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While Palo Alto city staff are busy wordsmithing the specifics of new RV parking restrictions and enforcing the existing 72-hour limit, hundreds of RV residents are caught in policy purgatory as they await the promise of greater services months or years down the line.
The city engineered a phased approach in the hopes of accommodating vocal concerns from residents who are troubled by the growing presence of RV homelessness in front of their homes and businesses. The first phase of that policy institutes a ban on renting RVs out and parking inoperable or detached ones on public streets, with a direction to staff to search for new sites for safe parking sites such as congregation or commercial parking lots.
While the goal of the policy from the council was to make joint progress toward enforcement and social services, the former is operating on a faster timeline and a tighter budget. Mayor Ed Lauing and City Manager Ed Shikada said at a community meeting on Nov. 6 that they tentatively plan to vote to adopt the vanlording and detached trailer ban ordinances as early as Dec. 8.
That leaves vulnerable RV residents worried about what will happen when towing and fines come to fruition before there is anywhere else they can park their vehicle — or afford to live.
Housing first really solves the vast majority of the issues.
justin harper, rv resident
“A lot of people that I’ve talked to, they’re not going to leave,” said Justin Harper, who lives with his wife in an RV in south Palo Alto. “It’s going to change the way that they’re living and put them in even worse conditions, because they’re just going to give up their RV and then go live in tents and cars.”
“It’s not going to solve the situation, it’s just going to shuffle around to other areas, other places,” he added. “But they might see it as solved because they don’t have any RVs in town.”
Harper parks his RV among several others, and they move together every few days to avoid the parking violations from the city. Some in the group live in detached trailers, which will soon be banned from parking on city streets as part of the first phase of the new RV policy. Harper said most people he knows who live in trailers also have a car they can hook up to move it; for those who don’t, members of the RV group offer to help out so the person can avoid a ticket.
Shane Repass, who lives in a detached trailer in the group, described it as a tight-knit community that looks out for each other and often moves together to different locations in the region. The increasing enforcement and the impending ban on detached trailers, he said, will “completely upend” their lives.
“I’ve felt more close with this community than I ever did when I had a house,” Repass said. “The irony of the whole thing is, you don’t actually have a house, but yet you’re more connected with your neighbors.”
Even though the city’s policy carves out resources for more social services, Harper said it still relies too heavily on enforcement first without anywhere for RV residents to go. The streets in Mountain View that are designated for RV parking are mostly full, and nearly all the streets in Menlo Park do not allow overnight RV parking at all.
“Cities that had enforcement first actually saw a rise in instability, it was hard for them to keep track of the people, because they just kind of went all over the place, and they can’t even verify if anybody got into a better situation than they were before,” Harper said, citing studies he has read about the impact of RV parking bans around the country.
Palo Alto’s only city-managed safe parking site on Geng Road has 26 spaces and is also completely full. When Harper and other members of his RV group tried to apply for a spot, most of them were denied because of technicalities in the requirements: for example, Harper said some trailers are old enough that they do not have a VIN.
“Even though you have a title, you can’t get it insured because there’s no VIN attached to it,” he said.
In the meantime, Harper said his group is mostly operating under business as usual, but has noticed an uptick in warnings and notices from the traffic division. The stepped-up enforcement was in evidence on Nov. 10, with police officers slapping notices on cars and RVs along Embarcadero Way and Faber Place, two commercial strips near the Baylands that have been inundated with RVs in recent months. Residents reported seeing several vehicles towed, actions that police said were taken in response to complaints from property owners.
According to Assistant Police Chief James Reifschneider, the police department has towed 31 vehicles this year, including six since the RV policy vote on Oct. 20. Additionally, the department has issued 447 citations for violations of the citywide 72-hour parking limit.
Part of the uptick in enforcement is driven by neighbor complaints, many of which focus on the issue of trash and sewage dumping in front of homes and businesses.
Business owners in the industrial area of south Palo Alto on either side of the U.S. Highway 101 are some of the most vocal advocates for enforcement of RV parking, often in the form of letters to the City Council.
“Individuals from the RV encampments have been using my business’s garbage disposal for their personal waste, resulting in contamination,” wrote Ramon Moreno, who runs a ballet school on Industrial Avenue. “Because of this, the city has refused to collect the trash, and I have now been left to clean and dispose of everything myself—at my own expense.”
Steve Wong, the president of Wong Electric on Transport Street, also wrote to the council on Oct. 30 that the street parking is blocked by dozens of RVs, which he described as “smelly and often intimidating.”
Harper explained that some of that comes from people who don’t know how to store and dispose of waste properly while living in an RV, but others who intentionally dump into the streets and storm drains can put a stain on the whole RV community.
“If you house the people first, then you’re not really going to have people dumping outside. With safe parking, they’re going to have someone that comes out and dumps, so they’re going to have some sort of septic,” Harper said. “Housing first really solves the vast majority of the issues.”
It’s also not clear whether the city’s entreaties to commercial property owners and congregations for “safe parking” sites will bear fruit. Staff has only just started the outreach process and has yet to receive any commitments, even as enforcement is picking up. And while the City Council hopes some of the RV residents can ultimately find a home in the transitional housing project that the nonprofit LifeMoves is now building on San Antonio Road, that project won’t be open for at least another six months, according to Lauing.
Kate Bridget Li, who rents out about half a dozen RVs in commercial areas, is among those feeling the impacts of greater enforcement. She said she learned several months ago that Palo Alto was looking to ban “vanlords” like herself who lease out RVs parked on public streets to tenants, many of whom have few other options for affordable housing in the city.
So when the City Council formally directed city staff to write the ban into law on Oct. 20, she knew it would not be long before enforcement, fines and towing would ramp up. Some of her vehicles have already been towed once or twice before, including one that was currently being rented.
The hardest part, she said, is trying to explain to her tenants what the next steps are.
“Honestly, I really don’t know how to explain it to them, and I find it’s really hard to bridge that gap between the high-income families in this area and the people that are less fortunate and really need some help,” she said.
On a recent afternoon in her RV on Fabian Way, she explained that her tenants are mostly working adults, and many balance more than one job to make ends meet. One is a caregiver; another is a janitor at Stanford Hospital.
Li lives in an RV with her husband among her tenants because she cannot afford an apartment in Palo Alto, either. Most of the money she makes from charging rent goes toward paying fines and repairs on her fleet of RVs — and she donates at least $800 per month to her ministry, Spread the Name of Lord Jesus.
She has spoken at length before to this publication that she felt compelled by the Lord to provide housing for others.
Like Harper, she has noticed an uptick in enforcement recently: several of her RVs have been towed, including one that was actively being rented out to a tenant. Li said her tenant called her because he arrived home and there was nothing left.
She said it costs thousands of dollars to retrieve the vehicle from the tow lot — money that she said she wished was going toward city services instead of towing companies.
“It’s not like I’m making much contribution to the city or anything, right? Only providing housing for the people that are in need. But from the city perspective and from a business perspective, I’m not making any contribution,” Li said. “So I am not in a position to say it’s fair or unfair, but I prefer they cut some slack in banning, just at least give some time for people to be situated so people have somewhere to go after.”
While the city has yet to release the draft ordinance to officially ban vanlording, council members and city staff have stated previously that the policy will come down on vanlords — not their tenants. But unlike people who live in their own RV and can drive somewhere else, it remains unclear how the city plans to transition RV tenants into a different living situation.
The mayor also created an ad hoc committee to further discuss the implementation of the RV parking policy, which includes himself and Council members Julie Lythcott-Haims and Keith Reckdahl.
“Obviously, creating more affordable, below market-rate housing is another future option … but unfortunately, that’s the future, and this is now,” Lauing said.
The following should apply to all California cities. Furthermore, neighboring cities should cooperate, work together, to make the situation equally better for all.
IMHO, it would seem that the concept of Transitional Housing for RV or vehicle dwellers is not workable. The concept that people placed in Transitional Housing, will somehow transition to paying city rents for housing, even so called low income housing seems undoable. There are two ways:
1. Decrease rents to ~ 33% of the current rates.
2. Increase their income by 50% to 60% over current minimum wages.
Neither are doable in the current financial direction.
So what to do ?
I suspect the State, the County, the Cities all have properties that can be converted to Safe Parking for Pay / Rent. Most RV and other vehicle dwellers in urban parking on city streets are working, they have jobs. And if they are senior citizens likely have some Social Security.
They could afford to pay at a Safe Parking for Pay / Rent space location, say $650 per month.
Looking at numbers; then, for every 100 RVs or vehicles in Safe Parking for Pay / Rent, that means $65,000 per month.
That should be more than enough to provide:
1. Sufficient porta potties per 100 parking spaces, cleaned twice a week.
2. Provide a station source of potable water. Used to fill water containers, and or fill RV potable water tanks.
3. Provide shower trucks / trailers twice a week in the evenings.
4. Dumpster and garbage waste collection once a week.
5. For those RV’s and trailers with properly working water systems, provide a sanitation mobile pumping service to empty RV’s black water tank (toilet waste), and grey water tank (from sinks and showers), once a week.
6. Probably provide 4 or 5 Solar charging stations spread out per 100 vehicle parking sites, so that those with portable solar power stations, can lock and solar charge their portable solar power stations while at work, and used them to have electric power in their RVs or trailers at night. Portable solar power stations prices have come down considerably in the last 2 yrs. They are awesome in vehicle dwelling reducing / eleminating the daily need to use gasoline generators. They can power reasonable sizes modern refrigerators, lights, microwave, and ….
7. Some $$ can probably be used to perform relative small repairs like rain leaking RVs and trailers. And other relatively small vehicle services / maintence, after all, vehicles or any dewelling units do require service periodically.
8. There should also be a parking lot for RVs or vehicles dwellers to park their cars. Some current safe parking don’t seem to provide for car parking.
9. Pay a manager / care taker who may be a vehicle dweller, say $30 per hour, per location for 100 vehicle parking sites, to manage and keep things clean organized and safe for all.
In all there is probably still lots of $$ left over every months. Notice, … did not mention case works, they are typically not needed for monthly meetings with vehicle dwellers. If needed for health concerns they can be easily reached out to.
The best part, is that this would reduce or eliminate the burden on the state, counties, and cities financials.