, if your RV is parked in the spot permanently no one else can use the spot. If there was a parking tax, even an absurd one with Prop 13 level restrictions it would still be better than free parking for your RV on the street.
surfmike 9y ago
> If you do this you are taking advantage of the system supported by tax paying owners and renters. Many people living in California, thanks to Prop 13, are also paying almost nothing to the system because they bought their house early on. Many could even afford property taxes on a current market valuation but the law still means they pay much less. If someone rented an apartment with some friends there is a good chance the landlord is paying peanuts in property tax anyway. Addressing the property tax imbalance is far more important than kicking out people living in cars. Many of them are genuinely out of options, despite this anecdote.
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  Blaming prop 13 is all the rage, but it's not the problem. 1. When the counties had huge discretionary funds, they spent the money on pet projects. You have no idea why Jarvis, and my blue collar father were "I'm as Mad as Hell!" 2. Watch what rents jump up to if prop 13 is repealed. 2.1 West Marin county would have been subdivided into thousands of homes, and apartment complexes, along with malls, and a modern freeway. A supervisor in the '70's (Giacammoni))used abundant funds, before prop 13, to hire Lobbiests/advertising campaigns to prevent the building of west Marin. He succeeded. He got it zoned for 100 acres per home. He then appeased the mad land owners by spending millions doing them favors, all with property owners money. So before prop 13--the availability of homes did not flourish. 3. Yes--the Founders, Foreigners, REIT's will add homes to their portfolio at ever increasing rates on appeal, but the average computer developer will still not be able to afford a home in a desirable neighborhood. Kicking out the old widow because she couldn't afford ever increasing property rates will be a spike in home availability. Does anyone think the big boys won't be ready to pounce? And just rent back the units at higher prices? 4. Sorry, but do we need more cops, and firefighters? Yes--in certain neighborhoods, but in my neighborhood cops have just become Revenue Collectors. I don't even like them around. And besides medical emergencies, homes just don't burn like they used too. The last thing my county needs is a 16th firehouse, or another Luitenient. They polish chrome, and moe grass. I know they are still heroes, but we don't need more. 5. So we need to look for something other than prop 13 to blame?
- s0rce 9y ago
  I agree Prop 13 is also terrible, leads to large inequity in property taxes, and this problem should be solved, however, I'm not sure its directly related to whether you should be able to live in your car on the street for free.
NTDF9 9y ago
>> If the cost of the car registration included the true cost of parking on city streets living in your car would likely be much less attractive for these people who can afford housing but simply choose not to. If the cost of property taxes included the true cost of owning a house in the bay area, living here would be a much less attractive for people who cannot afford housing here but simply got in earlier and live at the expense of newcomers (who are working hard and struggling to make ends meet)
michaelchisari 9y ago
> You shouldn't be allowed to live in cars on the street There is no good reason you shouldn't be allowed to, as long as there's no disturbance.
- engx 9y ago
  I agree, but there's a range of people who live in their cars. Some cause destruction, trash and probably aren't employed or trying to work in a legitimate way. Hard drug use, crime etc are all likely.
  - michaelchisari 9y ago
    Then the problem is destruction and trash, but I think criminalizing sleeping in your car in and of itself is a terrible way to address that.
- sanswork 9y ago
  When you live in your car and you wake up in the night needing to go to the toilet what do you do?
  - Trundle 9y ago
    You make it sound like having a weak bladder is a given. 'Don't wake up in the middle of the night needing to go to the toilet' is a perfectly viable option.
    - sanswork 9y ago
      You make it sound like having a strong bladder is a given. You make it sound like having a weak bladder is required. Neither of these is true. You haven't posted a solution to the problem you've just tried to imagine a world where the problem doesn't exist.
      - Trundle 9y ago
        No I don't. The solution is don't live in a van if you have a weak bladder.
electricEmu 9y ago
This view presents a selfish and very NIMBY attitude. The gentleman in question paid off his student loans, contributes to his retirement, and sounds OK with life. None of that has ant bearing on if he should live on the street. Anti-density home owners in California might be the problem. They shouldn't be able to stunt the housing market for long periods, especially not living in it. If you do this, you are taking advantage of the system supported by tax paying citizens who balk at, or can't afford, to rent. If the cost of supporting regressive anti-density measures included the true cost then home owners would be overturning Prop 13 and removing building height restrictions. Instead, they simply choose not to.
closeparen 9y ago
Yes please. I would love the optics of homeless car-campers being forcibly removed from Bay Area NIMBY neighborhoods at homeowners' request. It'll make so much better television, and show so much more clearly who the villains really are, than dreary zoning commission meetings. In the meantime, it's excellent that homeowners are suffering the consequences of their decision to prevent their neighbors from living in real housing units by waking up to RVs as blight on their neighborhoods. It's not close to proportional for the massive damage they choose to inflict on the lives of those around them, but it's a start.
- GhostVII 9y ago
  What are homeowners doing to prevent other people having houses? I don't think that someone buying a house in the Bay Area automatically makes them some sort of evil person forcing others to live in vehicles.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - sanswork 9y ago
    Pushing back against high density development comes to mind. Though I don't live in the area so I'm not sure how much that is a problem with new tech money and how much is with old locals that want to keep SF the same as it was when they moved there.
  - Inconel 9y ago
    Homeowners, particularly SFH owners in SF, tend to be very politically active in trying to block attempts at developing high density transit oriented housing. This is especially the case if there is the possibly of said housing being made available to lower income residents. Homeownership certainly doesn't make someone evil, however, if in addition to owning a home they also attempt to make it difficult for subsequent residents to own a home, all the while taking advantage of the generous subsidies that Prop 13 provides and reaping the benefits of RE appreciation when it's time to sell, I think it's fair to call them out on it.
  - 9y ago
astrange 9y ago
> You shouldn't be allowed to live in cars on the street, people paying property taxes are paying for those streets. Because of Prop 13 homeowners are the ones getting a free ride on property tax. The wide streets in SF, so big you could build another row of buildings in the middle, are caused by Americans' obsession with putting cars in places that could be served by subways.
aanm1988 9y ago
I don't know if I agree with what you are saying, butI am awfully tired of reading stories glorifying these weirdos for living in a car.
JDiculous 9y ago
I don't see any problem with someone wanting to sleep in their car in a parked lot that otherwise wouldn't be occupied. The fact that homeowners pay property tax doesn't have anything to do with anything. I rent and I don't pay property taxes either. If it makes you feel better, these people pay income and sales tax.
yannovitch 9y ago
From the guy you're talking about : https://frominsidethebox.com/post/i-dont-live-in-a-truck/5765785288966144 https://frominsidethebox.com/post/i-dont-live-in-a-truck/576... "I don't live in a truck. I just sleep in a truck. Living is what happens when you wake up."

by s0rce 9y ago

liquidise 9y ago

> You shouldn't be allowed to live in cars on the street Why not? You cite taxes. If i am allowed to park my car overnight somewhere, what would disallow me from sleeping in that same car over the same period?

sanswork 9y ago
I live in a beach town popular with people driving down the Australian East coast in vans. The problem we have here is that these vans don't have toilet facilities so you end up with people using the bushes along the beach as toilets.
- sumedh 9y ago
  So catch the people who are using the bushes as toilets don't make it illegal for people to sleep in their cars.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - sanswork 9y ago
    Right so then how do you offset the cost of having to hire rangers to patrol the beach areas at night all year round? And how does that fix the problem where people just wait for the ranger to pass then quickly go and do what they need to do? It's not an easy problem. The town I live in is debating it and working with other coastal councils to try and come up with solutions since the drivers do bring in a lot of revenue to the towns. Overnight washrooms are prone to vandalism that makes them costly to maintain for an example of a problem with an "obvious" solution.
    - sumedh 9y ago
      I agree it's not an easy problem to solve. You are going to need rangers to patrol anyway to see if the cars/vans have people sleeping in them. Have overnight washrooms and have cameras to monitor them(obviously not inside the washrooms) as well as the streets. It's not a foolproof solution and the council still has to make a decision if all the expenses are worth it or not.
      - sanswork 9y ago
        >You are going to need rangers to patrol anyway to see if the cars/vans have people sleeping in them. Yes but they only have to do a single pass and they can nab everyone sleeping in their vehicle. To catch people going to the toilet in public they need to be there all the time. >Have overnight washrooms and have cameras to monitor them(obviously not inside the washrooms) What good do cameras outside the washrooms do to stop vandalism inside?
        sumedh 9y ago
        Well if you make those arguments then yes banning sleeping in cars is the easier solution.
        sanswork 9y ago
        Easier but not ideal. Which brings us back to it being a really tough problem.
  - shalmanese 9y ago
    We can solve this problem simply by only allowing people to sleep in cars plumbed into the sewerage system.
s0rce 9y ago
What about other people who want to use parking in the neighborhood, if your RV is parked in the spot permanently no one else can use the spot. If there was a parking tax, even an absurd one with Prop 13 level restrictions it would still be better than free parking for your RV on the street.

surfmike 9y ago

> If you do this you are taking advantage of the system supported by tax paying owners and renters. Many people living in California, thanks to Prop 13, are also paying almost nothing to the system because they bought their house early on. Many could even afford property taxes on a current market valuation but the law still means they pay much less. If someone rented an apartment with some friends there is a good chance the landlord is paying peanuts in property tax anyway. Addressing the property tax imbalance is far more important than kicking out people living in cars. Many of them are genuinely out of options, despite this anecdote.

icantdrive55 9y ago
Blaming prop 13 is all the rage, but it's not the problem. 1. When the counties had huge discretionary funds, they spent the money on pet projects. You have no idea why Jarvis, and my blue collar father were "I'm as Mad as Hell!" 2. Watch what rents jump up to if prop 13 is repealed. 2.1 West Marin county would have been subdivided into thousands of homes, and apartment complexes, along with malls, and a modern freeway. A supervisor in the '70's (Giacammoni))used abundant funds, before prop 13, to hire Lobbiests/advertising campaigns to prevent the building of west Marin. He succeeded. He got it zoned for 100 acres per home. He then appeased the mad land owners by spending millions doing them favors, all with property owners money. So before prop 13--the availability of homes did not flourish. 3. Yes--the Founders, Foreigners, REIT's will add homes to their portfolio at ever increasing rates on appeal, but the average computer developer will still not be able to afford a home in a desirable neighborhood. Kicking out the old widow because she couldn't afford ever increasing property rates will be a spike in home availability. Does anyone think the big boys won't be ready to pounce? And just rent back the units at higher prices? 4. Sorry, but do we need more cops, and firefighters? Yes--in certain neighborhoods, but in my neighborhood cops have just become Revenue Collectors. I don't even like them around. And besides medical emergencies, homes just don't burn like they used too. The last thing my county needs is a 16th firehouse, or another Luitenient. They polish chrome, and moe grass. I know they are still heroes, but we don't need more. 5. So we need to look for something other than prop 13 to blame?
s0rce 9y ago
I agree Prop 13 is also terrible, leads to large inequity in property taxes, and this problem should be solved, however, I'm not sure its directly related to whether you should be able to live in your car on the street for free.

NTDF9 9y ago

>> If the cost of the car registration included the true cost of parking on city streets living in your car would likely be much less attractive for these people who can afford housing but simply choose not to. If the cost of property taxes included the true cost of owning a house in the bay area, living here would be a much less attractive for people who cannot afford housing here but simply got in earlier and live at the expense of newcomers (who are working hard and struggling to make ends meet)

michaelchisari 9y ago

> You shouldn't be allowed to live in cars on the street There is no good reason you shouldn't be allowed to, as long as there's no disturbance.

engx 9y ago
I agree, but there's a range of people who live in their cars. Some cause destruction, trash and probably aren't employed or trying to work in a legitimate way. Hard drug use, crime etc are all likely.
- michaelchisari 9y ago
  Then the problem is destruction and trash, but I think criminalizing sleeping in your car in and of itself is a terrible way to address that.
sanswork 9y ago
When you live in your car and you wake up in the night needing to go to the toilet what do you do?
- Trundle 9y ago
  You make it sound like having a weak bladder is a given. 'Don't wake up in the middle of the night needing to go to the toilet' is a perfectly viable option.
  - sanswork 9y ago
    You make it sound like having a strong bladder is a given. You make it sound like having a weak bladder is required. Neither of these is true. You haven't posted a solution to the problem you've just tried to imagine a world where the problem doesn't exist.
    - Trundle 9y ago
      No I don't. The solution is don't live in a van if you have a weak bladder.

electricEmu 9y ago

This view presents a selfish and very NIMBY attitude. The gentleman in question paid off his student loans, contributes to his retirement, and sounds OK with life. None of that has ant bearing on if he should live on the street. Anti-density home owners in California might be the problem. They shouldn't be able to stunt the housing market for long periods, especially not living in it. If you do this, you are taking advantage of the system supported by tax paying citizens who balk at, or can't afford, to rent. If the cost of supporting regressive anti-density measures included the true cost then home owners would be overturning Prop 13 and removing building height restrictions. Instead, they simply choose not to.

closeparen 9y ago

Yes please. I would love the optics of homeless car-campers being forcibly removed from Bay Area NIMBY neighborhoods at homeowners' request. It'll make so much better television, and show so much more clearly who the villains really are, than dreary zoning commission meetings. In the meantime, it's excellent that homeowners are suffering the consequences of their decision to prevent their neighbors from living in real housing units by waking up to RVs as blight on their neighborhoods. It's not close to proportional for the massive damage they choose to inflict on the lives of those around them, but it's a start.

GhostVII 9y ago
What are homeowners doing to prevent other people having houses? I don't think that someone buying a house in the Bay Area automatically makes them some sort of evil person forcing others to live in vehicles.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sanswork 9y ago
  Pushing back against high density development comes to mind. Though I don't live in the area so I'm not sure how much that is a problem with new tech money and how much is with old locals that want to keep SF the same as it was when they moved there.
- Inconel 9y ago
  Homeowners, particularly SFH owners in SF, tend to be very politically active in trying to block attempts at developing high density transit oriented housing. This is especially the case if there is the possibly of said housing being made available to lower income residents. Homeownership certainly doesn't make someone evil, however, if in addition to owning a home they also attempt to make it difficult for subsequent residents to own a home, all the while taking advantage of the generous subsidies that Prop 13 provides and reaping the benefits of RE appreciation when it's time to sell, I think it's fair to call them out on it.
- 9y ago

astrange 9y ago

> You shouldn't be allowed to live in cars on the street, people paying property taxes are paying for those streets. Because of Prop 13 homeowners are the ones getting a free ride on property tax. The wide streets in SF, so big you could build another row of buildings in the middle, are caused by Americans' obsession with putting cars in places that could be served by subways.

aanm1988 9y ago

I don't know if I agree with what you are saying, butI am awfully tired of reading stories glorifying these weirdos for living in a car.

JDiculous 9y ago

I don't see any problem with someone wanting to sleep in their car in a parked lot that otherwise wouldn't be occupied. The fact that homeowners pay property tax doesn't have anything to do with anything. I rent and I don't pay property taxes either. If it makes you feel better, these people pay income and sales tax.

yannovitch 9y ago

From the guy you're talking about : https://frominsidethebox.com/post/i-dont-live-in-a-truck/5765785288966144 https://frominsidethebox.com/post/i-dont-live-in-a-truck/576... "I don't live in a truck. I just sleep in a truck. Living is what happens when you wake up."