San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the city would make parking between midnight and 6 a.m. a towing violation for oversized vehicles whose occupants refuse offers of housing or other services.
San Francisco plans to tow RVs and other oversized vehicles parked overnight on city streets if people living there refuse offers of shelter, the city confirmed Friday.
Following complaints from businesses and residents about occupied vehicles, Mayor London Breed said the city would make parking between midnight and 6 a.m. a towable violation for oversized vehicles whose occupants refuse offers of housing or other services.
“San Francisco is a compassionate city that will always provide housing, shelter and other support services, but we must enforce our laws to ensure our streets are safe, livable and accessible to all,” Breed said in a statement. “Our message is clear: accepting our help is not just an option, it is the option.
While the overall number of homeless people in San Francisco has decreased since 2019, the percentage of homeless people living in vehicles instead of tents or other street shelters has increased.
The city had 1,444 people living in vehicles in its most recent census homeless people, a 37% increase from 2022. Ninety percent of the 130 homeless families the city counted were living in a vehicle.
Joel Engardio, San Francisco Supervisor told the San Francisco Chronicle that he frequently receives complaints from residents in his Sunset district about parking problems, littering and disturbing behavior related to manned vehicles.
“We need to support and create new housing and shelter for people, but we can’t just let people park on the street indefinitely and create problems for residents,” he told the newspaper.
In 2019, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found that more than 40% of the city’s homeless population — a total of 14,000 people —lived in cars, vans, RVs or other vehicles in Los Angeles County.
In August, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to direct city agencies to develop a program that would limit the parking of oversized vehicles in residential areas while increasing services for people who live there.
“Our city is not an RV park, and we cannot and should not support the widespread impacts that these RV encampments cause,” City Councilwoman Traci Park said at the time.
