A Tale of Two Crises – Homeless Living in Cars vs. Out-of-Control Scooters

This is a tale – albeit a brief one – of two crises – homeless people living in cars in well-off residential areas and what some believe are the out-of-control dockless scooters.

This tale is about how these two parallel crises which have hit our fair city at roughly the same time and how they both are being handled and resolved by our earnest San Diego political leaders. Now whether these twin events are actual “crises” may be debated by history, but they certainly both are urgent matters of concern at least to some.

It was just this past February when the San Diego City Council overturned the local ordinance that banned sleeping in vehicles, a law on the books since 1983, but ruled unconstitutional by a Federal Judge last year.

And ever since, the Mayor’s Office and other city council offices – plus the local media – have been inundated with hundreds of calls from irate well-heeled residents – who also vote – about homeless people living in vans and leaving their messes on their residential streets. Just about every TV station had a report about these complaints.

In response, Mayor Faulconer held a news conference on March 25, flanked by Councilwoman Jen Campbell and local coastal leaders, to announce his proposal to return the ban on life in cars – and to expand the safe lots program.

And in fact, Faulconer’s proposal is scheduled for the next legislative step, a hearing on the committee-level before it heads to the full Council. It goes to the City Council’s Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee meeting on April 17. Local groups are already giving input into the proposals. For instance, the OB Planning Board did just that at their most recent meeting last week.

Now, contrast how this crisis was handled with the crisis of out-of-control scooters.

Complaints about the scooters have been mounting for months – since well back into 2018; people complained how they were taking over the sidewalks and public spaces, with helmet-less riders crashing into pedestrians. ER doctors raised strident warnings and implicitly urged a government response as the numbers of scooter-caused injuries soared at local hospitals. (The OB Rag made scooters one of the top 15 stories of 2018.) We began documenting the “scooter wars”, the rise of injuries, the first fatalities and our own encouragement for the City to take on regulations similar to LA’s.

In mid-February, Faulconer rolled out his “new and improved” set of proposals for the scooters, yet many felt they didn’t go far enough in actually limiting the absolute numbers of scooters and the number of scooter companies who can operate in San Diego. His proposals did go before a Council committee on February 20.

But wait. Nothing has happened to our eyes since. It still sits in limbo. No date has been scheduled for a full City Council debate as of this writing (this was confirmed by Campbell’s office yesterday.)

So, why the disparity in how these issues were treated?

On one hand, within a month, Faulconer was scrambling to deal with the out-of-control homeless people living in their vans and less than a month after that was scheduled to go to the appropriate committee. And it will undoubtedly fly to the agenda of the full Council soon after that.

On the other hand, the scooters have been sitting around for 6 weeks without a set hearing.

The scooters have only been an obvious problem since last summer, the summer of 2018, when a whole bunch of companies just dumped thousands of their machines on our streets and sidewalks. Complaints began bubbling up then.

Both issues were of immediate concern. The homeless people were leaving their messes, people’s property values were plummeting by the second, view corridors were being destroyed. And the local Republican mayor jumped. Who on the Council now would oppose bringing back the ban on living in cars? No one.

Whereas, with the scooters, the only injuries were with the numbers of people heading to the emergency rooms. And many of them were probably out-of-town visitors from Arizona who don’t obviously vote here. The U-T had reported “Tourists received more scooter tickets than residents of San Diego. The data show they received two out of every three citations with people from Phoenix and Scottsdale, Ariz., alone, getting more than 80 tickets.”

Plus, the City Council is split on the scooter issue. Last year, a couple of councilwomen tried to have them banned from the Mission Beach boardwalk – but it was unsuccessful and failed to garner the votes of most Republicans on Council.

This is perhaps the biggest difference between these two “crises”. There is government unanimity on getting the homeless out of their cars and back on the streets and doorways. There is a no consensus on how to deal with the scooters – yet.

You can’t get away from the disparity, however. One issue jumped to the forefront, helped by nightly stories on TV, and within 2 months was set to be heard by committee.

The other issue, the scooters, has been a long-simmering problem, on the backburner for much of the past year.

Some of the obvious differences could be the reason for the disparity. The government is split on one and united on the other. One involves people who live in upscale neighborhoods who vote. The other involves literally only handfuls of people injured, many of whom probably don’t vote here.

Another reason, maybe, is one involves profit-making by capitalist scooter companies overseen by a laizzer-faire capitalist mayor. Our mayor would hate to rein in freewheeling businesses and get an anti-business reputation. He’s bound to run for something.

The other doesn’t involve money making at all. Only property values and campaign contributions.

There it is – the tale of two crises, a continuing saga.