San Jose may have hindered its own efforts to give RV owners a safe place to park
SAN JOSE — San Jose city leaders are frustrated by the inability to get homeless RV dwellers into a safe parking facility built for that purpose, but it could be the city's own rules that are standing in the way.
Just across from the Santa Teresa VTA station is a fenced "safe parking" lot, built by the city of San Jose to give homeless RV dwellers a secure place to live. The only problem is there aren't many RVs in it, only about 16 right now.
But across town, parked along the streets near Columbus Park, there's a lot of them. Jessica Carrillo, who lives in the streetside encampment, thinks it doesn't make much sense.
"The more RVs that they think that's going there the more RVs show up in this area," she said.
So, why aren't more people taking the city up on its offer. It turns out most of them can't. When they opened the safe parking facility, it included a requirement that any RVs staying there must be operational, insured and have current registration.
Jessica doubts that any of the vehicles in her area would fit that description.
"We're just getting these false advertising promises that we'd be able to just get to live in a living parking space," she said. "But no one's ending up going there. I haven't yet seen any of the RVs here be moved."
The city realizes that and is looking into fixing the problem. Councilmember David Cohen said he's not sure if the rules are the city's doing or if they are part of the contract with VTA to use the land.
But he said they will be reviewing the situation on Tuesday at City Hall to see if there is a way to relax the standards.
"Obviously, it's very frustrating to have sites open in the city and know that there's still so many RVs on the street — know that there's actually people who want to move into these sites, and yet there's still spaces empty," said Cohen. "So, we need to remove as many barriers as we can to get people into the site and do a better job of recruiting people and doing outreach so that we can fill the spots as quickly as possible."
Doug Wynne showed up at the Santa Teresa RV site, hoping to find a place to park his home, which is currently on a street near Tully Road. He said it's tough to find a place to stay where he isn't constantly being hassled.
"I don't know of any," he said. "I don't know of any places except for one like this. This is the first one I've ever seen. "
But Wynne is in the same boat as a lot of motorhome dwellers when it comes to bringing their vehicles into full compliance.
"Oh gosh, I'm two years behind on my registration, so it'd probably cost me at least a couple thousand, for sure. $2,000, at least," he said.
That's not the kind of money he, or any of his neighbors, have. So, his search for a place to live continues. While on the other side of the fence, there were plenty of good intentions to go along with all that empty space.