New safe-parking site for RVs opens in San Jose with eased entry restrictions
Like a number of Bay Area communities, San Jose is experimenting with safe RV parking sites as a way to get homeless residents off city streets.
But as they opened their second facility on Monday, it came with some realistic lessons learned about the people they're trying to serve.
It's estimated that there are more than 800 RVs on the streets of San Jose that people call home. Debbie Ringo was one of them, and she got sick of all the chaos.
"We had a lot of people messing with our car," she said. "Our car got broken into twice in Gilroy and then it got broken into twice in San Jose."
But then she was accepted to move into the city's Santa Teresa RV camping site.
"It's safe parking, so nobody messes with you here," she said.
The Santa Teresa facility opened about 18 months ago and stayed pretty empty for a long time because the operator requires that all RVs be operational, insured and currently registered. Ringo was lucky.
Her vehicle met the requirements, but a lot of RVs on the street simply don't fit that description. But now, the city's newest facility will be doing things a bit differently.
"So, people can come in and not have insurance and/or registration," said well-known homeless advocate Gail Osmer. "Makes it much easier. Much easier to get in. Because it's so expensive to begin with."
As she walked through the new site on Berryessa Road, Osmer was simply thrilled.
"It's just beautiful," she said. "There's trees. And the parking spaces, look at how big they are. They're huge!"
The new lot is being operated by a nonprofit called "We Hope." They just let the first few residents in on Monday and said they plan to admit five new RVs per day until all 85 spaces are filled.
There will still be rules, but Councilmember David Cohen, who pushed for the new facility, said the requirements shouldn't eliminate the people who are most in need.
"Having a completely uncontrolled environment where people are on the streets is very different than having a controlled environment, with rules, on a site," said Cohen. "And so, we hope it will be a low-barrier site so that people will have an incentive to move there rather than be living on the streets of our city."
Osmer said the new site will try to help the RV owners to get registered and insured after they're inside. And she said they will even allow some nonoperational vehicles to be towed into the space.
"When Santa Teresa opened, it took a long time (to fill). It was absolutely ridiculous," said Osmer. "There should be a lot of lessons learned from the other place, I'm sorry. But the people, 'We Hope,' that are running this — It's going to be fabulous. I think it's going to affect a lot of people. A lot of people want to get in here."
It's two different spaces, both with the same goal, but serving very different clientele. It turns out that, even among the homeless, there are the haves and the have-nots.
