RV owners on Winston Drive, who have spent months under a looming July parking enforcement deadline, have a brief reprieve. But for the vehicle owners, who include working-class people who can’t afford the cost of living, the break will only last a few more weeks — and will end with no real plan for where they’re supposed to go.
City officials will place flyers on the vehicles later this month warning owners about the Aug. 1 deadline, said Jennifer Fieber, a legislative aide to Supervisor Myrna Melgar, whose District 7 is one of the last refuges for the RVs. Enforcement of the new four-hour parking rules has been pushed back due to a delay in repaving Winston Drive, she said. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s plan was first reported by Gazetteer SF in April.
“If a dweller accrues a lot of tickets there is a one time waiver program to have them excused,” Fieber said in an email. “Once the paving project begins, then they are risking towing on top of parking citations.”
In a city that’s increasingly too expensive for its daycare, restaurant, and other low-wage workers, Winston Drive, a stretch of Lake Merced Boulevard and a small part of the Parkmerced development, represents the last bastion for those who can afford to live in the relative security an RV presents.
RV owners have, over the years, and especially recently, been squeezed out of other neighborhoods, leaving fewer spots where they can park. Of course, RV owners aren’t the only targets of the parking enforcement push. Of the approximately 85 RVs in the area, people also live in dozens more vans and cars.
Sofia de Brazil, 48, parks her RV on Winston Drive, across the street from a fire station. Inside her tidy vehicle, she reveals photographs on her phone of the small children she teaches, feeds, and changes at a daycare in the City.
“I live here because I don’t have money,” de Brazil explained, in a combination of Portuguese, Spanish and English. She said she was aware of the looming August enforcement date. “I don’t know where I’ll go,” she said with a brave but sad smile.
In April, San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said it had moved 36 RV households into permanent housing, with 26 more enrolled in programs that could get them on a similar path. According to Fieber, the department, in June, assessed 27 more families in an attempt to enroll them in the agency’s programs.
The agency didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
SFMTA declined to comment for this story, directing Gazetteer to speak with Supervisor Melgar’s office.
Fieber also said the enforcement in August will apply to any street with the new four-hour parking restrictions, which would include the dozen or so RVs on Videl Drive in the nearby Parkmerced development.
But it’s unclear if it will also apply to the more than three dozen RVs and other vehicles parked along Lake Merced Boulevard, which has only a weekly street cleaning posted.
That’s where Jose was sweeping the steps of his RV late Tuesday. Declining to give his last name, and saying he was in his thirties, he said he was unaware of the coming restrictions but that the delay “is another month of life.”
He said $97 parking tickets are an unfortunate cost of living. “Sometimes you have to take a punch in the gut,” he said. “But he was also resigned to taking a bigger hit. “It’s not too long before I have to move out of here.”
