SF’s Overnight RV Parking Ban Has Yet to Be Enforced as Advocates Try to Reverse It

Advocates for unhoused San Franciscans are fighting back against an overnight RV parking ban that city transportation officials passed last month, leaving enforcement of the policy on hold.

The appeal, which the End Poverty Tows Coalition filed with the Board of Supervisors on Oct. 29, argues the ban is an unjust attack on residents who don’t have permanent housing.

“It’s really just not a good policy and not the correct approach,” said Eleana Binder, policy manager for GLIDE’s Center for Social Justice, who filed the appeal on behalf of the coalition. “Especially when we know that we haven’t sufficiently invested in safe parking sites or targeted outreach to people who are living in our views as it stands.”

In a first since the city enacted a process for reviewing SF Municipal Transportation Authority decisions in 2018, the Board of Supervisors will hear the appeal and decide whether to reverse or affirm the parking policy. The new parking rules were set to go into effect on Nov. 1, but they’re on hold while the process plays out.

SFMTA did not respond to requests for comment on the appeal.

SFMTA’s board approved the parking rules change at a contentious Oct. 1 meeting, allowing the city to tow oversized vehicles if the people living in them turn down offers of shelter, housing or services. Current city law allows RVs to park overnight on certain streets, but under the new policy, large RVs and trailers parked between midnight and 6 a.m. on city streets where signage is posted could get towed. If someone lives inside, city workers would first have to offer shelter.

Mayor London Breed proposed the change as part of her broader effort to crack down on visible homelessness.

The change comes as the number of people living in vehicles rises in the city. At last count, 9% of people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco lived in vehicles, up from 5% in 2022. Officials say the increase is driven in part by rising family homelessness.

In its appeal, the coalition — which includes Bay Area Legal Aid, Compass Family Services and the Coalition on Homelessness — argues the rule changes will result in “dire economic hardship for impoverished individuals and families who cannot afford the fees” and disproportionately affect women and families.

The group calls the protections included in the new policy “insufficient and ill-advised, noting there aren’t enough shelter beds even for those sleeping on the streets. “Individuals and families inhabiting RV’s should not be given access to shelter in front of those who are in worse situations,” it wrote in the appeal.

Earlier this summer, the city evicted an RV community near Lake Merced made up primarily of Latino families established during the pandemic. The community, which included some 50 children, had been in talks with the city about finding a safe parking site for years. That never materialized, and the city began enforcing four-hour parking restrictions in an effort to force out the RVs before eventually evicting them. Twenty families accepted offers of shelter and housing from the city.

The city currently operates a single-sanctioned RV parking site at Candlestick Point in the Bayview, but problems have dogged it since opening in 2022.

A local neighborhood group tried to block it with a lawsuit, the site’s residents have complained about the living conditions, and a report from the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst deemed it “by far the most expensive homeless response intervention” at an annual cost of $140,000 per RV. The site was intended to house 135 RVs, but PG&E delays establishing power to the site delayed the expansion, driving the high cost.

The future of the site is unclear, but the city plans to open another sanctioned RV parking area and tiny home community next year, with spots for 20 vehicles.

Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing executive director Shireen McSpadden told the Homeless Oversight Commission in October that the agency is working on a broader RV strategy for the city.

But asked if there’s funding for a safe parking site on the city’s west side, Emily Cohen, deputy director for communications and legislative affairs for HSH, told commissioners that it’s limited. “I’m not sure it’s everything we would need to do it,” she said, adding that the city would continue looking for sites there and elsewhere “because we know there’s a lot of demand.”

The SFMTA decision review process requires the buy-in of five board members: Supervisors Ahsha Safaí, Aaron Peskin, Shamann Walton, Hillary Ronen and Dean Preston agreed to hear the coalition’s appeal.

The hearing is scheduled for the Dec. 10 board meeting, where the group appealing will have a chance to present its case, the SFMTA and other city departments will respond, and the public will have the chance to comment.

Supervisors have 60 days from the day the appeal was filed to decide.