Sponsor Dan Strauss said the mayor’s veto shows she’s “disingenuous” and can’t be trusted.
By Erica C. Barnett
Mayor Katie Wilson vetoed legislation on Monday that would ban RVs from parking on Seattle streets over time, citing the “complexity and cost” of a proposed one-time count of people living in RVs, concerns about the legality of the proposal, costs, and the potential that impounding residential RVs would increase unsheltered homelessness.
The legislation, sponsored by Dan Strauss, would establish a permitting system for a limited number of RV residents—those counted in a one-time-only census—with the goal of eventually banning RVs from Seattle streets. Residents would have to participate in mandatory services and accept offers of shelter, and any RVs without a permit could be immediately impounded and removed. It passed on a 6-3 vote.
On Tuesday, Wilson announced an accompanying executive order that directs the Human Services Department to do “intensive outreach” to people living in their vehicl s, create a citywide list of RV residents, and connect those individuals to a new RV safe lot and shelter that will open next month. That lot, known as the Glassyard Commons, will hold up to 72 RVs and has 20 “tiny house” shelters. A second safe lot, opening in 2027, will accommodate around 90 more. The order also establishes a work group to recommend “programmatic, policy and legal changes” to the city’s approach to RVs within 60 days.
Late Tuesday morning, Wilson was joined at a press conference at City Hall by surprise supporter Rob Saka, one of six councilmembers who voted for the legislation. Saka, as PubliCola first reported Tuesday morning, had changed his mind on the legislation, and would no longer provide the necessary sixth vote to overturn Wilson’s veto. Put another way: Unless Saka changes his mind again before the council votes on Wilson’s veto, the veto will stand.
“I voted in favor of the council’s recent RV legislation because I believe the status quo is totally unacceptable,” Saka said. “I stand by that vote and the urgent need for action that motivated it. But I’ve also learned through my experience in public service that we achieve the best results when the executive branches and the legislative branches are aligned around a shared strategic approach.”
“I’m willing to give the mayor a fair shot to propose a credible alternative to that proposal.”
Shortly after Wilson issued her veto late Monday afternoon, Strauss issued a statement on Monday decrying Wilson’s “lack of leadership” and criticizing her for “breaking her promise” not to veto the bill. Contacted Monday night, Strauss said he met with Wilson’s team on October 14, before the final vote on the bill, and “they stated the mayor was not going to veto the legislation. Today when she called me, she expressed regret for saying she wouldn’t veto the legislation and then doing so.”
On Monday night, Wilson confirmed the meeting, but said that since then, “I have spent more time with city departments understanding the challenges of implementation, and my own deeper consideration of the potential impacts of the legislation led me to believe that giving the council an opportunity to consider an alternative path was the right thing to do for the city. As I have been considering all options, my staff have also been transparent with Councilmember Strauss about that shift.”
Speaking at the press conference on Tuesday, Wilson said concerns about the logistical complexity and basic legality of Strauss’ proposal were also on her mind when she decided to veto the plan.
“I considered what it would take to stand up a costly and complex new city bureaucracy in a constrained budget environment. I considered the likelihood that this would, in practice, end up pulling capacity and personnel from other urgent public safety priorities. I learned more about the legal, operational, and safety challenges to dealing with problematic RVs and the ways that this legislation does not address those challenges.”
Shortly after the mayor’s press conference ended, Strauss decried the mayor’s decision, calling Wilson “disingenuous” and saying “I can’t trust her word anymore” because “there have been a number of times that she’s broken the promises that she’s made to me.” He called Wilson’s executive order “a copy and paste from my legislation.”
Strauss also accused Wilson of “sitting on” the $5 million set aside in the 2026 budget for shelter outreach last year. “She has been sitting on these funds all year, and since July and August, when I’ve been in direct conversations with the mayor’s team about deploying these funds, they have not deployed the funds for contracted outreach to help people living in their vehicles,” Strauss said.
Asked about this allegation, a spokesperson for Wilson said the mayor “has been holding funding for RV outreach until the policy deliberation at the Council was completed. Upon signing her Executive Order, the Mayor has asked HSD to immediately work to get this funding out the door to support vehicle resident outreach.” The budget set aside money for safe lots, shelter, assistance for RV residents as they move into shelter or housing, and RV storage associated with safe lots; had HSD used the money for RV outreach before the safe lot opened, they would not have had any shelter to offer RV residents.
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Strauss, who previously said the mayor was “uncomfortable addressing homelessness” because it would require her to set “boundaries,” credited himself with getting Wilson to take action no RVs .
“If it took 11 months of my work for the mayor to pay attention to one of the most critical issues in our community today, then that’s a success for me, and that’s a success for the legislative branch,” Strauss said. “Right now, we need leadership, not wishy-washy work groups.”
Strauss said a previous count of RVs in Seattle found a total of 145 RVs in the city, which he said was probably an undercount. Between the two RV safe lots, Strauss said, there might be enough room to take every RV in Seattle off the streets. “If you have two shelter safe lots that account for all of the RVs that people are living on the city streets, then we have a place for them to go,” Strauss said. “And because I am concerned that it’s an undercount, that’s why I propose the permit process to say, if you are living on the streets today, we are going to care for you today.”
But that number is almost certainly far lower than the true number of people living in RVs in Seattle. The most recent detailed Point In Time Count of people experiencing homelessness in King County, from 2024, found that about 27 percent of the unsheltered people in King County were living in their vehicles. Applying that number to the 4,858 unsheltered people the count estimated were living in Seattle that year suggests that there were more than 1,20o people living in their vehicles in 2024.
Extrapolating from the high-level Point in Time Count the King County Regional Homelessness Authority released earlier this year suggests there are around 1,500 people living in vehicles in Seattle. That’s in line with a recent study from the University of Washington, which also concluded that about 500 of those individuals are living in RVs and other large vehicles, such as “fifth wheels,” throughout the year—not 150.
ACLU-Washington Executive Director Michelle Storms, who stood beside Wilson during her press conference, declined to say afterward whether the ACLU would have sued the city if Strauss’ RV ban had gone into effect. “Because there is this veto and this possibility of a path forward that is both mindful of the human and compassionate need, as well as addressing public safety and concerns, we’re excited to see how that unfolds, and we’re grateful that the mayor has made out this particular piece of legislation,” Storms said.
In September, the ACLU’s Smart Justice Policy Program Director Jazmyn Clark warned that Strauss’ legislation raised “significant constitutional concerns,” pointing to court cases establishing that that state’s Homestead Act provides protections for vehicles used as homes. A separate state Supreme Court case involving a person who lived in his vehicle found that the city’s towing and impound fees violated the constitutional protection against excessive fines.
The ACLU also raised legal questions about a separate Strauss bill Wilson did not veto, which vastly broadened the definition of “junk vehicles” to make it easier for the city to tow and discard unsightly or inoperative cars parked on public streets.
Under the Seattle City Charter, the City Council has until December 2 to take a vote on the veto, but Strauss said he hoped to hold a vote as soon as possible. “My proposal is to get this done with now,” he said.
