By Artie Ojeda / 7SanDiego News / November 15, 2022
Two homeless mothers say they were forced to sleep outside in cold, damp weather with their young children after San Diego police towed their vehicles, which they had been using as shelter.
“I explained to them, ‘Please don’t take my vehicle. This is our only shelter.’ And they just didn’t care,” said Lisa, 54, who says she’s been homeless since August.
“I was so mad. I was so sad. I was heartbroken. I was frozen in fear,” said June, 41, who’s been homeless for the last year.
Lisa and her 10-year-old son met June and her 12-year-old son as the families were living out of their cars at Mariner’s Point in Mission Beach. They say they found safety and comfort by sticking close together.
Last Thursday, however, they say San Diego Police Department officers towed their vehicles and they were forced to gather their personal belongings without storage, and sleep outside in 40 to 50-degree weather.
The City of San Diego released the following statement to NBC 7
“The two vehicles that were towed both had expired registrations, one for more than two years and the other since February 2022. One of the vehicles was also displaying a false registration tab (a tab belonging to another vehicle’s registration), which is a misdemeanor offense and requires confiscation of the plates and towing of the vehicle.
The registered owners of the vehicles have previously received warnings and citations, as well as, information for the City’s Safe Parking Program. The officers also contacted SDPD’s Homeless Outreach Team, who responded to offer additional services to the owners.
In recent months, San Diego Police Department’s Northern Division has received numerous complaints regarding vehicles in the beach and bay communities for parking violations.
SDPD is tasked with enforcing vehicle code violations, regardless of housing status, for expired registrations, outstanding parking tickets, oversized vehicles, recreational vehicles, attached/unattached trailers, registration-related violations or parking during unauthorized hours, among others.”
The two mothers’ story was first publicized on a YouTube channel by ‘Glorious Life on Wheels.’
“There was no humanity whatsoever, no sympathy, no nothing. It was just straightforward, ‘This is our job, this is what we’re going to do,'” said Lisa.
For now, the homeless mothers and their children are staying at a motel, thanks to the help of local homeless advocates.
But both say they’re unsure of their future and likely will not have the money to get their vehicles back. A fundraising page has been established on their behalf.
“The city council has to make some type of ordinance that if a child is living in a vehicle, no matter what, leave those vehicles alone and let them have their shelter,” said Lisa.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
They were giving options and warnings, but did not heed them. The city did not do anything wrong or “inhumane” in this case.
So nice of you to extend your compassion.
Umm, I would’ve had compassion if they went to the shelter or safe lot and then were treated that way. Instead they ignored offers of help and chose to do multiple, illegal acts. I think the key word here is “choice”.
I know, I know. So many choices … should I stay outside in Mission Bay, or take a chance on the river habitat, or crowd around other tents, or head downtown?
Or go to the safe lots all around town.
That’s the problem with the media. Even the OB Rag. They pull on heartstrings rather that even handedly report.
The city provided resources and yet they find the people that ignore that and make a sob story out of them. How are we to ever solve any problem that way. People have to grow up and take some responsibility for themselves.
A rather strident response. So much to reply to, but so little time, so I’ll just skip it and display it for what it is.
Frank, please don’t take this any other way but as a sincere question. Given the situation and what outreach was already performed, what do you believe should’ve been done differently? Even those these two families are not necessarily the “norm”, how do you differentiate between them and the tweakers living on the streets throughout the neighborhood whose only contributions are trash, drug paraphernalia, threats, etc.?
Part of the problem is your very question. If the only things you see when you see houseless fellow humans are ” whose only contributions are trash, drug paraphernalia, threats, etc”, you need a reset. Are you religious or Christian? What would Jesus have done? Where’s your sense that, ‘for the grace of god, go I’? The way this city treats the houseless is shameful.
As of 2020, your state, California, had 161,000 unhoused people. Are they all tweakers, even the children?
Frank, I never stated that all homeless are those “whose only contributions are trash, drug paraphernalia, threats, etc.”. I did say that we do have those individuals/groups in our neighborhood, I’m assuming you are not disputing that.
I asked given the situation and that outreach was already performed, what do you believe should’ve been done differently?
We now have active duty Navy personnel that go through temporary periods sleeping in their cars.
This fits right in here.
I also read (elsewhere?) that 40% of the ‘homeless’ are working jobs that can’t pay the insanely ridiculous rents so they live in cars. I’m not sure that is in this article…
I may have posted this on some other RAG thread on this subject but just the first paragraph says so much so I’m going to paste it for those who may not want to look the article up:
Les Miserables, Living and Dying on American Streets
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/07/22/les-miserables-living-and-dying-on-american-streets/
Statistics lie. Some lie more than others. The ones regarding unemployment lie brazenly and have done so for years, erasing the very existence of the long-term unemployed by simply deleting them from the regular tally. Statistics about homelessness lie. But they have an excuse: the homeless are hard to keep track of. So we’re told that roughly half a million Americans have no home. But that statistic is belied by one from the National Center on Family Homelessness, which says 2.5 million children are now homeless each year in America. Add those two numbers together and you get three million homeless Americans. But even that statistic probably undercounts the number of people sleeping in tents, cars, subways, cheap hotels, on friends’ couches or just out on concrete under the stars. So estimate, conservatively, that one percent of Americans are homeless. That percentage only moves in one direction: up.
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Sub-zero here again last night. Predicted to ‘only’ be 11’F but under a blazing, bright star-filled sky in these mountains it always gets colder. Cold enough to freeze the battery in the thermometer so it turned off!
Back on this morning and it’s reading 12’F right now at nearly 10am, but the mercury one hanging on the woodshed dipped under zero very early this morning.
These are the times that make me remember a good wetsuit and paddling out at the Cliffs complaining about how cold it was…that is SO much warmer than this! But can you imagine what the homeless up here are dealing with? Even living in your car it can be deadly in these temperatures.
Is it any wonder that warmer environs is where houseless gravitate to? I would, and if I lose this property for some reason (always a possibility) you’d be seeing me ‘car camping’ in my hometown of OB somewhere…
sealintheSelkirks
“No humanity whatsoever”.
Humanity is a two way street. Give some to get some. Refuse outside help and refuse to help yourself, well…this is what happens.
There are a lot of resources and caring people out there, ya just gotta meet them half way.
Then get with it. As of 2020, your state, California, had 161,000 unhoused people.
Today’s (Sunday) U-T:
“San Diego police are towing thousands of cars a year that are disproportionately owned by poor people, and subsidizing the effort by as much as $2 million. An audit committee of the City Council wants that to change.”
No shit…
Did you think SDPD just drives around looking for poor people to hassle? Maybe they can go tow some BMWs to keep it balanced? No, they tow based on things like expired tags, calls, and abandoned vehicle situations, (and even that is a rare occurence.) Obviously people with less money are less likely to keep their tags and insurance current.
If you want to argue that vehicle registration would be free, I’ll support that, but let’s not pretend this some assault on the poor. I also heard N Out is discriminating against the poor because they charge for hamburgers. News at 11.
SDPD current response time for a 72-hr complaint is 2 months, and other parking complaints don’t get followed up on at all. If anything, the RV dwellers get a pass because of the difficulty in finding a willing tow operator.
It is plain and simple……kids were involved….if the cars had to be taken and they did not have another option and ride to a safe place to stay then the officers should have made arrangements to take cars at a later date until shelter was secured. Have a heart.
In general there really isn’t a solution to this as long as we live the ideology of living the ‘game’ of Monopoly in real life in its current, twisted form.
Capitalist neoliberalism with the rich always getting richer and the rest poorer? And how does that ‘game’ end up in real life? Just the same. We should have listened to Elizabeth Magie…
Monopoly Was Invented to Take on Capitalism
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/monopoly-was-invented-to-demonstrate-the-evils-of-capitalism
A friend way back when (1980s) had the original version of the board game Anti-Monopoly…
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There Is an Alternative: Social Housing in Vienna
https://portside.org/2022-11-19/there-alternative-social-housing-vienna
This stuck out at me:
“This means that owners of private apartments have to compete with the socialized sector and are thus limited in the rents they can charge. In other words, the rental market is not subject to the forces of the free market or the ideology of neoliberalism.”
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A new study says the housing market is largely to blame for Portland’s homeless crisis
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/new-study-housing-market-root-cause-homelessness
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And it’s been single digit temps at night for about the last ten days up here. We get a little snow and then the clear night sky makes it worse as we lose all the heat (daytime temps in the low-mid 30s) as soon as the sun sets.
And all of this is because of…greed and avarice. Big sigh.
sealintheSelkirks
At some point you have to enforce the law, or else nobody will respect it. We’re long past that unfortunately.
In this sort of case, it seems fair for the towing to occur during the hours a safe lot is open, and allow SDPD to actually tow them to that lot. Maybe then they would accept, despite whatever inconveniences. And if they refuse, then impound. I know there is an effort to open some 24/7 safe lots. The current ones seem unnecessarily restrictive and people are choosing to play their odds camping curbside instead.
Who one might blame for that is irrelevant, all that matters is it isn’t working.
Jewish Family Services offers the Safe Parking Program for folks!
https://www.jfssd.org/our-services/adults-families/safe-parking-program/
Where are the fathers for these kids or other family members?
Check out what the fine group of vagabonds have done to one of our community members
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-news/caught-on-camera-ocean-beach-man-attacked-by-group-of-homeless-people
Our stores, restaurants, neighborhoods are supposed to tolerate this sh_t?
And where are the fathers of those kids? Good question and one we’ll never know.
The economic realities of this neoliberal Capitalist country has shown in study after study that it is a major factor in divorces. If nothing else, due to the stress of working crap jobs for wages that can’t afford anything, and the stress of it all starts major arguments between the parents that breaks them up. A longtime friend of mine has been placing and monitoring kids in foster care for years for the state (Utah) and she said the majority of broken families was because there wasn’t ‘enough’ money coming in. The number one cause of all family arguments. She had a caseload of over 80 kids to monitor. She was overwhelmed.
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As for the street fight… You mean that there are nasty people among the houseless, homeless, and ‘vagabonds’ (a word I haven’t heard in decades)? Why is that a surprise?
These kinds of violent angry outburst people are in all walks of life. They even get to become Presidents (read up on Nixon’s drunken rampages and wife beating)! Haven’t you ever looked up the enormous number of cell phone vids of cops doing exactly the same thing for absolutely no reason other than they wanted to? Too many to count…but these people will probably get busted unlike the extreme majority of violent cop attacks that go unpunished.
We live in a technological modern and very crowded society with far too many stress that are, unfortunately, still controlled by Cro-Magnon man emotional state. And we have a slightly smaller brain even! Evolution is so slow that we are still grabbing the spear and charging the saber-tooth tiger… We trigger very very easily when we feel threatened even if it is unwarranted.
Actually, I would be curious to hear and see a recording of what actually transpired before this video was taken… What triggered this attack? There had to be something that flipped the switch on those people.
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Back to the topic of this thread:
Another link:
vid published mid-2022?
Renters In America Are Running Out Of Options
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTxzCe490Q
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Anybody think it will get better somehow? I’m quite doubtful at this point.
sealintheSelkirks
Here’s another side of being houseless that not many people know about.
Robot Landlords Are Buying Up Houses
Companies with deep resources are outsourcing management to apps and algorithms, putting home ownership further out of reach.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7eaw/robot-landlords-are-buying-up-houses
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This is the link to the UC Berkeley study on it from a couple years ago. It’s all about ‘financial accumulation’ by Wall St. of homes. To me this is really scary because they cause the crashes that let them buy up people’s home for nothing and then turn around to rent them back, bundle the rents, and doesn’t this all sound familiar as in 2007/2008 crash?
https://escholarship.org/content/qt4726g4vc/qt4726g4vc.pdf?t=pysov2
sealintheSelkirks