"i don't need that kind of help"

Last week, the Los Angeles City Council approved a plan to establish a "safe overnight parking program" for people living  in RVs in Venice.

City Councilmember Bill Rosendahl secured more than $700,000 from city coffers to fund the "Streets to Homes" program, which will be modeled on similar efforts in Santa Barbara and Eugene, Oregon.

In the new "save overnight parking" program, outdoor cooking would not be allowed

Participants would be offered a safe, legal place to park overnight, along with various other amenities like restrooms, a place to dispose of garbage,  and a drain for septic tanks. These amenities, however, will come with a set of conditions: no drugs or alcohol, no outdoor grilling, and mandatory case management, with the goal of moving RV-dwellers into permanent housing.

Rosendal's office hopes the program will begin by the end of the year, around when the new ordinance against over-sized vehicles would take effect and police will be more easily able to remove RVs that park on residential streets. Participation is voluntary, and open to any Council District 11 residents living in their vehicles.

"Participants will benefit from case management, social services, housing assistants," reads one slide in a PowerPoint presentation Arturo Piña, Rosendahl's deputy for Venice, sent out about the program. "Non-participants will be subject to law enforcement action."

However, many of Venice's RV-dwellers express no interest in participating in the program.

"I don't need that kind of help," Antonio said, while sitting in his RV in the Rose lot. "I really dig this lifestyle. I'd like to be doing it a little better than I'm doing it right now. But the reason why I'm living here is not to be a working stiff. The idea of having to go to case management and try to move into an apartment doesn't sound appealing at all. If I wanted to live in an apartment, I'd be trying to do that already. Right now, Tina and I's goal is to get a converted bus."

Antonio mentioned Peter, who lives with his wife in an RV in the Rose lot, as an example of someone who's doing very well living in an RV. He makes buttons, which he sells on the boardwalk, and makes enough money to hire someone to sell the for him, so he can stay in the van and keep making them.

Tommy wasn't  inclined to participate in the program, either.

"I don't want to have to check in with somebody on how I'm doing," he said. "I'm busy, I work in the henna stand. It's like an outdoor shelter, and I think for a lot of people, it would be a good thing for them, but not for me. If it's an option for people, that's great, but not if it's forced. Then it's more like an internment camp, trying to round us all up in the same place."

One slide on the Council District 11 PowerPoint presentation reads, "Ultimate evaluation criteria will be reduction of vehicle on residential streets." It remains to be seen what will happen to the locals who continue to park their RVs on the streets.