Opinion: Renting out RVs to homeless people is not a solution — not even a temporary one

To the editor: Your editorial criticizing my motion currently before the Los Angeles City Council to ban the renting of vehicles as dwelling units on public streets is misguided. (“Living in an RV isn’t ideal, but a crackdown is cruel,” editorial, Dec. 4)

Allowing this particular activity to continue is to condone a predatory practice in which unscrupulous actors use public amenities to exploit a vulnerable population. The city would be complicit in further entrenching the growing problem of unsafe, unsanitary vehicles crowding the public right-of-way and ruining neighborhoods — only now there would be a profit motive.

While creative solutions are needed to increase housing options, the homelessness crisis should not be wielded as an excuse to permit bad actors to run amok with unlicensed businesses on public property. Rather, we need services providing pathways off the street paired with aggressive enforcement of codes to protect and maintain the health and public safety of communities.

Mitchell Englander, Los Angeles

The writer is the Los Angeles City Councilman representing District 12.

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To the editor: Last April I sent an email to Englander’s office in which I advocated providing safe parking for homeless RV and camper dwellers with support of social services as an economical way to deal with this area of homelessness.

I received a reply that similar programs are being discussed within the city and that they take the matter seriously.

What happened?

Carol May, North Hills

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To the editor: Should the city and county not sufficiently“crack down” on motor homes with people living in them parked on public streets, parking on those streets for the people who do not live in their vehicles would get a lot worse.

Because living in a motor home parked on a public street costs only a small fraction of renting or buying a home, surely there are countless people in the Los Angeles area who, if there were not significant penalties for doing so, would live in a parked motor home.

Picture a quiet public street with 20 houses on it and large motor homes in front of 10 of them. Parking would be a problem.

Gene Pomerantz, Marina del Rey

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