It’s a fine line that separates the homeless living on the streets in tents and under tarps with those a step above living in derelict RVs with no money to pay for a campground, for repairs to their RV, or even their vehicle’s license renewal fees.
Some communities are making a real effort to solve the problem, for example, St. Vincent de Paul of Sonoma County seeks to lend a hand to up to 50 Santa Rosa RV dwellers living in their vehicles, a number of them displaced by last year’s wildfires, reports the PressDemocrat.
Last week, executive director, Jack Tibbetts, brought the matter to his executive committee, which approved the use of up to $13,000 to help those living along Corporate Center Parkway.
That effort includes intensive outreach to connect people with homeless services, shelters, family support, and permanent or temporary housing, including RV parks or campgrounds, as well as monetary help with paying fees.
“We’re here to help people in order to keep them in compliance so that they don’t lose shelter and mobility,” said Michael Nesta, St. Vincent de Paul’s disaster relief case manager. Mobility is necessary in order for people to be employed, take their children to school, and in this case, to have a place to live while they’re in transition Nesta said.
And in Guerneville, CA, the intended sale of a campground has public officials and social service providers scrambling to find a way to ensure that 50 people who live there aren’t left out in the cold.
The auction of the Faerie Ring Campground, in foreclosure since earlier this year, failed to draw a successful offer.
“In my opinion, it would be a catastrophe if people were to be displaced from the Faerie Ring Campground,” Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said. “I really think that a lot of the folks that live there have no other choice, and I’m really concerned that some would be homeless.”
But some communities seem to take an opposite view on how to deal with the RVing homeless. City officials in Durango, Colorado, after closing the city’s only homeless camp on Friday, said they have no plans to provide overnight camping for the homeless.
Mayor Sweetie Marbury said the city is not in the business of having a homeless shelter.
So the question you might want to ask your community leaders is, where do you want them to go. You can’t just send them off to the next county and make it their problem, or take all their belongings and impound their RVs and expect them to just disappear. And the problem is getting worse. Not just in your community, but in communities across the nation as more RVs are being sold than there are affordable campsites to park them. Just read the comments on the news articles that are posted at RVTravel.com. It is time for solutions, not for sweeping the problem under the rug.
Relocate all of them to San Francisco. The homeless are breaking into cars now just to sleep in them and keep warm, not steal anything.
The folks living in the RVs are not homeless….
The RVs are their homes.
The only problem they have is they don’t have jobs or any income.
There is a shortage of manpower in this country right now…..more jobs than people willing to go to work.
These folks have only one problem.
They are lazy.
100% spot on! Those RV’s have wheels. (Fix them, and use them!) Hundreds of “jobs” available here in the Mid-West! LAZY deadbeats! Maybe the new owners of the CG would pay for tires, to get rid of them. It’s cheaper then a tow truck. I call these folks “professional takers”. I’m tired giving my hard EARNED money to these folks. If I ever needed money, I GOT A JOB!!!!!!
The homeless problem will never actually “go away” to suit the fortunate sons,and daughters, of America since social problems in this once great nation seem to be fertilized by the political atmosphere in “the swamp”. I recall as a youngster,I was homeless also,but..along came Vietnam and to me it was a roof and three squares.If people want to crawl out of the gutter,all it takes is will power.Another huge problem,just about everywhere,is the exorbitant rents that many cannot afford. When does the greed stop?
well, what happens with non-RV homeless? in most cases they provide “government housing” – is there room in that budget to devote to “government RV spaces/assistance”?
Good for Durango!
So where do you suggest they go? I was homeless for over 3 years – in a very old and broken down motorhome. Unless you have a magic wand that will suddenly solve the homeless problem, I suggest you use some of your obviously incredible brain to try and help – not just condemn like a moron!
Just curious John, how did you move up after the three years you were living in your “very old and broken down motorhome”? I know I don’t have a solution for this problem.
John – I don’t have a solution for the problem, and I do not “condemn like a moron!” Read my report again. But I do believe that those community leaders that are in a position to make changes, devote more effort toward a solution. Most present efforts fall short.
ditto