Santa Cruz County proposal could allow the destruction of homeless RVs

Thanks, Alicia, for your speedy response to this latest "our of sight, out of town" law.

I wrote this letter to the Board of Stupidvipers, but suspect real changes need street and legal action.


Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom
309 Cedar PMB 14B
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Re: Ordinance Repealing and Replacing chapter 9.57 of the Santa Cruz County Code Relating to Abandoned, Wrecked, Dismantled, or Inoperative Vehicles"

To the Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors:

    
The proposed would allow the destruction of poor people's vehicles.

Please step back from this hastily-considered concept of essentially adding additional burdens to those whose only shelter is their vehicle or RV. As far as I know it has not been vetted by social service agencies, received little news media coverage, and not been brought to the attention of the vehicularly-housed community.

HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) joins the Santa Cruz branch of the California Homeless Union in its opposition to this proposal as constituted. The particulars which would document a need for this ordinance in terms of specific complaints, tickets, and problems by time and date have not been advanced. There has been clear input from homeless and health services in the area, attached to the Staff Report that might indicate the magnitude of the effect on Santa Cruz's already large and visible street population. The impact on travelers whose temporary home is their RV has not been considered, nor have RV association response been solicited.

This appears to us to be the kind of “out of sight, out of mind” proposal being advanced to remove homeless people from public spaces as has been all too familiar recently at a national, state, and city level. It is expensive, cruel, and futile and wastes valuable police resources. Obvious reforms like providing services that would materially assist those struggling with their vehicles as housing are not a part of this package. This reality ignores the benefits vehicle dwellers provide the community by providing minimal housing themselves.

Slick phrases like : "Engagement before enforcement", "due process and dignity", "outreach coordination", and most hypocritical of all "avoiding criminalization" lack any meaningful specifics.

The changed law also threatens to place those facing removal of their vehicles with greater life-threatening prospects on the ground without shelter and is likely to prompt the call for injunctive relief in the courts—another expense for the County and burden for those who need no further burdening.

Additionally, in 2016, the California Coastal Commission rejected a City ordinance that banned so-called “oversized” vehicles from the Coastal Zone even during the lightly-traveled period of midnight to 5 a.m. (?). The City could not persuasively show there were adequate spaces for RV dwellers, not to mention ordinary RV users to park and access the Coast. The City also had no adequate crime stats to show that there was an unusual “Crime problem” for folks in RVs.

More recently when the Coastal Commission agreed to a modified proposal granting such a nighttime ban, there was a specific (if inadequate) City parking program at the Armory which at least dealt with a minority of the vehicles so impacted. The County has proposed no such program and may well find itself facing the same problem at the Coastal Commission and in real life.

In addition a new “social justice” access provision is now part of the Coastal Commission's requirements. This strengthens the need for a jurisdiction having in place some adequate alternatives to ticketing temporarily inoperative vehicles and then hauling away vehicles on 10-days notice for the convenience of towing companies."

This new law vastly expands the threat to all folks' vehicles both in terms of the physical space included (the entire County) and the types of vehicles (any that Sheriff's find "abandoned" or "inoperable" . The notice to owners is now far more circuitous—a certified letter rather than the previous custom of posting on the vehicle itself.

Severely expanding police powers and always has been a phony and costly non-solution when government agencies have failed to decriminalize homelessness given the continuing shelter emergency and would prefer flowery words to hard but real choices.

Robert Norse
HUFF (831-423-4833)

My daughter was visiting me at my Westside home and parked her van on the street in front. The next morning she received a ticket for failing to move her vehicle for 5 days or more. We called SCPD and informed them that she had just arrived. They said they had received a complaint and acted accordingly, and we could challenge it in court if we wished. Clearly the existing system is being abused, and the police don't care. If a vengeful neighbor can have anyone's vehicle hauled away with a simple anonymous lie, does anyone imagine they won't? This proposal goes too far.

Peter Geldblum both wrote a letter to the Board of Supervisors and spoke via zoom at the meeting --in my view to significant effect.

He and I have been at odds in the past on numerous civil liberties issues, but I applaud his work and his voice on this issue.

What he wrote is a public document (since it was addressed to the Board of Supervipers (my pun intended).
What he said is at https://www.youtube.com/live/1kCAq2Fb1r4 (3 hours, 8 minutes into the video file).


Geldblum's letter:

The BOS should not vote to adopt proposed new Chapter 9.57, because it is unconstitutionally vague and because it does not strike a proper balance between the rights of people living in oversize vehicles (OVs) and the rest of the public.

Most fundamentally:
What, if any, evidence supports the following finding? "The accumulation and storage of abandoned, wrecked, dismantled or inoperative vehicles or parts thereof on public property is hereby found to create a condition tending to promote blight and deterioration, to invite plundering, to create fire hazards, to constitute an attractive nuisance creating a hazard to the health and safety for minors, to create a harborage for rodents and insects and to be injurious to health, safety and general welfare." None is cited in the agenda report or the ordinance, other than some complaining phone calls.

Vagueness:
Certain terms that are critical to understanding and enforcing the Chapter are undefined and/or unclear, including:
• "wrecked vehicle" 9.57.010 and throughout - how much damage makes a vehicle "wrecked"?
• "deserted vehicle" and a vehicle that "appears to be a deserted vehicle." 9.57.020(a). Appears to whom, based on what investigation or objective standard? A vehicle can look awful - paint gone, windows gone, etc., and still be someone's home. The ordinance should at least say that if a person's clothing or other possessions or pets are in a vehicle, it is conclusively not "deserted."
• "inoperable vehicle" is defined to include a vehicle that "is not currently registered for operation." Registration has nothing whatsoever to do with whether a vehicle is operable. I'm sure the police can tell you how many people they stop in moving, aka operable, vehicles and have no or expired registrations. This secondary definition should be removed. It's illegal to drive without a current registration; don't also take someone's vehicle away from them.
Failure to strike the proper balance:
• 9.57.080 - the 10-day notice should be posted on the vehicle in all circumstances, not just when the owner can't be located. That is necessary if the Sheriff wants to follow the mandate of the section: "All reasonable efforts will be made by the Sheriff to notify the owner of the vehicle or parts thereof of the County ordinance violation(s)."
• 9.57.080 (B)(4) - the notice about the right to a hearing should include all necessary information about how to request the hearing,
• Pursuant to Veh. Code Section 22661(d), the 10-day notice must also "include notice to the property owner that he or she may appear in person at a hearing or may submit a sworn written statement denying responsibility for the presence of the vehicle on the land, with his or her reasons for such denial, in lieu of appearing."
• 9.57.120(a) should be limited to missing parts that make the vehicle necessary to "operate," not the much broader term "operate safely."
• 9.5.7.120(C)should be limited to situations where the vehicle is parked on the portion of the street where cleaning or movement is necessary - not to vehicles parked on any portion of that street.
Thank you for your consideration.

Peter Gelblum
Boulder Creek