Starting today, San Francisco can tow RVs and other oversized vehicles if people living inside them refuse shelter offers. The new policy, in effect for the next 18 months, affects vehicles parked overnight on certain streets from midnight to 6:00 a.m.
While some RV residents and advocates fear mass towing, in practice, the new towing policy will only be used as “a tool of last resort,” said Jeffrey Tumlin, the director of transportation for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA).
Mayor London Breed and SFMTA crafted the policy in response to a rise in vehicular homelessness across the city that currently affects over 1,442 people, including more than 117 families. The increase has been largely caused by pandemic-era job loss, lack of affordable housing and an influx in immigrant families from Latin America.
Initially, Mayor Breed proposed a more aggressive, citywide ban on RVs, similar to her approach to street encampments, that would face major legal and logistical hurdles, El Tecolote found.
Instead, the current policy, approved Oct. 1 by SFMTA’s Board of Supervisors, focuses on addressing “transportation and or true health and safety hazards” on streets heavily impacted by long-term RV parking and will be “used judiciously and sparingly,” said Viktoriya Weiss, SFMTA‘s chief of staff.
With mixed messages from the city, initial talks of an outright ban, and several modifications to the final legislation, the specifics of the policy have left many RV residents wondering what lies ahead.
Here’s how officials say the new policy would work.
Only certain streets will get new restrictions
At the Oct. 1 meeting, SFMTA staff said they will enforce new bans on about one block per month, costing the city around $230,000 a year.However, the current legislation gives the city flexibility to enforce the policy on as many streets or blocks as needed.
As the acting director of transportation, Tumlin will decide which streets will get new restrictions. He must submit a written report showing how oversized vehicles parked on a given street negatively impact on circulation, public health or safety.
Previously, these overnight parking bans required SFMTA board approval and were subject to public input. Now, these decisions are entirely internal – left to Tumlin’s discretion based on information from city outreach teams like the department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) and the Healthy Streets Operation Center (HSOC).
New parking signs are required before enforcement
Once a street is designated for new parking rules, SFMTA staff will post temporary or permanent signs announcing the new overnight parking ban. They will also distribute informational flyers in relevant languages, such as Spanish, according to Weiss’ Oct. 1 proposal presentation.
After signs are posted, city staff will be able to approach people living in RVs with final housing offers, customized to meet individual needs and based on available resources, officials said at the Oct. 1 meeting.
Final shelter offers will be made by city staff
The policy directs HSH and HSOC to prioritize permanent housing when making shelter offers to RV residents, though temporary shelter may be offered instead.
At the Oct. 1 meeting, both advocates and city officials acknowledged that the permanent housing waitlist for families exceeded 500 applications. As of Nov. 1, HSH’s adult temporary shelter waitlist also includes more than 150 applications.
Due to shelter shortages and people’s different circumstances, not everyone parked in a restricted zone will be required to move out of their RVs right away. According to the policy, vehicle owners can request temporary permits, exemptions and disability accommodations to delay or avoid getting towed.
For instance, residents who accept housing or shelter offers from the city may be allowed to stay in their RVs until their shelter is secured without the risk of getting towed, Weiss said at the meeting. Additionally, residents who accept housing won’t be forced to get rid of their RVs, and can individually choose to sell or store them elsewhere.
What refusing final shelter offers looks like
Currently, there is no clear definition of what it looks like to refuse offers of shelter, nor is there a formal way for city workers to document rejected offers.
After city officials determine an RV resident has refused their offer for shelter, HSH or HSOC staff will record the RV’s license plate and provide descriptions of the residents to the SFMTA and the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) in preparation for towing, said Sam Dodge, director of the Department of Emergency Management’s Street Response Coordination.
How RVs will get towed
After a documented shelter refusal, city agencies, including police and SFMTA, will work together to tow RVs found in violation of overnight parking policies, said Dodge.
Towing will occur at night, when parking restrictions are in effect, SFMTA Media Relations spokesperson Michael Roccaforte told El Tecolote.
RV owners who sign up for SFMTA’s Text Before Tow program can receive a message if their vehicle is at risk of being towed, giving them a chance to move it before a tow truck arrives. However, owners would still need to pay for any citations associated with the parking violation.
People who move their RVs once a tow truck arrives would not get towed either, Roccaforte said.
What happens to RVs after towing
If an RV gets towed, it’s not necessarily lost forever. Owners will have a chance to get their RVs back from specialized tow yards. The first retrieval is free, and additional tows will result in a $104 fee, Dodge said.
People who live in broken-down vehicle homes are at more risk of permanently losing their shelter with this policy, as it is harder to move these vehicles across the city or out of the tow yards if they refuse the city’s offers.
“It’s not a solution”: Towing policy sparks controversy
Ahead of the Board’s 6-1 vote in favor of the policy, director Dominica Henderson said it was important for the policy to go forward, citing streets with “conditions that are just unlivable.”
“We have to clean it up and make sure that the streets are accessible to everybody,” she said.
In an effort to make sure the policy was “compassionate and holistic”, the board added a time limit to the resolution, set to expire in April 2026, and a requirement that the city collect data on enforcement activity and public safety challenges. This data will help the board decide whether to renew the policy in two years.
Still, some worry that the towing policy doesn’t address the underlying issues that lead people to live in RVs and could instead add more complications to their day-to-day lives.
The one dissenting vote came from Director Stephanie Cajina, who expressed concerns about the measure’s subjective enforcement and lack of transparency.
“This is a complex problem that’s difficult to solve and requires the collaboration and support of many agencies,” Cajina told El Tecolote. “None of what we talked about today will be an end solution to [homelessness], so we need to keep working with the community.”
The approved policy was met with tears and frustration from the crowd at the five-hour board meeting, which included RV residents, advocates, community members and aides speaking on behalf of district supervisors.
“This decision is clearly an attack to our most vulnerable communities, and it’s not a solution,” said Yessica Hernandez, an organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness. “It’s inhumane.”
RV resident Fernando Arreaga, who spoke during public comment, said he was concerned about some of the shelter options offered by the city as alternatives to living in an RV. For Arreaga, depending on temporary shelters would make it even harder to make ends meet – which is why he can’t afford to rent an apartment to begin with.
“What we need is a safe parking site,” Arreaga told El Tecolote. “Even if we need to pay a bit more… [temporary shelters] often have limited hours and we need a stable place that we can leave and come back to while we work.”