San Francisco to close only safe parking site for homeless living in vehicles
SAN FRANCISCO – The City of San Francisco is set to close its only safe parking site for homeless people living out of their vehicles in early 2025.
The Bayview Vehicle Triage Center opened in January of 2022 and since then has run into numerous, costly, problems.
Now dozens of people who live there will have to find somewhere else to call home, and many don't know where they'll go.
"I have no clue," said Charles Rawls, who has lived in the parking lot for about a year. "I've been thinking about it. I don't want to do the street thing where you go from street to street, to street every night. It's crazy. You get no sleep."
Rawls was planning on being there temporarily, just until he was able to get his vehicle fixed, but it still hasn't happened.
He says he's not the only one who has been denied repairs.
"They haven't fixed anyone's vehicle who is in there," said Rawls. "It's supposed to be triage. We're supposed to bring our vehicles in here to get repaired and then we're out on our own. But it just sits there and gets worse. Then the rats get in them."
He says the experience has been tough.
"When I first got here we didn't have nothing," said Rawls. "It was crazy. They put all this money in it and now they say you're out of here in February. It's crazy."
"Horrible," said Aaron Wilson, describing his experience living in the lot since March "Day after day. Something torturous. Like a prison camp. Treated very unfairly. And we're the bad people because we alerted the authorities."
A budget analyst report in 2023 estimates the cost per vehicle at the site to be about $140,000 per year.
Despite that, city officials just managed to connect reliable power in October, nearly three years after opening.
New light poles were installed afterward, and in just a couple of weeks, stopped working. Wilson believes it's due to violent shaking during the storms. The lights have not been fixed.
Wilson says many of the people who live in the facility feel the city is closing the site partially because they have complained about the lack of basic necessities, like ADA-compliant bathrooms and other facilities.
"They like to retaliate if you tell on them," said Wilson. "If you're a snitch, you're the lowest common denominator and you'll pay for it.
CBS Bay Area was not allowed on the grounds, which has 24/7 security.
Wilson believes most of the people who live there are just trying to do the right thing.
"We're the good homeless people," he said. "We're here in the shelter like we're supposed to be. We're not out on the street causing trouble or defecating on the street."
Wilson doesn't have plans for what he will do if he's forced to leave.
Residents believe they will have to vacate the property by mid-February, but he's still hoping they can get more time.
"What I think would be a good thing would be a lawyer to step forward to give us a stay of execution on this because we're talking 60-70 days here that we all have to be gone," said Wilson. "it's just not enough time."
There are about 30 vehicles at the site.
The city says case managers will work with residents to repair vehicles or transition them to permanent housing or shelters. But Rawls doesn't think he would want to take it.
"I've seen their housing and no I wouldn't," said Rawls about possibly moving into a shelter or permanent housing.
Many residents say they are still in shock by the city's decision to close the site and they are trying to remain hopeful that they'll have somewhere safe to go.