If a new law passes the California state assembly, major California cities will be required to keep and maintain “safe parking lots” for people who make their homes in cars and recreational vehicles.
Cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco are already struggling with unmanageable homelessness — largely the result of longstanding, left-leaning policies that prevent enforcing basic laws concerning things like public health and loitering.
The California state assembly, however, believes that the state’s ever-increasing street communities are the result of a lack of affordable housing, so they want to do what they can to help those who choose “alternate” means of shelter, including living in cars, old RVs, and other moveable vehicles, by creating sustainable living communities in available parking lots.
CBS Sacramento reports that under Assembly Bill 891, which passed one house of California’s legislature and is headed to the other, major cities and counties must “provide a safe parking lot, including access to bathrooms, to those with no place to stay.”
The author of the bill says he believes it will help “transition” those living in homeless encampments to more permanent housing options, but it’s not clear how.
“Establishing a safe parking program in California’s most populated cities and having at least one in each county will provide a safe place for vehicle dwelling,” he told CBS. “These programs can be overseen and controlled by local entities, they will result in these vehicles being moved away from nightly street parking and into designated lots, and create a sense of normalcy for individuals who are living out of their vehicles. The goal of this measure is to help transition these individuals into more stable and permanent housing.”