San Jose bans homeless people renting RVs

A new San Jose policy intended to target individuals who rent RVs to homeless residents is being extended to penalize people sleeping in their vehicles.

The San Jose City Council voted 9-1 on Tuesday to approve the “vanlording” policy, as it was written last week, to ban the advertising and renting out of RVs to homeless residents intending to use the recreational vehicles as homes. These RVs are prohibited from parking and sleeping on city streets and private property after August. District 2 Councilmember Pamela Campos was the sole “no” vote.

Campos shared concerns about the amount of discretion police would have issuing trespassing citations and arresting people living in their vehicles without the involvement of the property owner. But city officials countered that without this policy in place there would be no concrete policy for vanlording enforcement.

Campos said the city’s two safe parking sites are insufficient to accommodate the 800 RV dwellers across San Jose. The sites only have space for 128 vehicles total.

“It’s important being thoughtful in our process for how we are moving forward on (policies) that will both support the needs of our business and property owners, while also maintaining civil liberties to our residents,” Campos said at the meeting. “In a political climate where people are fearing leaving their homes due to immigration concerns, I think it’s incredibly important that we are sensitive in our approach.”

District 4 Councilmember David Cohen, who said in March the policy isn’t meant to target people living in RVs, expressed his concern over the final language targeting homeless residents.

“We need to make sure that they have the ability to manage once the property owner gives notice,” he said at the meeting. “My preference in this case is to (ask) for implementation of the trespassing policy … but come back on what our implementation policy plans will be around that as we go into fall.”

The policy comes on the heels of the city’s RV tow-away zones program. San Jose plans to select up to 30 temporary tow-away zones and 10 permanent sites to clear RVs for street sweeping and cleanup. Implementation is scheduled for this year.
Vice Mayor Pam Foley said the goal of the policy is to relieve San Jose property and business owners who have already requested police assistance in addressing recreational vehicles.

“That’s problematic, particularly if you have a property owner who’s already posted a “no trespassing” sign and given police verbal authorization, as Police Chief Paul Joseph said,” she said at the meeting. “To wait for the property owners to come out and sign something in writing before police take action … puts the property owners’ property at risk.”

Contact Vicente Vera at [email protected] or follow @VicenteJVera on X.