Mar Vista Voice - May 31, 2023

CD11 Councilmember Traci Park is ramping up efforts to crack down on people living in their vehicles. Her multi-pronged attack on vehicle dwellers includes prohibiting people from parking on certain streets during sleeping hours (motion 1 and 2), and making it illegal to rent RVs. 

For so many who are priced out of traditional rental housing, a vehicle is the next logical, safe choice. This turns into a longer-term solution due to lack of low-income housing in Los Angeles. There is no LA City wide program supporting vehicle repairs or transition from inoperative RVs into housing. And the "Safe Parking" program is outrageously insufficient compared to the existing and projected numbers of vehicle-housed in LA. Meanwhile, public parking lots sit empty every night. 

Instead of real solutions, Los Angeles pays DOT or LAPD to enforce parking restrictions like the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance (OVO) LAMC 80.69.4. This ordinance bans oversize vehicles from designated street segments in the middle o

Park’s ban on renting RVs to people in need is also terrible policy. The councilmember wants you to believe she’s concerned about the well-being of unhoused folks who rent RVs because they can’t afford an apartment or an RV of their own. In this motion, she decries so-called “van-lords” who “capitalize on the vulnerability” of the unhoused by renting RVs to poor people (i.e. they help folks the city has completely abandoned). This is disingenuous at best. 

If Park cared about people living in rented RVs that are “in grave disrepair, with unsanitary and somewhat dangerous conditions,” she’d propose legislation ensuring that rented RVs meet habitability standards and demand city funding to make it happen. Instead, she’s making it illegal to rent RVs for people to live in.