Los Angeles is Attempting to Fix Its Homeless Car Parking Problem
Homelessness is an issue in all major cities across the U.S., but it’s particularly acute in large ones fortunate enough to have a pleasant climate year-round. Los Angeles has both of these attributes, and that means there’s quite a large homeless population. A recent article from the LA Times caught my eye.
With over 6,000 homeless people sleeping in their cars every night, the city is enacting a new ordinance to give them somewhere to (legally) park.
The ordinance takes effect next Monday, February 6th. For the first time, it will be legal to park in the street and sleep overnight in a car. The ordinance was pitched as beneficial to the homeless population; legalizing something they’ve already been doing illegally. Certain streets will now be designated by the city as being okay for overnight parking, providing legal spaces for those living in their cars.
But when the map for the ordinance was published, it reflected only 10 percent of city streets being designated for car lodging. The map appears to have built-in inaccuracies as well.
From the Times:
Officials had said homeless people could park in commercial and industrial zones. But some commercial streets labeled available on the map have restrictions on oversized vehicles, tow-away signs or red curbs.
All other existing signage restrictions on parking will still be enforced, though these restrictions are not indicated on the map. The city has a $4,400,000-plus project underway to digitize all parking signage, but that won’t be ready for two years. In the meantime, the suggestion to the homeless seems to be, “Figure it out.”
The city’s balancing act will be a difficult one. Attempting to facilitate thousands of overnight parking spaces for the homeless within crowded city boundaries, and considering the very real safety, property, and sanitation concerns of private homeowners and businesses doesn’t leave much wiggle room. Incidents like the one cited below are inevitable:
Cassandra Weinman, a social media and marketing freelancer who lives near a big Venice encampment, said a homeless man punched her in the face and took her phone when she tried to report him urinating behind her apartment.
For homeless citizens of Los Angeles fortunate enough to have working cars, using them as mobile apartments is a practical and reasonable solution. But in a large city with a considerable homeless population, that solution creates big capacity problems. And those problems are already here, right now.
With slightly less than 10 percent of streets available for homeless parking, it seems more drastic long-term measures will be necessary.
[Image: Wikimedia Commons ( CC BY 2.0)]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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What are California's requirements for safety inspections and insurance on vehicles, and what are the chances the homeless vehicles are in compliance? I'm asking because I can envision a situation where you can no longer afford your LA mortgage, but you can keep your car functional. What a terrible plight.
O.K. here's how L.A.P.D.'s NE Division handles it : The homeless gather in the North Hollywood area in the Spring when the Desert gets too hot, mostly they move whenever told to by routine patrol after complaints or on street sweeping days if the area had regular parking enforcement (it's a different Dept.) . . Come Winter the L.A.P.D. makes sweeps chasing them all out over the hill to Lancaster, Palmdale etc. where it's not really all that warmer but that's how it goes . . -Nate