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San Francisco to ban homeless people from living in RVs with new parking limit

33 points by harambae 1y ago

tyleo 1y ago
The whole thing is a mess. I drive through a spot with a lot of RVs in Seattle. I’ve seen people come out of an RV, smash a driver’s window at a stoplight, and proceed to throw something which looked like chili powder in his face. I don’t want people like that by me. Yet RVs are an incredible cheap housing option. I would simultaneously advocate for opening up a space to park a bunch of RVs that these folks could live... just not by me :/ So I really don’t know what to do. Just a few bad apples can ruin public safety in a community for everyone else. I don’t know that we can both provide safety for home owners and the housing option for non home owners :/
- DangitBobby 1y ago
  The safety issues you are worried about would apply regardless of whether these people are allowed to continue living in their RVs.
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    Not allowing people to live in RVs by you seems to reduce the problem.
    - DangitBobby 1y ago
      Same with tents or other affordable housing, though. So again, nothing really to do with RVs.
    - tyleo 1y ago
      Exactly. That’s the damning thing about the issue. I want people to be able to live in RVs. I don’t want them by me because of my lived experience. I can see how that’s iterated across the population. No clear avenue for success.
  - tyleo 1y ago
    I don’t think that’s true. The RVs are gone and they put huge concrete blocks in the area so they can’t park any more. It’s much safer now. That fixed my local problem. Obviously the people moved somewhere else though.
- supertrope 1y ago
  The proportion of troublemakers is much higher in the very low socioeconomic status cohort. Heavily policing public spaces is too expensive so instead social moats are erected. House prices rise to unaffordable levels and this is cheered on by current residents and politicians. Nice neighborhoods are not connected with public transit and are inconveniently located so only residents will drive there. In New York Columbia University Public Safety officers escort any non-community members off their campus.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
autoexec 1y ago
> RV dwellers say San Francisco should open a safe parking lot where residents could empty trash and access electricity. But city officials shuttered an RV lot in April, saying it cost about $4 million a year to service three dozen large vehicles and it failed to transition people to more stable housing. you can't transition people into housing that either doesn't exist or isn't affordable. I sure as hell wouldn't want to move into a shelter if I already had an RV. Seems like getting rid of them will just lead to more people on the streets and I'd much rather see an RV park than a tent city.
- mullen 1y ago
  An RV is just a nicer tent, it is not a house. If people won't transition to housing, then they need to leave SF. If they can not afford SF, then they need to leave SF and live somewhere else where they can.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - autoexec 1y ago
    When properly accommodated, it's a nicer tent with electricity, AC, and an actual bed, kitchen, and bathroom. With tents you get dangerous hotplates/camping stoves and people pissing and shitting in streets instead of toilets. Some people really prefer the mobility, but most would happily transition to housing as soon it is made affordable/available. There are more vacant homes in SF than homeless people, and foreign investors buy up huge amounts of residential property and leave them empty.
    - tuckerman 1y ago
      I think most people wouldn't mind (as much) clean, functioning RVs. The people living like that are likely getting swept up in the backlash against the broken/unsafe RVs that cause a lot of problems for neighbors. This is anecdotal for sure, but the RVs near my neighborhood in San Jose are really rough. Missing windows, full of trash/vermin, and don't seem to have working facilities. I don't have any idea what percentage of RVs fall into which camp, I just know that the bad ones are very visible.
montjoy 1y ago
This move is so counter-intuitive to me. You prefer tents? You want people to have less security? You’d rather people stored their stuff in a cart that they have to push around everywhere? You can’t abolish poverty but you can sure make it worse.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- pengaru 1y ago
  Seems pretty obvious the intention is to push them up into housing or out of the city, not into tents on the sidewalks. Tents aren't tolerated anymore: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/supreme-court-homeless-encampments-00165741 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/supreme-court-homel... And it shows. I encounter tent residents far less often now vs. last year, and there's no way those people have all moved into added RV capacity. It was already at its limit. (I've skateboard commuted through SOMA in SF most days for coming up on 2 years)
  - dexwiz 1y ago
    Temporary tents seem to be more tolerated. There are a few I see every night in my area, but they aren't there during the day. Its the semipermanent encampments that are really being targeted. I see less full-time living on the sidewalk, but there are definitely people still sleeping there.
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      I think a big part of the problem is that if you allow large, semipermanent encampments or groups of RVs, you eventually end up with huge mounds of trash. Some of it is supposedly from other people dumping trash, but some of it is absolutely from residents hoarding, and it makes the footprint balloon out of control into sidewalks, streets, parks, and any other flat bit of space, until the area becomes pretty unusable for anyone not living there. Which makes a hands off approach politically untenable.
monster_truck 1y ago
$4m for 36 RVs seems like a pretty good deal. Why not spend $44m and handle all 400 of them? Surely they will spend somewhere between $4m and $44m trying to effectively force this 2 hour limit which will not result in 0 RVs where they don't want them
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >Surely they will spend somewhere between $4m and $44m trying to effectively force this 2 hour limit which will not result in 0 RVs where they don't want them They'll make it back on the other end by engaging in revenue enforcement against box trucks and other legitimate business as the rule seems very clearly crafted to apply to them too.
- ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
  Really great deal for the RV residents! Not so much for taxpayers.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  How much for the next 400? And the 400 after that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- lazide 1y ago
  Do that, and next year you’ll have 800.
  - kelseyfrog 1y ago
    At that rate, in 11 years more people will be living in RVs in SF than in buildings.
    - lazide 1y ago
      Have you seen SF property prices? If allowed, it could actually happen.
potato3732842 1y ago
>The proposal sets a two-hour parking limit citywide for all RVs and oversized vehicles longer than 22 feet (7 meters) or higher than 7 feet (2 meters), regardless of whether they are being used as housing. Maybe I'm jaded but I see this as a way to extract revenue from commercial vehicles while sailing under the flag of screwing the homeless so that it can be marketed to residents voters.
- tuckerman 1y ago
  I assume the forcing function is residents demanding the removal of the RVs, not a proposal from city hall that needs to be marketed properly. At least in San Jose there is a lot of grassroots efforts against RVs.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    Whoever's forcing it to be written (which I agree is in large part the people) the people doing the writing care very deeply about city revenue and are experts in tweaking the minutia to get their pound of flesh for the city or at least reserve their right to collect it. Like I said, maybe I'm jaded, but that's what every big city I've ever known would do. If this was just about the problem RVs they could've easily exempted commercial trucks or put a 12 (enough to reset your logbook) or heck, 8 or 10 (a full day of work) limit on it. Yet they didn't do either of those and went with a time limit. This seems very clearly crafted to not exempt commercial vehicle drivers who are sleeping off their logbook and/or people who are driving commercial trucks to places where they will use the contents of those trucks for their business purposes.
- wyre 1y ago
  I understand the jaded perspective, but I’d think the only time a large commercial vehicle will be parked for that long will be on the business’s property. Otherwise it is out doing deliveries or whatever it is.
  - fragmede 1y ago
    No? You go to the restaurant supply store with your oversized commercial vehicle, buy a shit ton of ingredients, go back to your restaurant, unload, then leave the vehicle parked while you use said ingredients to serve food all day.
ashoeafoot 1y ago
Lets stack rvs up then ?
devwastaken 1y ago
Go midwest. plenty of lots because theres space. SF like all large u.s cities is designed to fail from the start. you cant compact people and also have flat property. when its too big, go elsewhere.
more_corn 1y ago
They just made 5k more people homeless.
burnt-resistor 1y ago
I lived on the Peninsula in a van for 9 years when/where it was legal around Palo Alto. Criminalizing homelessness and concentration camps in all but name isn't fair or moral.

33 points by harambae 1y ago

The whole thing is a mess. I drive through a spot with a lot of RVs in Seattle. I’ve seen people come out of an RV, smash a driver’s window at a stoplight, and proceed to throw something which looked like chili powder in his face. I don’t want people like that by me. Yet RVs are an incredible cheap housing option. I would simultaneously advocate for opening up a space to park a bunch of RVs that these folks could live... just not by me :/ So I really don’t know what to do. Just a few bad apples can ruin public safety in a community for everyone else. I don’t know that we can both provide safety for home owners and the housing option for non home owners :/

DangitBobby 1y ago
The safety issues you are worried about would apply regardless of whether these people are allowed to continue living in their RVs.
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  Not allowing people to live in RVs by you seems to reduce the problem.
  - DangitBobby 1y ago
    Same with tents or other affordable housing, though. So again, nothing really to do with RVs.
  - tyleo 1y ago
    Exactly. That’s the damning thing about the issue. I want people to be able to live in RVs. I don’t want them by me because of my lived experience. I can see how that’s iterated across the population. No clear avenue for success.
- tyleo 1y ago
  I don’t think that’s true. The RVs are gone and they put huge concrete blocks in the area so they can’t park any more. It’s much safer now. That fixed my local problem. Obviously the people moved somewhere else though.
supertrope 1y ago
The proportion of troublemakers is much higher in the very low socioeconomic status cohort. Heavily policing public spaces is too expensive so instead social moats are erected. House prices rise to unaffordable levels and this is cheered on by current residents and politicians. Nice neighborhoods are not connected with public transit and are inconveniently located so only residents will drive there. In New York Columbia University Public Safety officers escort any non-community members off their campus.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

autoexec 1y ago

> RV dwellers say San Francisco should open a safe parking lot where residents could empty trash and access electricity. But city officials shuttered an RV lot in April, saying it cost about $4 million a year to service three dozen large vehicles and it failed to transition people to more stable housing. you can't transition people into housing that either doesn't exist or isn't affordable. I sure as hell wouldn't want to move into a shelter if I already had an RV. Seems like getting rid of them will just lead to more people on the streets and I'd much rather see an RV park than a tent city.

mullen 1y ago
An RV is just a nicer tent, it is not a house. If people won't transition to housing, then they need to leave SF. If they can not afford SF, then they need to leave SF and live somewhere else where they can.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- autoexec 1y ago
  When properly accommodated, it's a nicer tent with electricity, AC, and an actual bed, kitchen, and bathroom. With tents you get dangerous hotplates/camping stoves and people pissing and shitting in streets instead of toilets. Some people really prefer the mobility, but most would happily transition to housing as soon it is made affordable/available. There are more vacant homes in SF than homeless people, and foreign investors buy up huge amounts of residential property and leave them empty.
  - tuckerman 1y ago
    I think most people wouldn't mind (as much) clean, functioning RVs. The people living like that are likely getting swept up in the backlash against the broken/unsafe RVs that cause a lot of problems for neighbors. This is anecdotal for sure, but the RVs near my neighborhood in San Jose are really rough. Missing windows, full of trash/vermin, and don't seem to have working facilities. I don't have any idea what percentage of RVs fall into which camp, I just know that the bad ones are very visible.

montjoy 1y ago

This move is so counter-intuitive to me. You prefer tents? You want people to have less security? You’d rather people stored their stuff in a cart that they have to push around everywhere? You can’t abolish poverty but you can sure make it worse.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
pengaru 1y ago
Seems pretty obvious the intention is to push them up into housing or out of the city, not into tents on the sidewalks. Tents aren't tolerated anymore: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/supreme-court-homeless-encampments-00165741 https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/28/supreme-court-homel... And it shows. I encounter tent residents far less often now vs. last year, and there's no way those people have all moved into added RV capacity. It was already at its limit. (I've skateboard commuted through SOMA in SF most days for coming up on 2 years)
- dexwiz 1y ago
  Temporary tents seem to be more tolerated. There are a few I see every night in my area, but they aren't there during the day. Its the semipermanent encampments that are really being targeted. I see less full-time living on the sidewalk, but there are definitely people still sleeping there.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    I think a big part of the problem is that if you allow large, semipermanent encampments or groups of RVs, you eventually end up with huge mounds of trash. Some of it is supposedly from other people dumping trash, but some of it is absolutely from residents hoarding, and it makes the footprint balloon out of control into sidewalks, streets, parks, and any other flat bit of space, until the area becomes pretty unusable for anyone not living there. Which makes a hands off approach politically untenable.

monster_truck 1y ago

$4m for 36 RVs seems like a pretty good deal. Why not spend $44m and handle all 400 of them? Surely they will spend somewhere between $4m and $44m trying to effectively force this 2 hour limit which will not result in 0 RVs where they don't want them

potato3732842 1y ago
>Surely they will spend somewhere between $4m and $44m trying to effectively force this 2 hour limit which will not result in 0 RVs where they don't want them They'll make it back on the other end by engaging in revenue enforcement against box trucks and other legitimate business as the rule seems very clearly crafted to apply to them too.
ahmeneeroe-v2 1y ago
Really great deal for the RV residents! Not so much for taxpayers.
lotsofpulp 1y ago
How much for the next 400? And the 400 after that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
lazide 1y ago
Do that, and next year you’ll have 800.
- kelseyfrog 1y ago
  At that rate, in 11 years more people will be living in RVs in SF than in buildings.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Have you seen SF property prices? If allowed, it could actually happen.

potato3732842 1y ago

>The proposal sets a two-hour parking limit citywide for all RVs and oversized vehicles longer than 22 feet (7 meters) or higher than 7 feet (2 meters), regardless of whether they are being used as housing. Maybe I'm jaded but I see this as a way to extract revenue from commercial vehicles while sailing under the flag of screwing the homeless so that it can be marketed to residents voters.

tuckerman 1y ago
I assume the forcing function is residents demanding the removal of the RVs, not a proposal from city hall that needs to be marketed properly. At least in San Jose there is a lot of grassroots efforts against RVs.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Whoever's forcing it to be written (which I agree is in large part the people) the people doing the writing care very deeply about city revenue and are experts in tweaking the minutia to get their pound of flesh for the city or at least reserve their right to collect it. Like I said, maybe I'm jaded, but that's what every big city I've ever known would do. If this was just about the problem RVs they could've easily exempted commercial trucks or put a 12 (enough to reset your logbook) or heck, 8 or 10 (a full day of work) limit on it. Yet they didn't do either of those and went with a time limit. This seems very clearly crafted to not exempt commercial vehicle drivers who are sleeping off their logbook and/or people who are driving commercial trucks to places where they will use the contents of those trucks for their business purposes.
wyre 1y ago
I understand the jaded perspective, but I’d think the only time a large commercial vehicle will be parked for that long will be on the business’s property. Otherwise it is out doing deliveries or whatever it is.
- fragmede 1y ago
  No? You go to the restaurant supply store with your oversized commercial vehicle, buy a shit ton of ingredients, go back to your restaurant, unload, then leave the vehicle parked while you use said ingredients to serve food all day.

ashoeafoot 1y ago

Lets stack rvs up then ?

devwastaken 1y ago

Go midwest. plenty of lots because theres space. SF like all large u.s cities is designed to fail from the start. you cant compact people and also have flat property. when its too big, go elsewhere.

more_corn 1y ago

They just made 5k more people homeless.

burnt-resistor 1y ago

I lived on the Peninsula in a van for 9 years when/where it was legal around Palo Alto. Criminalizing homelessness and concentration camps in all but name isn't fair or moral.