The Los Angeles City Council has unanimously agreed to move forward with a measure to ban renting vans or RVs for low-cost housing on city streets.
Enforcement is intended to include financial penalties for the offending "vanlords" and assistance to tenants in finding more permanent housing options. Banning the use of RVs and vans as rental properties does not increase the inventory of affordable housing, but it may provide for cleaner streets and neighborhoods.
City officials estimate roughly 4,000 RVs across Los Angeles are used as makeshift housing, representing about 22 percent of the city's total unsheltered homeless population. That marks a 40 percent increase since 2018. Many of the vehicles are in grave disrepair, leaving residents without access to basic hygiene facilities or safe conditions.
Supporters of Park's measure say the ordinance targets profiteers rather than criminalizing people living in vehicles. By making those rentals illegal, backers say, the city can disrupt the cycle that fuels encampments.
The ordinance does not ban living in a privately owned RV outright, nor does it penalize individuals who use vehicles as shelter. Instead, it focuses on the commercial practice of renting RVs on public streets.
SMDP
I live in Venice, where many folks are forced to live out of vehicles. They are good neighbors, many of whom work service jobs in the area, but cannot find affordable housing and are unable to commute two hours each way to hold down a job. In most cases, you would not know they were there if you did not actively look for them. It is not a good solution, but it does provide a solution for some. More affordable housing is the solution.
There are certainly folks who make living in their vehicles a nuisance for others, but again, the solution is more affordable housing.
Previously:
• Vending machines to offer free items to NYC's homeless people
• To solve homelessness Lakewood, New Jersey enacts their policy of cruelty to all
• San Francisco SPCA uses a robot to chase away homeless people, because cruelty to humans is just fine
• Billionaire tech investors back ballot initiative to purge homeless people from San Francisco
