FEEDBACK: help create California laws concerning RV/van parking

[urbanhermit70]

DID I GET YOUR ATTENTION

GOOD!!!!

We need to change laws in California  when it comes to RV/vans/minivan  dwellers wanting to overnight park or  boondock in urban, city and beach area. I want to hear  people  FEEDBACK because I am tired of  some people  bitching and moaning over this  California issue and nothing gets done. How would you create  laws that  would  address   RV/van/minivan dwellers AND also homeless people living in RV/van/trailer/5th wheeler overnight parking and   city boondocking?

SERIOUS REPLIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In California,   a person needs $1000. dollar down payment and over  1000 signatures to put a proposition  on a Nov ballot.

SIMPLE plan: get over  1000 people to sign form  and  have these same people donate ONE dollar.

So what is your ideas !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[maki2]

There was a time in society when human waste went into the gutters and disease was rampant. Then people in the towns enforced the citizens to establish garbage collection and required them to be connected to a sewer system. That made the towns sanitary and reduced the horrible diseases that were previously rampant in towns.

But now many cities and towns have a new problem. People living in cars, vans, RVs, etc who are living on the street. People who don't have garbage collection or a sewer connection. Now the towns and the business owners in the towns have people once again dumping their human waste in the gutters and leaving behind piles of trash on the streets. So the solution in those towns is to ban living on the street or in cars.

How is petitioning to change those ordinances that were put in place to protect the public health going to stop the issue that is the cause of the ordinances you want to get rid of?

I do have the ability too see both sides of this issue. I sympathize with persons who have no other viable choice of shelter and no facility into which they can responsibly dispose of their waste for free. I also sympathize with the business owner who is forced to clean up the street of the bags and buckets of feces and trash and pick up needles from drug users. I also sympathize with business owners who constantly have their trash cans filled with waste that comes from vehicle dwellers, waste that business did not themselves generate but which they end up having to handle. Many businesses in cities are forced to put locks on their dumpsters in order to have room to put their own waste in them.

The way to be most effective is to petition for lower cost and easier to access waste disposal facilities, more public restrooms and also easier access to potable water. Once those things are in place then the ordinances won't be needed.

 

[RoamerRV428]

I see it as there is 'overnight parking' areas but now we are speaking about 'living' and not 'just overnight'. Big difference how the 2 are handled or what extra issues come from each of those.

Overnight a vehicle. Simpler but who controls that? Knows the limits of each vehicle, etc? Is it a wayward traveler needing overnight stop only and on their way or is it a person living there full time? Day in and day out. Years needing overnight parking? Does the town have to provide anything? water, sanitary, electricity and more involvement?

Living to boondock/overnight and survive daily for X days? X years? Lifetime on the streets legal and not contributing to any issues yet using 'other's paid utilities' and more? Whole different ballgame.

I don't know on it. Seriously. I do not know what will happen but I can see more favor as a 'not' to allow vs. an 'allow' that will create way more problems once they approve and will have to be dealt with in a different venue. I honestly don't know. Monster issue that must be addressed but bandaid fixes won't work, real life how to handle long term issues aren't even a brain fart for most at this point but it will have to come I believe.

 

[JD GUMBEE]

Of course, we could all vote against zoning ordinances. Every last freaking 1%-serving-bullsh!t-one-of-them.

We need two thing to be enforced as far as private houses.
Human waste disposal being properly dealt with and to ensure the ground water is not harmed via chemicals. How I choose to build my house is my business. (At least, it used to be.)

In the USA at least, the truly insane idea that we have some "right" not to be offended has created this issue.
Cookie cutter houses and manicured lawns are often mandated...not only in snob-ville gated "communities" but in entire counties.
If you could buy a 1/2 acre and park a trailer on it legally, there would be a lot more poor home owners.
If you could do a "shed to home" scenario, there would be a LOT LOT LOT of people who could become homeowners without the mortgage and 30+ years of toiling for the bankers benefit.
If you could choose NOT to connect to running water from a municipality (or drilling a well) more people would own.

...and on and on...

We do not own property in the USA. We rent it from the government.
People who grow vegetables instead of lawns have learned this the hard way.
Private people have to buy 2.2 acres of land to build an "approved design" home...yet a developer can build 30 500K+ homes on 12 acres of land.

The entire system is crooked and forces you to become a slave to own a home.
Most single people can live comfy in 600 Sq Ft or less, but because of local zoning insanity, they are forced to build a 2400 sq ft home. (We wouldn't want one of those hippy-looking tiny houses anywhere near OUR houses, would we?)
(Or that veteran who bought his land to park his 5th wheel on it for 5 months out of the year...curses! We can't have that either. Lets rule against it. Oh, there was the siren...time for your next mind control pill, Stepford people.)

Dump zoning regulations and all the bull-s#$@ rules that are "for our own good" and you would see this issue largely take care of itself.
People would start taking pride in their own property. Even if it was only 1/2 acre with a Scamp trailer on it.

 

[Night_Sailor]

It would not pass. Instead focus on learning how to stealth camp. I see lots of them near my house in California.  They are tolerated because construction workers would not work if they had no place to sleep during the week.

 

[RoadStar66]

But now many cities and towns have a new problem. People living in cars, vans, RVs, etc who are living on the street. People who don't have garbage collection or a sewer connection. Now the towns and the business owners in the towns have people once again dumping their human waste in the gutters and leaving behind piles of trash on the streets. So the solution in those towns is to ban living on the street or in cars.

I think you're right about the inevitable "waste" problems of van living. The only solution I see is designated "safe parking" areas or vancentric "RV parks" with or without electricity and water, but all with toilets/sewage services. Those wishing to stay go through an application process with background check to see if they're serial killers on the lam etc. If they qualify, and obey rules, they stay for free indefinitely and pay extra for services like electricity, water, sewer hookup sites. Anything else is always going to raise local citizen and law enforcement ire because there will always be those who leave a mess in their wake.

 

[RoadStar66]

The vast majority of sticks-and-bricks dwellers will always vote to keep vandwellers off the streets of their city/county/state. They see a threat of theft, abduction-assault-murder, trash dumping, overcrowded public restrooms ...

The only acceptable solution to where to allow vandwellers to reside (besides public lands - which is not guaranteed to be an option in the future) is to designate controlled areas with at least toilet/sewer services available and subject to regular law enforcement patrol and internally enforced rules of conduct under penalty of expulsion. Kind of like RTR, only RTR everywhere.

 

[lenny flank]

Alas, I do not subscribe to either the "communist government!!" or the "corporate profits!!" conspiracy theories. Nor is there any need to speculate or theorize why cities pass such laws. Every city that passes ordinances against overnighting always lists their reasons for doing so--and they are always and invariably the same reasons: people who dump their shit (literally) in the street, people who stay parked in the same spot forever, and people who panhandle everyone in sight.

Those problems are OUR fault, collectively.

Fortunately, since we, collectively, created the problem, we also can, collectively, end it--simply by not doing those idiotic things. That eliminates the need for any such city ordinances. UN-fortunately, that would require everyone to make an effort, and there are always a handful of assholes who will continue to cause all the trouble for everyone else. C'est la vie.

 

[IGBT]

lenny understands the problem here.

It is not the people on this forum who by and large would be the problem.   It is the people not on this forum who would park their barely working RV in a neighborhood and then proceed to leave garbage, feces, needles everywhere.   It happens right now in Seattle and they put up with it a lot more than I would.

Irresponsible people ruin things.   That is just the way it is.   This is why you have to have double fences and keep out signs on nature hikes...because some dumbass will either leave garbage, drag a old stove in and shoot it up, or hurt themselves by taking a selfi with a moose and then sue the administrating agency.

 

[lenny flank]

Yep. Just look at what happened to the national parks while the adults weren't around--the small number of assholes trashed the place. When you let people do whatever they want, they will do ... well, whatever they want.

It's why we can't have nice things.

 

[IGBT]

Yep. Just look at what happened to the national parks while the adults weren't around--the small number of assholes trashed the place. When you let people do whatever they want, they will do ... well, whatever they want.

It's why we can't have nice things.  

Yeah they were cutting down the Joshua trees in one park....either for firewood or for the hell of it.

 

[owl]

I doubt that folks who come to places like this would be responsible for the actions which get restrictions enacted. San Francisco has had to hire people to pick up human feces off their streets, not from van dwellers but from homeless. The answer is to get away from restrictive cities and towns, find a part of your world that allows personal freedom. There are places that aren't looking to control your every action. Where it is easy to blend in. If you decide that moving isn't in the cards then you may have to consider a more conventional lifestyle. It has been my experience that communities that restrict personal expression are not places where I would want to live.

 

[RoadStar66]

Yeah they were cutting down the Joshua trees in one park....either for firewood or for the hell of it.

The report I heard was that someone was cutting down Joshua Trees because they blocked the path of their vehicle on the way to some roadless area that the Park Service would have kept roadless. Just plain selfish destruction of land the National Park Service would be protecting if they's been on the job.

 

[RoadStar66]

I doubt that folks who come to places like this would be responsible for the actions which get restrictions enacted.

Places like "this". You mean RTR/Quartzsite? As I said, the public and government has written that area off as an RV sacrifice area. The area has been overrun by ORVs, RVs, Off-gridders for years. Businesses have sprung up to cater to and profiting off of the presence of this crowd. My god, the Big Tent must be worth hundreds of millions of RV sales to the RV industry. Not to mention the pool of persons servicing those who buy RVs across the country. Of course it's a win-win economically.

You speak of "van dwellers" as though none are also "homeless". My experience is that many, if not for their van, are in fact homeless by just about anybody's definition. And if they're not self-contained like most RVs, the human waste remains an issue. Either van dwellers us public restrooms or collect it in their vehicle, which means they eventually have the issue of disposing of it somehow somewhere. That carries with it issues of it's own. They may not be dumping it into the gutter or roadside shrubbery (though some may), but the options all carry effects the general public may find offensive.

As for these areas of "personal freedom" you speak of, I'm seeing them steadily decreasing and don't see this relenting anytime soon. There are doubtless groups opposed to anyone living on what they consider "their" land collecting evidence (real of made-up) of the damage these modern day gypsies are doing to "their" land. Don't forget what happened to Gypsies curing the 1940's in Europe. Their extermination was not all based on race. 

Not sure what sense you refer to "communities". That can be a physical place or a group with shared values that could be fixed to a location of mobile. My response would depend upon what sense you mean by this.

 

[RoadStar66]

If bob weren't going around enforcing his "ten commandments" of boondocking, the RTR wouldn't be something I would want to attend. As it was, I was too near someone who ran a loud contractor generator far too much. But he seemed to be just about the only one. Amazingly easy to get along with crowd there by and large.

 

[lenny flank]

^^ I've spent the night at Walmarts where there was some doofus running his genny all night.

I briefly considered "homicide" as a potential solution.

 

[Cammalu]

Lenny some people have health issue and need the generator for oxygen or a CPAP. I can’t imagine anyone wasting all that propane otherwise. You got wheels [emoji16]

 

[cyndi]

Hi!

I've just gone through this thread trimming unnecessary quotes. It's tedious.

This is just a friendly reminder. We ask that you carefully trim any quotes you include to the bare minimum. When you are reading on a phone, and you have to read the same post twice to get a new comment, it can be frustrating--especially if there are pictures!

It's not necessary to use the quote or reply button. Scroll to the bottom of the page and use the quick reply box. Copy and paste the relevant information.

If you're replying to the original post, or the post above, it's not necessary to quote at all.

You can respond without quoting by using a member's name, arrows (^^^) to indicate a post above

Definitely do not quote or reply to your own posts

If you do feel the need to quote, remove pictures from your quote

Be kind and trim!! [Image: biggrin.gif]

Thanks, in advance, for your cooperation and consideration

 

[LoveCareThinkDo]

So what is your ideas !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look into something called, Community First! Village, created by an organization called, Mobile Loaves and Fishes.

It is a "community" created for homeless people by some church in Austin, TX. It consists of tiny houses (built by the homeless themselves), RV spots, and even yurt-ish tents. I can't imagine that they would not allow someone to live in a van. 

According to their website, they are housing about 40% of Austin's chronically homeless. 

Look into their business model. Look into how they got the zoning passed for their project. They are actively working to expand their system and franchise it out the whole country.