The city now has 271 people with no access to an emergency shelter or transitional housing who are stuck on the street, living in cars or living in encampments around the city.
Slight tangent, but when I walk down the street at night I see car after empty car and think, why can't it also be a bed? If all of the seats could fold down flat and the car's engine could idle in a fuel efficient way, providing heating/cooling/climate control, it'd be a comfortable double bed. If the windows could have opaque blinds that slide over the windows when the car is set to camp mode for privacy and additional security from delinquents.
It just seems like a wasted opportunity not to make cars that can become a bed when they're using all of this space already - it could reduce drink driving, make staying closer to work easier, provide shelter for people low on funds etc. Perhaps with the advent of driverless cars we could have this and be delivered to our destination upon getting out of bed. Perhaps a family of vehicles, one for each family member, could cart each individual to their destinations, pick them up, then at the end of the day merge the vehicles together to transform into the family home.
I live in a compact-width van conversion (which fits in the tightest parking garages) with absolute privacy (curtains) in Mountain View (illegal to sleep in a car on the street, so stay on private property like parking lots) & Palo Alto (where it's currently legal to sleep in a car on the street). It's very comfortable and sleeps 3 adults or 2 adults and 2 kids.
Living in a car (when it's obvioua) is unfortunately an invitation for continual police harassment. Been there, done that. Police in Mountain View bang on car windows if you were to sleep in any of the downtown municipal parking lots OR even on private property. They have zero tolerance for poor people and show no compassion whatsoever. There is even this one female officer whom enjoys Schadenfreude to such a degree that it is well past hubris; (she will tow your car even if it's on private property.)
Better to live in a car or van where it's not obvious, (tint, curtains, etc.) because the junked-up cars and people obviously sleeping draw the most attention.
Also, ask me anything.
PS: During the day, it's impossible to tell that I live in my vehicle because it's very clean and everything's put away.
I know it's off topic but that it's illegal to sleep in a car appears to me to impose the most cynical incentive structure I encountered in a while.
I already did that several times in the past because I was seriously drunken.
Edit: Also as a follow up question on your further writing:
How do you handle very high or low temperature in a car? First I thought it's not a problem due to ACs, but as you pointed out that you've to hide your presence I can't really see that working. Very interesting post!
The Ninth Circuit effectively struck down Venice's enforcement of giving tickets to people whom appeared to be living in their vehicles. That case is why Palo Alto backed off on its towing and ticketing campaign. LA hates homeless people more so than Silicon Valley.
But it's part of larger issue of subtle, shameful discrimination based on economics and status akin but different how African Americans were treated in the 1950's South. The homeless and poor need a Civil Rights movement. Even if it won't change attitudes of snobs and bigots, there is room for additional protections and tighter limits on police harassment. (There should be federal protections to providing food for the poor because it is illegal to feed the homeless in parts of Florida. In other parts of Florida, it is also illegal to use blankets or any other materials to protect yourself from the elements. Basically, these laws make it illegal for some people to be alive, and those types of laws have no place in America.)
Where do you personally draw the line between harassment and police enforcing the law?
For example, if homeless folks cannot procreate without having sex in public locations, such as behind a bush in a public park, and we accept that banning procreation is unjust, does banning public sexual acts count as an unjust law?
Actually, since this is a pseudonym, I've had sex in public a several times and never had a problem. In fact, it was in one of (Saratoga, Los Gatos, Los Altos) wealthy communities of mostly residences that have little real crime, and locations were even suggested by the police (no they weren't filming). We even asked what they would do, they indicated there would generally not be a ticket unless it were somehow indecent (visible to others) and they just make sure it is consensual. It might've been the luxury sportscar at the time or the hot girl might've had something to do with police being extra helpful. (Btw the hot girl broached the questions, hilariously.)
It would be different, for say two shabby-looking folks going at it in Venice, CA in front of a street during the daytime. But a hot couple, at night, in some remote location in a safe area isn't going to raise eyebrows, especially if no one notices. It just goes to show there are layers of socioeconomic biases, plus not all homeless people are given feedback, care or are aware of what's considered acceptable by others.
Perhaps the core issue is should necessary biological functions (and common, strongly desired needs that others are able to fulfill) be disproportionally criminalized based on socioeconomic and other biases? (For most men, sex is a strong motivating drive... which is why the Netherlands includes it in public benefits.). There might be a "time and a place," but people whom have nothing need equal access to water, food, sanitation and whatever else can be afforded to make their lives a little more comfortable. (A society is judged on how it treats...)
That's obvious and I didn't just fall off the turnip truck today. It's not even a concern for me as I don't drink, smoke or use drugs... not as a moralism bumpersticker thing, just not a fan and impaired judgement isn't wise.
There are a couple of these jackasses living in vans whom live like animals, get high and generally make things harder for everyone else, but they don't last long. They're in a minority because the majority are retired guys. There are some retired gals, some younger mostly guys but very few female vehicle dwellers generally.
So I live in MTV, I would like to hear more about this as I am interested getting MVPD to be more understanding. It seems like harassing people on private property should be not allowed.
Hello fellow car camper. I also live in my car. Although it's not as well setup or planned out as you, I just lay back the passenger seat and sleep there, no tint either which sucks.
When it was cooler out I would lay my back seat down and roll out the sleeping pad and sleeping bag and stretch out like that, but it's too hot and humid for that now (south east US).
I'm looking to move to the bay area, are walmarts accepting of overnight sleepers there? Do you use church parking lots at all?
That happens to be a feature of my first car, a 1961 Peugeot 403. Seats folded perfectly flat to form a 'camp bed'. Here's a blog where you can see it--it is found on the first page of the second set of the manual.
Loved that car, but the engine and especially the cooling system struggled in California. The other problem was that the car seat rails were built for lighter Europeans. I was all the time bending the seat rails.
Silicon Valley is a gold rush type of town. In these environments, people are willing to live very minimally in the manner you describe. Van dwellers all around MV and PA are proof of that. There's euphoria in the air and a sense that nothing else matters. But to the rest of the world, or even here if/when the gold rush ends, people (even very poor people) settle into their normal lives and start to demand a little more comfort and convenience.
Demand? Sounds like entitlement hate of us vs. them that don't subscribe to consumerism in order to rationalize staying on the treadmill of unnecessary ostentation because "what your friends think?" Just stop until you have something positive to say that doesn't involve sweeping bigotry.
Even those who don't subscribe to consumerism (myself included) have to admit there's a difference between living in a car and living in even a sparsely appointed 400 sq ft studio or 1 bedroom apartment. My comment was just an attempt to reflect on the psychology that allows people to sacrifice almost all living standards in the pursuit of a goal (something akin to ''if you understand the why, you can live with almost any how...'').
Oh, fair enough. Not all people want the same things, and their needs change as a moving target with stages of life. Someone people live more externally while others don't really care so long as enough of Maslow's HoN is met. I know a Harvard grad gal whom hates shopping more than I do.
After visiting the USA in December 2014 I cannot help but wonder why the matter of homeless people is not one of the biggest issues in the country. While you see homeless people occasionally here in Europe, streets seemed to be flooded by the homeless. I really wonder why a country so wonderful in many areas can be so agnostic to the problem of homeless people. A developed society should not have that situation nowadays. And while taxes are not the highest in the US, they are not that low that problems like this can't be addressed.
If we don't treat poor people like dirt, how will they have sufficient incentive (i.e., desperation) to accept whatever horrible jobs are available? Such as being on call 24/7 for a part-time job at sub-living wages.
But honestly, the problem of homelessness is more closely tied to high housing prices, which in the US is associated with the liberal urban areas. The same liberal urban areas that otherwise pride themselves on being "progressive" are just pricing people out of houses by not building enough housing and "maintaining the character of the neighborhood."
Because all the money is spent on corruption of various sorts, which is mostly ignored--those folks like getting their money. The media make it clear that any such money spent on humanitarian grounds is not only unavailable but would be wasted even if it was.
Indeed, I don't believe in hand-outs, but some investment would be welcome. You can only walk by people shitting in the street or laying face-down on the sidewalk so long before wanting to kill.
yes...
while I also rather like economy friendly governments, it is pure logic that if you ignore the poor, they will come knocking on your door in one way or the other... Some kind of welfare is good for the rich (they can enjoy their money more without fearing being robbed or kidnapped) and the poor (they can eat and have somewhere to live).
I'm seeing a few more homeless people lately in Palo Alto and Redwood City. I'm also seeing a lot more "Help Wanted" signs for low end jobs. Housing has become so expensive, though, that there are now homeless people with day jobs.
There's one homeless guy with a long beard who's been panhandling on University Avenue since at least the 1990s.
Slight tangent, but when I walk down the street at night I see car after empty car and think, why can't it also be a bed? If all of the seats could fold down flat and the car's engine could idle in a fuel efficient way, providing heating/cooling/climate control, it'd be a comfortable double bed. If the windows could have opaque blinds that slide over the windows when the car is set to camp mode for privacy and additional security from delinquents.
It just seems like a wasted opportunity not to make cars that can become a bed when they're using all of this space already - it could reduce drink driving, make staying closer to work easier, provide shelter for people low on funds etc. Perhaps with the advent of driverless cars we could have this and be delivered to our destination upon getting out of bed. Perhaps a family of vehicles, one for each family member, could cart each individual to their destinations, pick them up, then at the end of the day merge the vehicles together to transform into the family home.