No Place to Park
How the search for stability can make it difficult for vehicle dwellers to move forward
By Maria Toldi | April 25, 2026
Leyla Williams no longer experiences time in days or weeks. Rather, it is measured in the hours between moving her trailer.
Leyla has been living in her trailer in Richmond, California for four years. In the past year, the longest she's stayed in one spot is a month — but usually, it's much less. Recently, it's been one day at a time. “I've had to forcibly move for like, three days in a row, every day, it's exhausting.” She said “It's draining. It takes the life out of you.”
Legally, every 72-hours, anyone with a vehicle on public property in Richmond has to find a new place to park to abide by the California Vehicle Code (CVC) and the Richmond Municipal Code (RMC). For those who live in their vehicles, the RMC has another provision that restricts sleeping or storing personal belongings in a vehicle: Unhoused people may not park for longer than 72 hours in any three-month period within city limits, “except upon a showing of necessity” (RMC 11.96.050) — a vague modifier that is difficult to understand in practice.
On the street, the parking window is often far shorter. Neighbors complain, Parking Enforcement stops by to “red tag” an inhabited car, and vehicle dwellers like Leyla move. “No matter where we go, you know, it doesn't take long before the cops will come,” she said. Those living in vehicles find themselves in a seemingly impossible situation: without enough affordable housing or shelter beds to accommodate them, there are fewer and fewer places they're allowed to stay.
“No matter where we go, you know, it doesn’t take long before the cops will come.”
The rise in vehicle homelessness is not unique to Richmond. Across California, more and more people are living in vehicles, which tend to offer more protection and privacy than being exposed on the street. And, a secondhand RV or trailer can be bought for cheap. Those same realities make vehicular homelessness difficult for cities to address — people are reluctant to give up the relative stability of their vehicle home for a temporary, congregate shelter that lets them store only so much stuff. At the same time, constituents are calling on their cities to do more about encampments. One Richmond city official said, “we get calls and complaints and concerns about encampments all the time from residents, from other folks, from other jurisdictions.”
Leyla has been trying to get into permanent housing for a long time now. More than anything, she wants a stable place for her daughter to stay when she’s in town. She has not qualified for a bed in any of Richmond’s transitional housing programs, which are often reserved for residents of the specific encampments the city is most focused on closing. Leyla has not lived in any of the targeted communities, making her ineligible. Instead, she has tried to secure housing on her own, more than once. However, the instability of living in a vehicle often gets in the way.
Recently, Leyla had two interviews for a job as a driver for elderly people. She really wanted the job, but she decided not to follow through with it. “I didn't feel that I was prepared to commit myself to such an important job. I can't commit to full time,” she said, explaining she couldn’t be away from her trailer that long. “They can tow you anytime, they don't have to give you any notice.”
Vehicles without proper registration can technically be towed at any point. And, 72 hours after being “red-tagged” vehicles will be towed if they are not moved at least a mile. Getting towed can be the first step in a downward spiral. The cost of getting an RV out of impound can easily exceed $1,000. Things can get even worse when vehicles don’t have license plates, pass smog checks, or have proper registration. If a vehicle is not retrieved in around 30 days, it is gone for good: the car will be claimed by the impound lot and sold.
A safe place to park makes all the difference, and in 2021, Richmond came close to creating one. The city proposed a Safe RV Parking pilot program, funded by a $260,000 grant from Contra Costa County and $300,000 from its own affordable housing program. The plan would have provided designated parking, security, restrooms, and access to services for a year. But finding a location proved contentious among potential neighbors, and after much back-and-forth, the City Council canceled the pilot entirely. With the money allotted for the program they formed a committee to develop a longer-term plan for transitioning people in vehicles out of some of their biggest encampments, at Castro Street and Rydin Road.
In the meantime, vehicle dwellers don’t always receive offers of shelter. Richmond’s local camping ordinance (RMC 11.96.030) obliges the City to make shelter referrals before encampment closures. But according to the city’s laws, vehicles are exempt from the shelter requirement.
Crime Prevention Manager Michelle Milam says the idea is to make offers to everyone, including those who live in vehicles. “I think what we've done is tried to follow the spirit of the camping ordinance for vehicles to give people the opportunity to be offered services,” she said.
When shelter is offered, oftentimes people like Leyla feel that its rules and restrictions cost more than they offer. “I can't go to a shelter,” Leyla says. “I have four cats and two dogs in my trailer with me.” And vehicle dwellers are often confused about what the law is and what's actually happening in practice. This has been one of Leyla’s biggest frustrations. “Look, I'm homeless. I'm living in my RV… I want to see what my rights are,” she said. As a result, Leyla is relocating whenever a red tag appears, not because she understands what it signals legally, but because she knows a tow truck usually follows.
Leyla’s friend and coworker, Honey Black, knows this better than most. For most of her five years in Richmond, she lived in her trailer — until last November, when it was towed along with her van. “It was everything, all my jewelry, all my electronics, my boyfriend’s mother’s jacket,” she said. Because her trailer had no license plate, Honey was unable to retrieve any of her belongings, even though the van it was attached to did have a license plate.
Her car, which she was able to get back with help from her employer, SOS Richmond, became her primary home. Then, in March 2026, Honey heard from a housing coordinator from Hope Solutions, a Contra Costa nonprofit that places unhoused individuals into permanent housing with wraparound services.
“I got a phone call out of the blue after work,” she recalled. At the time she was living at one of the encampment communities the city was trying to close. This made her eligible for a room at a transitional housing program in a motel. “We did a phone interview right there…. I had to sign a couple of papers, and then next thing you know, I was moving my things into the motel.”
Honey was worried about living at the program — she had been scarred by experiences living in other types of shelter, and worried about how it might impact her mental health. But her good luck continued: She was only in the motel for only a few days before the program found her a permanent housing placement — a process that often takes months or years.
Honey has some problems with her new housing, but for the most part, she enjoys living there. “It's good, better than having to move a trailer. Because moving a trailer is stressful. Having no bathroom is stressful. No running water, no electricity, it's all stressful,” she said. “Maybe that's why I have so much gray hairs!” she joked.
But Honey knows her situation was unusual. Countless others, like Leyla, remain locked in the cycle of moving their vehicles, weighing the prospect of getting towed against potential opportunities that might help them make progress in their lives.
These days, Leyla says she is constantly listening for the tow truck — every barking dog and every large truck slowing to a stop. "I listen for the tow truck thing dropping," she said. "It really just consumes my mind sometimes."
Maria Toldi is a journalist living in San Francisco.