{"id":63805,"date":"2024-12-26T14:51:57","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T22:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/?p=63805"},"modified":"2025-06-12T00:05:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T07:05:18","slug":"san-francisco-rv-towing-policy-overturned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eltecolote.org\/content\/en\/san-francisco-rv-towing-policy-overturned\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Board of Supervisors overturns controversial RV towing policy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

San Francisco\u2019s Board of Supervisors voted 7-3 on December 10 to overturn the city\u2019s overnight towing policy, delivering a significant victory for RV residents<\/a> and advocates fighting escalating crackdowns on vehicles used as shelter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rescinded policy, proposed by Mayor London Breed and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), gave SFMTA\u2019s director unilateral authority to impose overnight parking bans for RVs and other oversized vehicles without community input. It also permitted city agencies to tow RVs parked on streets with existing bans if residents declined shelter offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SFMTA argued the policy was a necessary \u201ctool of last resort<\/a>\u201d to keep city streets clean and accessible, but critics said it lacked transparency and unfairly targeted vulnerable families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Approved by the SFMTA\u2019s Board of Directors on Oct. 1, the policy was set to take effect on Nov. 1. However, an appeal filed by the End Poverty Tows Coalition on Oct. 29 delayed its implementation until the city\u2019s Board of Supervisors reviewed it on December 10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the policy overturned, SFMTA\u2019s ability to clear RV communities from streets remains limited. Enforcement is restricted to issuing citations for parking infractions, including expired registration and breaking parking rules. Towing is restricted to emergencies or cases of blocked circulation, and it requires police intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the SFMTA wants to create new overnight parking bans on specific streets, it must seek board approval and go through public comment \u2014 a process that has become increasingly politically fraught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year of RV crackdowns and displacement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vote comes amid San Francisco\u2019s rise of vehicular homelessness. According to the city\u2019s most recent Point-In-Time Count, more than 1,400 people live in vehicles in San Francisco \u2014 an increase of 37% since 2022. The RV population includes over 117 families, many of them Latinx, including newcomers from Latin America and established immigrants who turned to living in their vehicles after struggling with the city\u2019s high cost of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RV communities began forming<\/a> during the pandemic, after the SFMTA issued a temporary suspension<\/a> of parking tickets and a moratorium on towing vehicles for non-emergency reasons. When enforcement<\/a> resumed in 2021, complaints from neighbors and business owners pressured the SFMTA to remove these new RVs from nearby streets, often turning these communities into political battlegrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, the SFMTA\u2019s efforts to remove RV communities became more difficult when the First District Court of Appeal ruled<\/a> in favor of an End Poverty Tows Coalition lawsuit, stating that SFMTA\u2019s practice of towing legally parked cars for unpaid parking tickets was a \u201csignificant intrusion on property rights that may seriously impact the lives of the owners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this obstacle, the SFMTA leveraged existing parking codes and construction projects to displace several RV communities on a street-by-street basis. In the past year, El Tecolote<\/em> documented some of these efforts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n