{"id":61219,"date":"2024-06-23T21:12:57","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T04:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/?p=61219"},"modified":"2025-06-12T00:05:32","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T07:05:32","slug":"winston-drive-rv-community-sf-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/en\/winston-drive-rv-community-sf-state\/","title":{"rendered":"RV community near SF State is uniquely Latinx \u2014 and getting pushed out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UPDATE: <\/strong>Displaced Winston Drive RV community hit with tickets, towing<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Francisco is ramping up efforts to remove the RV community<\/a> parked along Winston Drive near Lake Merced, a move that will displace more than a hundred people who are primarily Latinx workers and families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt really is distressing news,\u201d said Margot Sevilla, 27, who works in construction as a painter. Sevilla lives with her grandmother, two cousins and an uncle in a single RV. \u201cThey are going to remove us while we have nowhere to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After several attempts<\/a> to remove the RVs in the last few years, city officials put the community on notice to clear the area by July 2, ahead of a planned repavement project. Once construction is finished, SFMTA will enforce the 4-hour weekday parking limit posted along the street since April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a person who promised a space, a safe place for [RV residents],\u201d said Sevilla, citing a visit from District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar. \u201cAnd we haven’t really had any response.\u201d Protesting what RV residents consider a broken promise, Sevilla joined more than 40 residents and organizers on June 11 to temporarily block Winston Drive during a news conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Veronica Ca\u00f1as holds her one-year-old son during a rally protesting the city\u2019s failure to provide a safe parking site for Winston Drive\u2019s RV community in San Francisco, Calif., on June 11, 2024. Photo: Pablo Unzueta for El Tecolote\/CatchLight Local<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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In a statement<\/a>, District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar said that she has been working to establish safe parking sites for the RV community on the city\u2019s west side since 2020. With the city yet to identify a suitable site, she acknowledged that the search has \u201cfailed so far,\u201d attributing it to the city\u2019s \u201cbureaucratic hurdles and a seeming lack of prioritization.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir only \u2018crime\u2019 is being poor while living and working in a city extremely lacking in affordable housing options,\u201d said Melgar in the statement. \u201cNevertheless, use of the public right of way on Winston [Drive] for housing folks in vehicles has never been approved by the City government, and there are risks to both the people living in the vehicles and the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, dozens of families and workers have long depended on the fragile stability offered by Winston Drive\u2019s open streets, quiet neighborhood and bilingual, tight-knit community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe majority of [us] have small children,\u201d said Carmen Gonzalez, a recent immigrant from Honduras. \u201cHere we feel safer \u2026 If we go to another place, we don’t know if there will be danger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vehicular homelessness in San Francisco<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winston Drive is one of several streets<\/a> across San Francisco that have developed informal RV communities. According to the city\u2019s most recent Point-In-Time (PIT) count<\/a> of people experiencing homelessness, there are 13% fewer people sleeping on the street or in tents since 2022, but the number of people living in vehicles (not RVs exclusively) increased by 37% to nearly 1,500 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of RVs as shelter is not unique to San Francisco, with Los Angeles and other California cities also grappling with a spike of vehicular homelessness as the state struggles to address its housing shortage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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