Proposed RV ordinance will create more homelessness

In August, 2021 the median price for a single family home in Santa Cruz was $1.25 million, and the average rent for a one bedroom apartment about $2,500. The end of the eviction moratorium is estimated to put at least 5,000 residents at risk of eviction. Around 300 of our neighbors are living in their vehicles, and hundreds more live in a flood zone by the San Lorenzo River, soon to be swept by the city.

It is in this context that Santa Cruz City Council is set to vote today on an ordinance that will fine, ticket, and tow away the shelters of people who cannot afford typical housing, living instead in their vehicles.

The Oversized Vehicle Ordinance (OVO) will ultimately create more unsheltered homelessness in Santa Cruz. There are decades of research demonstrating that criminalizing homelessness is expensive, ineffective and damaging; the data shows that criminalizing people who live in vehicles is no different.

Policies like OVO disproportionately impact people with extremely limited finances who are more likely to own older, less functional vehicles and have fewer resources to repair them when they become inoperable. Because people have nowhere to move to, this leads to increased ticketing and towing, vehicles being impounded, incarceration, and ultimately unsheltered homelessness. As the cost of living keeps rising while eviction protections evaporate, living in mobile homes will be one of the few accessible, affordable forms of housing in Santa Cruz, and act as a last safeguard against unsheltered homelessness after a loss of housing. Removing this final safety net will be catastrophic for many of our community members who live in their vehicles.

According to a study by the Western Center on Law and Poverty, local governments throughout California regularly tow vehicles for minor offenses, none of which pose a threat to public safety. These offenses, considered “poverty tows,” include having outstanding parking tickets, lapsed vehicle registration, and remaining parked in one place for more than 72 hours (all components of the OVO). They target people living in poverty who are most likely to lose rather than recover their vehicles as a result of towing, thus having the worst impact on vehicle owners. This same report found that, “taxpayers are also harmed when vehicle shelters are towed. An analysis of thousands of vehicle tows and lien sales in multiple California cities suggests that this practice costs more than cities recoup in tickets or revenue flowing from sales of impounded vehicles.”

During his presentation on the ordinance, Police Chief Andy Mills repeatedly emphasized how resource intensive it is to tow oversized vehicles. The city has had to create their own tow yard since others in town are over capacity. He estimates the cost of towing vehicles to be around $1,200 per vehicle, not including the costs of metal scrapping, cleaning up leftover debris, black water, and “all the other things that go with it” like increased jail, police, and health care costs.

It’s a convincing case for why this ordinance is ill-advised: it’s expensive, resource intensive, and does not meaningfully address any of the “nuisance” behaviors it claims to. Ticketing, towing, and issuing misdemeanors to people living in poverty creates additional barriers that push them further away from being able to come into compliance with the ordinance, while making it significantly harder to access basic services and resources.

Having access to basic services and resources is part of what public health officials call the “social determinants of health.” Acknowledging these social determinants of health as a major driver of equitable cities is a key aspect of Health In All Policies, a guide for cities created by the American Public Health Association (who explicitly condemn the criminalization of homelessness), which was supposedly referenced by the authors of OVO. This policy guide reminds us that safety and health are rooted in meeting people’s basic needs. If the goal actually is to address so-called “nuisance” behaviors in the name of “safety” and “health,” then we have to meet people’s needs by providing safe long-term parking spaces, services that help people to manage refuse and black water, and support in fixing and registering vehicles, all without criminalization and for the benefit of our entire community.

Removing this final safety net will be catastrophic for many of our community members who live in their vehicles.