SUBJECT: VOTE NO on CF 14-1057-S10
Councilmembers Jurado, McOsker, Raman, Blumenfield, Hutt, Hernandez, and Nazarian:
Vote NO on Council File 14-1057-S10, the motion to ban vehicle dwelling near “sensitive-use sites” under LAMC 41.18. It sits before the Homelessness and Health Committee and the Transportation Committee, and you have the votes to stop it.
This law has already failed twice. The city’s last ban on living in a vehicle was struck down in Desertrain v. City of Los Angeles in 2014. The rewrite expired in 2020. Folding it into 41.18 changes the code section, not the cruelty.
Homelessness is going up, not down. The 2026 count found 45,194 unhoused people in the City of LA, up 3.4%, with unsheltered homelessness up 7.9%, driven largely by people living in RVs. The city is failing to deliver affordable housing, and people are turning to the cheapest shelter left. An RV or a van is low-income housing.
There is nowhere to go. LA has no real 24/7 safe parking for RVs. Inside Safe and RV-to-homes programs move a small number of people into costly motel rooms and destroy their vehicles. The CAO tow program paired with CARE+ houses a tragically small number of RV residents compared to the number of homes it tows and crushes.
The city has built a trap. Restrictive parking signs produce tickets. Tickets block DMV registration. Once tags are six months expired, the city tows a person’s shelter. The LADOT CAPP low-income payment plan is nearly impossible to navigate. There is no money to help someone fix a registration problem or a minor repair, but there is plenty of money for parking enforcement, on-call tow contracts, and paying companies to destroy people’s homes. The city calls that “recycling.”
Nothing requires an offer of help. LAMC 41.18 does not require any offer of housing or services before enforcement. Nothing. Agencies claim services are offered, but vehicle residents say otherwise.
This hits children hardest. Having children is the strongest predictor of living in a vehicle, and more than 17,000 LAUSD students are unhoused. A ban near schools pushes kids away from their own classrooms.
Towing a home does not end homelessness! It takes a person’s bed, documents, medication, and way to get to work, then leaves them on the sidewalk, at public expense.
Stand against more criminalization. Vote NO on CF 14-1057-S10.
