Sheriff’s deputies have stopped enforcing a county ordinance that criminalized living in one’s car, following the repeal of a similar ordinance by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in June.
While Marin’s county counsel reviews the ruling and the statute’s language to consider possible revisions, a traveler whose head is drooping after a late night on the highway or a homeless person with no place else to go should technically be free to take refuge by cranking off their headlights and reclining the front seat.
The ordinance wasn’t enforced very often anyway, said Deputy Rich Johnson, a 30-year veteran of the force. “We get a few calls, not too many. Generally, we knock on the door and talk to them, tell them that there’s an ordinance and that there’s a campsite over here or a campground over there,” Mr. Johnson said. “I don’t remember myself writing a citation. Most people say, ‘I didn’t know there was a campground,’ or ‘I can’t afford it.’ I’ll usually just say, ‘So you know, here’s not a good spot.’”
Marin’s ordinance states, “No person shall use, occupy or permit the use or occupancy of any bus, camper, car, housecar, trailer, or trailer coach for human habitation on any street, park, parkway, beach or other public or private property except in areas zoned or designed for such purposes.” The law contains some exceptions for law enforcement purposes, disaster relief or in a private campground or mobile park, and habitation up to four hours is allowed. But violators could be found guilty of a misdemeanor and be subject to up to a $500 fine and a 60 days in county jail.
The Ninth Circuit ruling struck down a Los Angeles ordinance that prohibited using a car as living quarters and overturned a district court’s 2011 ruling. The three-judge panel unanimously concurred that the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague, unintelligible to the point that people of average intelligence wouldn’t know if they had broken a law. The opinion quoted from a 1970 Supreme Court opinion that overturned vagrancy laws, which formerly justified arrest for “wandering or strolling around from place to place without any lawful purpose or object,” “nightwalking,” “prowling by auto” or “generally opprobrious character.”
Because the illegal use of a vehicle is ill-defined, “plaintiffs are left guessing as to what behavior would subject them to citation and arrest by an officer,” wrote Judge Harry Pregerson, appointed to the bench by Jimmy Carter. “Is it illegal to keep a sleeping bag? Canned food? Books? What about speaking on a cell phone? Or staying in the car to get out of the rain? These are all actions plaintiffs were taking when arrested for violation of the ordinance, all of which are otherwise perfectly legal.”
He concluded: “For many homeless persons, their automobile may be their last major possession—the means by which they can look for work and seek social services. The City of Los Angeles has many options at its disposal to alleviate the plight and suffering of its homeless citizens. Selectively preventing the homeless and the poor from using their vehicles for activities many other citizens also conduct in their cars should not be one of those options.”
The ruling did not guarantee a right to sleep overnight in a car, since other laws like parking restrictions or disorderly-conduct statues still apply, but it did signal that those offenses could not be prosecuted under the umbrella of vehicle habitation. Like Marin County, Los Angeles is in the process of redrafting its ordinance.
During a single night, on Jan. 24, 2013, Marin’s Health and Human Services and other volunteers fanned out across the county for a point-in-time survey and identified 37 homeless individuals living in a car, van or other vehicle out of 924 homeless found. Those recent numbers fell from the nadir of the recession in 2011, when 60 out of 1,220 total lived in their vehicles.
Most of the calls deputies receive about vehicle inhabitants in West Marin happen when a mobile home is parked on a side street in Point Reyes Station or in a turnout in the San Geronimo Valley, Mr. Johnson said. When deputies arrive, most of the drivers move on. There’s rarely a trace by morning.
“Bolinas is kind of different,” he added. There, many vehicle inhabitants are local residents, not just people passing through. And some can be more of a nuisance, like a call that came in on Aug. 31 about a man who returned to his second home to find a mobile home parked in his driveway and hooked up to his electricity.
In response to concerns from residents, a committee in 2006 recommended deputies should enforce vehicle habitation laws throughout the year, particularly for campers on Wharf Road and Brighton Avenue, and a few signs went up: “No camping or overnight parking,” one sign in front of College of Marin’s laboratory reads.
Although Marin’s deputies aren’t writing tickets in the meantime, they’re still approaching some vehicle inhabitants. On Monday night a woman in Stinson Beach sat in her car for six hours, repeatedly entering and exiting. She said she was visiting friends but couldn’t remember their names when asked. Deputies asked her to move along, and she did.