America's big cities are increasingly home to people living in their cars

Cory Doctorow 5:50 am Sun Aug 5, 2018

In King County (which encompasses Seattle), the number of people living in their cars surged by 46% in the past year; and other big cities are catching up: LA, San Francisco, Portland, etc.

But don't worry, the cities have an excellent policy vehicle (ahem) for dealing with this problem: they make it a fineable misdemeanor to sleep in your car, then, when you can't pay the fines, they impound the car! Mission accomplished!

"Much like outdoor camping and sleeping bans, city-wide restrictions on living in vehicles may leave no lawful place where homeless people may live in a community," NLCHP said in a recent report. "Bans that permit vehicle impoundment, or that result in impoundment flowing from unpaid tickets or other enforcement of such bans, can cause homeless people to lose their shelter, transportation, and personal belongings in one fell swoop – with no realistic option to retrieve or replace them."

More Americans are forced to "reside" in their vehicles [Jonathan Berr/CBS]

(via /.)

(Image: Don Hankins, CC-BY)

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