For those on the other end of the spectrum, all it can take is a bad break like a serious medical issue or unemployment to cause a disruption in housing. Many are living out of their car:
Extreme housing prices in California — driven by a combination of speculation, favorable legal/tax positions for landlords, foreclosures after the 2008 crisis, and an unwillingness to build public housing — has created vast homeless encampments, but there’s a less visible side to the crisis: working people in “good jobs” who have to live in their cars.
There’s a whole subreddit devoted to these folks, a mix of maker culture (modding cars to make them more comfortable as homes), hobo chalk-marks (where can you park, and for how long?), and generalized anxiety.
It’s not just single middle-class people, either — they’re roaming America’s streets in company with a vast nomad army of homeless seniors who drive from town to town looking for seasonal work to replace their busted pensions.
What’s striking in California is that many communities already accept people living in vehicles, despite there often being rules or laws against it.
This fall, the city of San Diego expanded its Safe Parking Program, which designates lots that can be used by those living out of their cars, and many other cities have similar programs. Under a law passed last year, Los Angeles also allows overnight parking in some commercial districts. In Mountain View, the mayor brags about the services his city provides to those living in more than 330 cars, trucks and RVs.
Read full article here:
How long until the State mandates each cities’ “fair share” of people living in cars much like it mandates affordable housing quotas now?
What a joke – literally anyone who has had to deal with the motorhomeless has a different opinion. I am glad I live in Carlsbad, where they simply banned 22′ overnight parking. When I lived in LA we had an RV living in front of my house (west LA, not even beach) – zero property tax, and didn’t (couldn’t) move for street sweeping. A couple in their 30s (pretty sure they had jobs). Finally they got the literal (Denver) boot, after not moving for months (yes months). They tried to thwart the city by parking in both sides – city of LA just brought in a crane tow truck. Friends in Venice tried to go the correct route, a 22′ overnight ban, only to get shot down by the coastal commission:
http://argonautnews.com/venice-coastal-commission-rejects-overnight-parking-districts/
Luckily Carlsbad did not bother asking CCC permission and just put up the signs and started enforcement (Santa Monica and Malibu did the same – don’t ask, just do). It’s a real quality of life issue (you want raw sewage in the street?) and don’t kid yourself, this has _nothing_ to do with homelessness. It is an entitlement problem that exists on the coast, where it’s beautiful to live. Living out of your car in east county? Yeah, no. A free ocean view is the goal, especially once you retire (and have handicapped plates). Who doesn’t like free, where someone else pays the taxes and you have zero rent?
PS Rob Dawg, my observation is literally no way – that sort of law would apply to Beverly Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica – and that’s not happening. It’s the burden of large CA cities i.e. San Diego proper, city of Los Angeles – they are stuck. But it’s laughable to think small wealthy cities ever end up with motorhomeless quotas.