From Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity
On Election Day 2020, 57 percent of voters in Mountain View, Calif., passed a ballot measure to address what many housed in the Silicon Valley town viewed as a growing civic issue: people living in RVs. A street count from July 2020 found 191 recreational vehicles [RVs] parked on city streets, with 68 parked in an approved city-run lot. With the measure’s approval, city staff could ban most RV residents from remaining in Mountain View via “no parking” signs. Nearly a year later, the measure’s future is unknown; soon after voters approved the ban, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California and the Law Foundation of the Silicon Valley filed a class action suit against the city, arguing it was discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Though the lawsuit is ongoing, city workers started installing “no oversize parking” signs on nearly all of the city’s streets in August, at a cost of $1 million, severely limiting places where recreational vehicle residents could park in Mountain View. It is just one city among dozens taking action to remove RVs and those who live in them through such bans.
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