What's up, South End?
Happy Halloween! I hope y'all enjoy some spooky festivities today.
I want to talk about a story that kind of slipped under the radar: Last week, the Seattle City Council voted to approve a new permit process that could lead to a ban on people living in RVs.
The Council voted 6–3 to approve, with Eddie Lin, Dionne Foster, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck voting no. Proponents say this legislation will help the city by addressing complaints of sanitation, waste, and fire hazards associated with people living in RVs. And also help them secure stable housing.
However, one could argue that people in RVs are residents, too. You could address these issues without eviction.
My initial reaction was surprise that our elected leaders believe we can criminalize our way out of this homelessness crisis. I thought that idea had been disproven years ago, but alas, here we are.
These new rules, which still need approval from Mayor Katie Wilson before becoming law, would require people to join a permit program to park RVs on city streets for extended periods of time.
But people can only join the program if they're counted in a one-time census and can also prove they own their RV — and I'm going to be honest here, on first read, I had no idea what that actually meant.
What it boils down to is this: The City will, at some point, do a one-time citywide census of people living in RVs. That pool of people, if they can prove they own their RV, can apply for a temporary license to park long-term as long as they follow City laws and agree to move to a shelter when offered.
When this one-time census will take place, how it will be conducted, why it is one-time only, where the City will magically find these shelter beds, how long the temporary parking license will last — are all still TBD.
What we do know is that this will lead to an eventual ban on RVs parked for more than two hours on city streets, and considering how many people in our city are currently unhoused, along with the fact that we don't have enough shelter beds to go around right now, this feels like a cruel law that will only exacerbate an existing problem.
Over the weekend, I noticed a row of RVs along Martin Luther King Jr. Way as I entered Powell Barnett Park in the Central District. Here in the South End, I noticed RVs near Be'er Sheva Park.
I'm pointing this out to remind y'all that this directly impacts our communities and our neighbors. Prohibiting people from living in RVs doesn't magically provide homes for them. They will still need to live somewhere.
To understand how this will work, and what potential legal recourse may be on the horizon, I spoke with Jazmyn Clark, the Smart Justice Policy Program Director at the ACLU of Washington. She recently wrote a letter to the City Council opposing the proposal.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
MD: I think the most confusing part of this law is the one-time census. Can you explain what it is and how it works?
JC: The City would go out and conduct a census to determine what the population size is for folks living in their vehicles as a form of shelter, that would then be used as the basis for a permitting program, to which folks would be able to park their RVs or vehicles in designated spots overnight. But, by "overnight," really, we're talking about a six-hour window from midnight to 6 a.m. And then after that, they would have to leave and presumably go somewhere else for the day before they could return back to that safe place to sleep.
One of the many problems with this is that a one-time census is not going to capture the entire population. The City could conduct this census, and a group of folks, or even a single individual, could get an RV the day after the census ends, and they are permanently banned now from ever receiving the permit, which would allow them the opportunity to park somewhere safe and designated so they're not going to get ticketed or fined or impounded or towed, you know, further displaced. That raises serious concerns around due process for us, and this is something that we raised in our letter.
MD: What rights do people who live in RVs actually have? Do you have the right to sleep in your RV? Does the City have the right to seize your RV?
JC: State of Washington v. William Pippin is a State Supreme Court case where our Supreme Court recognized that if someone is using a vehicle as their primary residence, that can qualify as a home under the Washington Homestead Act, which then provides or affords certain protections mostly against debt-related seizures. So I think there is a gray area as it presently stands for folks that are living in their vehicles under the proposed legislation. I mean, at this point, it's passed, but proposed legislation.
There's also a Ninth Circuit Court case, Lavan v. City of Los Angeles, where the courts recognize that folks living in their vehicles as their residence do have relevant Fourth and 14th Amendment protections, so that would be like unlawful searches and seizures.
What the City is walking into — not even walking into, what the City is creating, is a legal gray area that I think is ripe for some type of challenge.
MD: Another part of these rules that stand out to me is the idea that if someone goes through the process and obtains a temporary license to park long-term, when they are offered shelter, they have to take it and ditch their RV. Can the City legally force someone to vacate?
JC: No, the City can't force someone to vacate. I mean, they can make it as difficult as possible to exist, which I think is the ultimate unspoken goal of this legislation. But there's not going to be any ability to forcibly remove people out of their vehicles if they're choosing to live there. I think the requirement that folks be connected to outreach workers and have to accept offers of shelter, that leads to a slew of questions that I think are raised around due process and other constitutional protections.
But to your earlier point, we don't even have the adequate shelter space available. We don't. We know that. Seattle does not have the adequate number of shelter space available to house every person who is experiencing homelessness in the city, and that really is what we believe should be the focus, not these punitive responses that are really just forced displacement under the guise of helping people.
MD: If the mayor approves this proposal and it becomes official, do you foresee places where it may be unconstitutional?
JC: Absolutely. Yeah, I don't think that's a stretch. I think that this is really toeing the line of constitutionality, and we have to see how this is implemented and enforced to be able to determine whether this is something that rises to the level of some type of lawsuit.
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This is an abbreviated version of The Roundup newsletter. To get the entire newsletter, including a weekly list of events to check out and my shout-out to South End Gems, subscribe here. See you next week!
Mike Davis is the newsletter editor and Voices editor at the South Seattle Emerald. Born and raised in Seattle's South End, Mike is a longtime journalist who's covered everything from arts and culture to sports to politics.
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