“City leadership decided to crack down on parking laws. After 72 hours, the long-term residents of the RVs face being ticketed or towed.”
In an ongoing story in the Bay Area, the town of Palo Alto has seen a rising number of people living in RVs. The rising housing prices have made it difficult to find affordable places close to their work. Showing the kind of wisdom and foresight that makes California a punch line among conservatives, the local politicians refuse to admit there is a housing crisis, voters rejected an initiative to build affordable housing, and the city is now vigorously enforcing parking laws that leave few spaces for the semi-homeless to park their RVs.
The underlying issue remains the same regardless of the hot air and drama surrounding the plight of RV parkers. Simple economics dictate that when supply is limited and demand increases, the price of the item goes up. Palo Alto has enough room for three more cities of its size on the other side of the interstate. But that land is tied up in various parks and restricted use areas. The limited supply drives up the price of houses across the state, but especially in areas of high population such as the Bay Area. The final result is million dollar homes that are little more than small 1950s-era bungalows.
There are very few jobs that provide an income that can purchase such expensive homes. Many workers have to go heavily in debt to pay for a home that takes up most of their income, live extremely far away and commute over an hour or more (on some of the worst maintained roads in the country), pay $1400 dollars a month to live in a closet, or live in their RVs.
California is a big state, and it can preserve its natural beauty without restricting the market to the point that it makes hard-working Americans homeless. When the free market is allowed to work, it brings the cost of a product down while increasing its quality. In this case, construction would experience an explosion of activity until the supply meets demand.
Instead of taking efforts on at least a city-wide basis to increase the available supply, voters rejected an offer to create affordable housing. Those housing options would have filled immediately and had a waiting list a mile long, yet it would have at least made it look like those in their million dollar McMansions cared about their neighbors priced out of the market.
But showing a coldness that Republicans are consistently accused of, the city leadership decided to crack down on parking laws. After 72 hours, the long-term residents of the RVs face being ticketed or towed. This makes them enter into a cat and mouse game of trying to find areas close to their jobs where they won’t be ticketed.
It’s tough enough that hard-working individuals can’t find a place to live within their budget. But it adds insult to injury when city leaders refuse to acknowledge the problem and instead decide to sic the police on them. This should be an outrage, but California voters and the politicians they elect are so clueless they will continue to ignore the root problems behind the issues they face.
