Current Events > Safe parking lots offer haven for CA's "mobile homeless"

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https://web.archive.org/web/20231020032216/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/us/homeless-parking-lots.html

One of the fastest growing segments of Americas homeless population is people who live in their cars, R.V.s or other vehicles.

In many ways, its a sign of the worsening squeeze on the nations middle class. Compared with those living in tents and shelters, the so-called mobile homeless are more likely to have jobs or to be actively looking for work, a U.C.L.A. study found. Many lost their homes after being unable to afford rent or their mortgage, and had to move into their most valuable possession.

But living in a car comes with risks of burglary, harassment and more. That has led to the creation of safe parking lots, designated places for people living in their vehicles to stay overnight. Dozens of such lots, often outside of churches, have opened across the nation in the past five years, a testament to the severity of the homelessness crisis.

Cities aim to build affordable housing, but the timeline for doing so is measured in years, Rukmini Callimachi, a housing reporter for The Times, told me. The question becomes: What do you do with the people who are right in front of you?
Rukmini just published an article about these lots and the people who need them, most of whom have some kind of income but are stuck in expensive housing markets. She shadowed a social worker in Washington State who makes more than $72,000 a year, but lives in her car.

California has more safe parking lots than any other state, with more than two dozen from Santa Rosa to San Diego. And whats believed to be the very first lot opened in Santa Barbara in 2004.

Kristine Schwarz, the executive director of New Beginnings, the nonprofit that runs the parking initiative in Santa Barbara County, told Rukmini that the inspiration for it came from a county supervisor. The supervisor had stepped out of her office one day, looked around at the parking lot and realized that the solution to Santa Barbaras growing homelessness problem was right in front of her.

Now, New Beginnings publishes a manual that instructs other communities on how to run parking programs.
But even with the growth of these programs, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of people living in their cars across the country can be accommodated. And some cities are cracking down on people sleeping in their cars. The number of statutes restricting living in vehicles has increased 213 percent since 2006, according to a 2019 study by the National Homelessness Law Center.

That growth is a testament to the growing tension between municipalities who are trying to limit the eyesore of R.V.s, vans and passenger cars parking on public right-of-ways and the people stuck inside them, who have nowhere else to go, Rukmini told me.

The need has become so pronounced in California that Long Beach City College set aside a parking structure for its homeless students, after discovering in 2021 that close to 70 students were sleeping in their cars each night.

Administrators debated what to do, with some arguing that offering parking was not a long-term solution, Rukmini told me. They were overruled by Mike Muoz, who immediately opened the lot after becoming interim college president, arguing that it was better to do something.

Now they are fielding requests from other community colleges asking how to provide parking for their own homeless students.

lol "on the middle class"

If you're even considering living in your fucking car you are far far away from being middle class.

so what makes them safe spaces other than just calling them that

The Richest Country in the World, folks.
What a fucking joke. It really is a boring dystopia.

ironman2009 posted...

so what makes them safe spaces other than just calling them that

The fact you won't be arrested for parking and sleeping in them

UnfairRepresent posted...

The fact you won't be arrested for parking and sleeping in them

true, that does make things significantly safer.

Phoro posted...

The Richest Country in the World, folks.
What a fucking joke. It really is a boring dystopia.

When will we stop fighting amongst ourselves and rise up against the filthy rich?

Car ownership and parking being this much more prioritized than housing is the punchline to decades of poor policy choices.

kawalimus posted...

lol "on the middle class"

If you're even considering living in your fucking car you are far far away from being middle class.

Middle class van life. What's next? Working class underground sewer colonies?