"Crackdown" on RVs in SF Bay Area - CBS NewsI

[Travelmonkey]

This news article popped up on my feed on YouTube.  I don't want to minimize the anxiety some of these RVers are feeling but the title of the video is a bit misleading; city and police seem to be looking at ways to help including bringing in social services.

FYI - Palo Alto is a city between San Francisco and San Jose.  It is the home of Stanford University and is where Hewlitt Packard was founded in a garage.

 

[slynne]

Considering the housing prices in that area, I am surprised that they don't have even more people living in RVs.

 

[John61CT]

 

[SoulRaven]

I watched a bit longer video and the cops seemed 'understanding' . As long as the RV moved even 100 feet it started its 72 hours again.

 

[Zizzer_Zazzer_Zuz]

I watched a bit longer video and the cops seemed 'understanding' . As long as the RV moved even 100 feet it started its 72 hours again.

Well ... they said 1/2 mile every 72 hours in the video OP posted.

 

[SoulRaven]

Well..... I guess drive around the block to be safe? The general idea I got was they wanted the thing to run.

 

[steamjam1]

What Palo Alto is doing is in line with the cities that surround it, including Mountain View, San Jose, San Carlos, Burlingame, etc. There is a *HUGE* problem with income inequality and virtually no affordable housing in the entire area. Moving a vehicle you may live in every 72 hours a half mile is a compromise that most cities had to come up with. Down my way in Santa Cruz it's the same thing as long as you keep quiet, and no one complains.

Sometimes I really wish a state like Wisconsin, or Iowa would just take "Silicon Valley".. they can have it... And all the *sshole people that moved here to get rich, and ruined my home town would go away. Then Santa Cruz would return to being the sleepy little beach town filled with hippies too stoned to care that you live in a van that I grew up in..

 

[slynne]

The good news is that venture capitalists are funding startups in places like Detroit specifically because the cost of living is lower. Interestingly, Detroit has stricter rules about sleeping in your vehicle overnight than most California towns. No sleeping in a vehicle parked on any public street. You can sleep in a vehicle on private property for one week without a permit and up to five weeks with a permit. I suspect it isnt enforced too much though.

 

[John61CT]

Can buy a whole block of decrepit Detroit houses for what one decent condo goes for in Palo Alto.

Better present as one scary mofo though

 

[Svenn]

I dunno, I see so many of us here putting so much good-faith effort into being stealth and going ultra-minimalist in vans, prius's, trucks, etc., it's kinda hard for me to identify with people in giant RVs blatantly parking on major thoroughfares. I am, however, tired of cities cracking down on vehicle dwellers. Property owners and municipal governments act like they're exclusively entitled to dictate how people live in American cities. Guess what, your city doesn't exist in a vacuum. If you're gonna create sprawling overpriced urban planning to the horizon then they better expect people to take to all the vacant parking lots and roads; and bless them for making an efficient use of space.

They act like we're parking 18-wheelers in the middle of some medieval town square or something... look at that giant road in the video and all those otherwise useless parking spots the RVs are using.

 

[John61CT]

It is not (in America) the government's job to accommodate the needs & desires of those that don't own much property.

B&M owners' property values, corporate preferences and landlord profits will 99.99% of the time win over us "gypsies", we are trailer trash, just one step up from homeless in their minds.

Be grateful and keep our heads down will succeed far more than trying to establish "rights" that don't exist or take a stand based on idealism, the more visible the issue the more we have to lose.

 

[Travelmonkey]

I have lived in San Jose all my life. It is terribly expensive to live here; even excluding housing costs everything is more expensive from food to gas. I bet gym memberships cost more here making it that much harder if you are starting out here.

All of the parks in the city have closing hours so many are forced to park on the streets. There is a motorhome that regularly parks near to my kids' school on a busy street. When there is no traffic, people fly down that street. I worry a drunk driver is going to plow in to him. Others rotate parking in lots of big box stores, streets surrounding city parks, and side streets.

In this area, I think a solution needs to come from the county level (if done at a city level, it will simply "push" the issue to one city or the next). One of my concerns is dumping tanks. I know of no dump station in San Jose. Are they not using there internal tanks?

 

[XFILE36]

The good news is that venture capitalists are funding startups in places like Detroit specifically because the cost of living is lower. Interestingly, Detroit has stricter rules about sleeping in your vehicle overnight than most California towns. No sleeping in a vehicle parked on any public street. You can sleep in a vehicle on private property for one week without a permit and up to five weeks with a permit. I suspect it isnt enforced too much though.

RE:  Los Angeles vehicle dwelling - it's allowed within these rules::   https://www.lacity.org/for-resident...strategy-implementation/los-angeles-municipal 

Los Angeles Municipal Code (LAMC) 85.02 – Vehicle Dwelling
The provisions of the new LAMC Section 85.02 become effective on Saturday, January 7, 2017 and shall expire on July 1, 2018, unless extended by ordinance. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has indicated enforcement will begin in early February. Living in a vehicle (vehicle dwelling) is prohibited at all times within one block (500 feet) of licensed schools, pre-schools, daycare facilities, or parks. 
Persons may live in a vehicle:

• Daytime Hours – between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. – more than one block (500 feet) away from licensed schools, pre-schools, daycare facilities, or parks;
• Nighttime Hours –  between  9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. – in non-residentially zoned areas which are more than one block (500 feet) away from licensed schools, pre-schools or daycare facilities or parks.

General reminder:

• Vehicles must comply with all posted parking restrictions at all times.
• All vehicles driven or parked on a California street, road or highway must be registered with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and insured. You may qualify for the California Low-Cost Automobile Insurance Program. Information is available on the Department of Insurance website or by calling 1-866-602-8861.
• Any vehicle that has been parked on a city street or highway for 72 hours or more can be reported as an abandoned vehicle.
• Parking in alleys is illegal at all times.
• Vehicles without an engine, wheels, or some other part necessary for safely driving the vehicle are subject to immediate impounding.

The maps below are provided to assist the public to identify streets where living in a vehicle would be allowed based on the underlying zoning and distancing from licensed schools, pre-schools, daycare facilities, and parks. 

(see website for maps) but...

Here is a site to search for zoning to park:  http://zimas.lacity.org/#

 

[SoulRaven]

Hi everyone this is Mario "Nomadic Mario" and have been staying in Baja Mexico at this campground for the last month and just paid another $150 for month of August. Unfortunately, this place has been nice but its getting very lonely and scary at times, like right now! I live in my tidy and clean Dodge Ram Mega Cab 4x4 with an overhead camper and been considering leaving here soon and heading up to Bay Area, I'm getting very lonely here and at times its dead but you never know who comes in here at times. For the first time I am having to sit next to my knife, a heavy duty bar lug nut remover, and a big light outside my camper and its not fun anymore being here. Today, I learned to never have your overhead camper mounted or try to unmount it on an unleveled ground. I wanted to umount my camper and leave it here so I can go to San Diego and boondock for  few days so I can use resources and communicate with others for my sanity. I believe that loneliness will kill me before anything and though I like my solitude and living in my camper there are times when you just want to plunk yourself for a while somewhere and not waste so much time driving around and round trying to find a place to sleep. In San Diego I never had a problem but been seeing U Tube videos of places in Bay Area to park for long periods of time. I tried the mountain BLM thing in Colorado and left due to absolutely no signals for TV or cell and lots of gunshots daily, I even saw shadow of 2 humans in the night, my dog saw them and began to bark like crazy! Strange sighting and no I was not tweaking nor am a druggie. I'm just a single male trying to be comfortable with the rest of my life,  I am 51yrs old and on a limited permanent income. PS., I know the pic of my camper does not look "tidy" but it was before I ran to the beach and got rid of the ugly green curtains with more pleasant white ones and still have more to redo inside to look more modern. I might sell it after I'm done with it but I'll see how that goes. I paid $2000 for it in Colorado and might ask $2500 once I'm done updating the decor.

 

[LoupGarou]

^ Do you have any type of surf fishing gear?

I could spend hours surf fishing the beaches in Baja.

 

[Cammalu]

Do you need some kind of license to fish in Baja?

 

[RogerD]

Doesn't seem unreasonable. What's wrong with moving every 72 hours?

 

[lenny flank]

^^^ I routinely move two or three times a day. Though usually it's from one side of the parking lot to the other.

The key to stealth parking is to not be noticed. Being in the same place for a long period of time is a great way to attract notice.

 

[QinReno]

As a point of reference, I'm not quite sure what to make of this woman, but she seems to have a knack for living in her car (SUV?) and surviving on LA streets, which is the last place I would ever go myself. She did spend the winter months around Quartzsite and Ehrenburg with members of the "tribe", which is how I caught onto her situation.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM_ESeME8Z-3LYmcuSzOezQ/videos

Of note, DJ's experiences in life seem to be the exact opposite of that woman in the video who was complaining about this and that and everything else the other day, and how she was giving up on RV life. DJ was married 4 or 5 times, so she had her fun.

Also, in regards the Palo Alto situation, all in all, it seems the city and the police were being "extremely" tolerant of people living in RVs, at least from what I could tell.

 

[SoulRaven]

Do you need some kind of license to fish in Baja?

No, you dont. You can buy a drivers license though! There Is is a guy who comes to fish here every weekend and usually camps out on a tent. The interesting thing is that he will fish when it's high tide and he'll throw his line from above the cliff. One weekend a girl stayed here by herself right next to me for three nights and one of the guys that was fishing caught a huge fish and they went over to her camp and lit up a fire and cooked it . Those are the times that I find Pleasant and for the most part very safe but sometimes it gets a bit lonely cuz there's not a single soul here besides me and the owner but he's way at the other end with his wife, the dogs do take excellent care of me and anybody that passes by they announce me. I've also decided that I am going to move to the big island of Hawaii Within a year after I saved enough money and also buy my own piece of land.