Game Changer Court Ruling: Vehicles That Are Homes Cannot Be Impounded

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squid

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Though particular to Seattle, these cases tend to set precedents in other states.  What this means is that vehicles-as-homes may have to abide the rules but cannot be punished to the level of severity of regular parked cars.  It also may soften the "knock on the window" approach by gauche police who knowingly are interrupting a night's sleep for someone otherwise not doing any harm for being parked overnight on a city street.  It seems logical to me, that if every Citizen that can pass a driver's test, buy and operate and maintain and fuel and insure a functionable car, is allotted said 3-D space of said car/vehicle, that they should be able to be inside of it as much as they want to be (since it's not taking up any more or less room whether they are or are not).  I would also think that non-trouble-making overnighters provide security to an otherwise deserted street.  Of course the troublemakers will muck things up, as usual.

Steven Long returned from his job cleaning up CenturyLink Field after a Seattle Sounders’ game when he discovered that home was gone.
He had been living in his 2000 GMC pickup, parked on a side street, but the city of Seattle towed it because Long had violated a city rule that requires vehicles be moved every 72 hours.
That impound set up an unusual court ruling Friday that advocates for homeless people and the city both say could have broad implications on the crisis of homelessness.
King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer ruled that the city’s impoundment of Long’s truck violated the state’s homestead act — a frontier-era law that protects properties from forced sale — because he was using it as a home. Long’s vehicle was slated to be sold had he not entered into a monthly payment plan with the city.
Shaffer also ruled the fees the city required Long, 58, to pay to retrieve the truck were too high, violating constitutional protections against excessive fines.
“We believe this case has a lot of implications for other people using their vehicles as homes,” said Ali Bilow, one of Long’s attorneys with Columbia Legal Services.
“I think Seattle municipal judges should follow this ruling and take a hard look when homeless individuals, who are living in their vehicles, are charged these really excessive fees.”
The decision could impact how cities across the state enforce parking regulations when people are living in cars. It also speaks to the complications people living in vehicles pose for the city as it deals with a growing homelessness crisis.
More than 2,300 people were living in their vehicles on the night of King County’s 2017 homeless point-in-time count — 20 percent of the county’s homeless population.
Police and parking-enforcement officers could now find themselves in a bind if they can’t definitively determine whether a vehicle is simply abandoned or is someone’s home, said Assistant City Attorney Michael Ryan.
By following the logic of Long’s legal team, Ryan argued in court Friday, “Someone could park right here in front of the court house on Fifth Avenue, and we couldn’t tow them, or if we did tow them, we couldn’t put them in impound.
“We’d have to put them somewhere else and we couldn’t charge them at all for it, because if we did, we’d violate the constitution if they were living in that vehicle.”
The city attorney’s office is weighing whether to appeal the case.
Long had been homeless since March 2014, when he was evicted from his apartment after the rent got too high and he missed payments. He said he had previously lived out of a camper in the 1980s, traveling through five different states, so he thought he’d try sleeping in his truck.
Long said it seemed safer than a shelter, where he feared his personal items could be stolen. And a truck is warmer than sleeping outside, he said.
In court on Friday, Judge Shaffer called Long “a poster child … for a lot of other people who are in this situation.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...-rules-seattle-homeless-mans-truck-is-a-home/
 
Weight said:
Yes. In ONE city in ONE state.

These ideas tend to spread quickly - especially with so many homeless these days and something that makes so much sense. Preventing people from living in their vehicles is unconstitutional IMHO.
 
while I agree that it shouldn't be illegal to live in your vehicle, I missed that part of the Constitution. highdesertranger
 
Alas, court rulings on this sort of thing have been all over the map. It all depends on what jurisdiction you are in.

Until the Federales make a ruling on it, there won't be any uniformity.

PS--roads are public property. They are not private condos.
 
wow, third thread about this article... ;)
 
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