By Erica C. Barnett
The Seattle City Council approved a new permitting scheme designed to gradually prohibit RVs from parking for more than two hours inside city limits on a supermajority 6-3 vote yesterday. (Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Dionne Foster, and Eddie Lin—who voted in favor of the legislation in committee—voted no.) The program, sponsor Dan Strauss said, is designed to “center humans,” end the “inappropriate use of public space,” and provide “pathways to housing for people in need.
Under Strauss’ permitting proposal , the city will conduct a one-time count of people currently living in RVs in Seattle and provide temporary “licenses” to eligible RV residents. These licenses will allow RV owners to park in Seattle as long as they obey “all laws,” to participate in services, and eventually accept shelter and leave their RVs behind. Anyone who “turns down” six offers of “appropriate shelter”—an undefined term—will lose their permit, and their right to park in the city.
Separate legislation in Strauss’ five-bill package will allow the city to stand up short-term storage for unoccupied RVs; expand the city’s Unified Care Team to add eight more city outreach workers focused on RVs; and broaden the definition of “junk vehicle” to make it easier for the city to designate a vehicle as “junk” and tow it away.
Under the new permitting system, no one who moves into an RV or arrives in Seattle in an RV after the one-time “census” will be eligible for a license, and if they park in Seattle for more than two hours, their vehicles can be ticketed and towed.
The council approved the most substantive piece of the legislation—the RV permitting program— after hours of public testimony, much of it from RV residents and advocates for homeless people who called the proposal ill-conceived and inhumane.
Dee Powers, a former RV resident who became homeless in 2015, said it took seven years to find a shelter that would allow her to stay with her partner and pets. “I personally know how badly the proposed ban will be for people living in their vehicles,” Powers said. “I would not survive in a tent. I would not survive in a passenger vehicle. A friend of mine ended up amputating a foot because he was living in a smaller car with no room to lay down. It’s inhumane to force people to live in even more substandard conditions for the sake of the city’s curb appeal.”
On Tuesday, the ACLU of Washington and Columbia Legal Services sent letters to the council opposing Strauss’ proposal. In the ACLU letter, the group’s Smart Justice Policy Program Director Jazmyn Clark said the plan relies on “punitive enforcement and impoundment practices that raise constitutional and civil liberties concerns and risk further destabilizing people living in vehicles.” Specifically, the civil-rights group wrote, enforcing the two-hour parking rule could subject people living in their RVs to “the loss of their home, shelter, possessions, and often their primary source of stability,” in possible violation of their constitutional protection against unlawful search and seizure.
Strauss characterized the package of legislation as the first real effort in many years to help people living in RVs get into safe, stable housing. “This legislation is about ensuring people who live in their vehicles are not forgotten, but that they are cared for, and that they have a clear road to a more stable life that we can provide them, so that they can come inside into housing or shter keep higher to engage in housing or shelter that is appropriate for them, that meets their needs,” Strauss said.
Councilmember Dionne Foster said the one-time nature of the “census” was a key reason for her vote against the permitting bill. Foster proposed an amendment at a committee meeting in September that would have made it possible to hold another count of RV residents in the future, but it failed.
“With that door not available, unfortunately, I just have too many concerns around people who may become homeless in the future and could be left out of this permanent program,” Foster said. “Homelessness, I know and I think many of us know this isn’t a static experience. We have success in getting people housed every year … But we struggle to actually meet our goals on solving homelessness, because we also have more neighbors who become homeless every year for a myriad of reasons. All of those folks who become homeless will not end up living in their vehicles, but some of them may, and some of them may need access to different supports.”
The council declined to pass an amendment from Maritza Rivera, which she called a “line in the sand,” that would have excluded people convicted of promoting loitering for purposes of prostitution (a misdemeanor), sex trafficking, or selling any amount of drugs from the registration program. City-funded diversion plans, like Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, target people engaged in survival crimes, including those sell drugs to support their own addictions, for diversion rather than criminal prosecution, so excluding anyone who sells drugs from homeless services would have been a departure from the city’s current approach.
Originally, Strauss proposed using $3.5 million that Mayor Katie Wilson had earmarked for a new RV safe lot and shelter to pay for his RV licensing plan, which will include the new city outreach workers and additional police and parking enforcement hours to enforce the new law. Last week, Strauss accused Wilson of being “uncomfortable” addressing homelessness because she proposed a budget that conflicted with his own RV proposal. This week, however, he changed his tune, saying he would identify $5 million in the budget to pay for a new RV safe lot as well as his own RV permitting proposal.
It’s unclear where Strauss plans to find the money. Shortly after this post went to press, Strauss got back to me to say he is “not taking the shelter money,” which totals $37 million over two years, to fund his plan.
At a press conference where WIlson announced a new citywide, neighborhood-based outreach strategy for resolving homeless encampments, I asked her about Strauss’ RV proposal. “We do have a lot of RVs around our city, and there are some real challenges associated with noise, with garbage, with, in some cases, criminal activity happening in and around those vehicles, and so this is a real problem.” But, she added, “I do have some very serious concerns about a number of aspects of the legislation, from the legal risk to the challenges of implementing this very complicated permit program, the cost of implementing it … about the challenges of actually doing this in practice. And I also have concerns about the human impacts.”
The ACLU and Columbia Legal Services also objected to the expansion of the definition of junk vehicles, which requires a vehicle to meet at least three criteria on a list. That list currently includes having a value of less than $500, being on a public street for more than 24 hours, having a broken window, and failing to have an up-to-date registration. Strauss’ junk vehicle legislation expands that list to make it easier for the city to declare a vehicle “junk”; now, if someone’s license or registration is missing or not fully visible, that will count toward the three criteria that the city can use to justify taking it. The new list also now includes vehicles that need repairs to “side or back windows, wheels, tires, lights, body panels, or seats”—items that can be expensive to repair.
“For people with limited financial resources, these conditions may reflect an inability to afford registration, repairs, or other costs, not abandonment of a vehicle,” the ACLU’s Clark wrote. “When that vehicle is also someone’s home, the consequences of an expanded definition are particularly severe.”
The legislation gives the city until July 2027 to come up a plan to implement the legislation, which could include changes to the underlying program—although the 6-3 supermajority that supported the proposal as written suggests there won’t be the kind of fundamental changes opponents have asked for, like allowing amnesty for unregistered RV residents to participate in the program after the one-time cutoff in the legislation.
The article’s wording is, I hope, a little imprecise. There are paid parking lots for RVs. Repeatedly, the article uses the phrase “park in Seattle”, which would apply to those lots, but surely the new laws don’t ban that line of business?
It would be great if the names of those 3 who vote no were included. I could guess, but sometimes when I read the articles, I wonder why someone who bothered to cover the meeting doesn’t confirm how various members voted. this is most frustrating during times when other personal and business affairs keep us from closely following all the goings-on.
Fair point! I’ve added them.
So my cousin is visiting me in Seattle in their Class C 20’ RV for about a week. (It’s a very nice rig.)
Can they park on the street in front of my house? (There is plenty of room for garbage trucks etc to pass.)
Serious question.
that’s the basis of the first lawsuits. law won’t stick. way too many rights violations in one package. another multimillions of taxpayer money down the hole .
If you live in an industrial area…..
Laws don’t go into effect until 30 days after passage, 10 days more if the Mayor doesn’t sign it.
Don’t forget the 72-hour on-street parking law.
So you’re saying that one has to move one’s vehicle every 72 hours or else it’s in violation?
Yes, I remember that in fact, I think I may have even been ticketed sometime in the last 50 years for leaving my car without moving it… But if that 72 hours applies to RVs then wouldn’t that simply nullify the intent of this new law? I mean, so I live in my RV and I drive it around the block and park at 20 feet away from where it was… Is that legal?
I’d recommend a web search for “Seattle 72 hour parking”. The City’s page, and standards for enforcement, should come up.
I’d argue that law or no law, bringing a 20′ RV into a Seattle neighborhood is a bold choice to begin with (and maybe a bit of a jerk move as well, depending on how tough parking is). How much of an issue it is will likely depend on where in the city and how much your neighbors care.
Are you sure you know the dimensions of a 20’ RV?
@Quintet, lol… my bad. Fair point. Regardless, as is the case with the 72 hour rule, I really think it’ll depend on factors like parking availability, neighbor relations, and whether your area is in an RPZ.
For example, if I go on vacation, I can just give my neighbor a heads up, and I’ve had no issues leaving my car in one spot for over a week. But that’s in a quiet, non RPZ area with plenty of parking.
On the other hand, if you’re in an RPZ, parking enforcement might take note. Or if parking is tight, and someone sees an RV sitting day after day, they might call it in.
I think that’s what’ll happen in general with this law. The city doesn’t have the resources to proactively go down every street and inventory every sketchy RV, outside of the known problem areas. To a degree, it’ll probably rely on community reports.
All that to say, as long as your cousin is respectful (no doubt they would be), you shouldn’t have any issues.
Spectacular. The City Council has voted to improve the quality of life for Seattle taxpayers. I would have appreciated a little more on-street parking time for RV owners who are packing up their vehicle for a road trip (loading luggage, camping supplies, bicycles and sporting goods, groceries and children in two hours is doable but will be challenging for some families). This would primarily be for families who store their RVs at storage facilities because they don’t have parking spaces at home, or for people who rent RVs short term. Otherwise this is a fantastic step forward.
Ballardite is a liar, Dan Strauss is a thief, Bob Kettle is a war criminal
You are a very stable genius
I’m glad this was passed but sad that it is necessary. There are many RV residents that come to Seattle because they can do crimes here. Stealing copper wire seems to be the favorite activity of the RV dwellers in my neighborhood. Many are drug addicted and it’s not helpful to them to let them continue staying on drugs which will end in an early death. Also selling drugs to someone else that may cause them to get addicted or even die, is not a survival crime. It’s a crime and deserves jail time.