The Straits Times:
Programs like Safe Parking LA are gaining in popularity as authorities seek interim solutions. "If you spoke to me a couple years ago and told me that I would be in this situation, I probably would have laughed at you," said Jones. "I thought I was living the American Dream."
NATIONSWELL:
CALIFORNIA IS LEADING THE WAY IN IMPLEMENTING SAFE PARKING PROGRAMS, WHICH COULD POTENTIALLY EASE THE HOUSING BURDEN AT HOMELESS SHELTERS NATIONWIDE.
HeraldNet:
The Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church provides a “safe parking lot” for up to 10 cars each night behind the church. (Lizz Giordano / The Herald)
The spaces aim to provide a more secure environment for people who are sleeping in their cars.
It's a chilly winter evening in Los Angeles as Cameron Jones maneuvers his white sports car into an open-air parking lot and picks a secluded spot where he can recline his seat and call it a night.
The Hollywood Reporters:
In response to exorbitant rents, many assistants, craftspeople and working actors are adopting a transient lifestyle, some by choice, some less so: "It's hard for me to say this because I don't think of myself as in need of help, but right now I need help."
Bloomberg Businessweek published an article about homeless crisis in LA. The article featured Safe Parking LA services for the homeless vehicle dwellers.
L., who asked to go by her middle initial for fear of losing her job, couldn’t afford her apartment earlier this year after failing to cobble together enough teaching assignments at two community colleges. By July she’d exhausted her savings and turned to a local nonprofit called Safe Parking L.A., which outfits a handful of lots around the city with security guards, port-a-potties, Wi-Fi, and solar-powered electrical chargers. Sleeping in her car would allow her to save for a deposit on an apartment. On that night in late September, under basketball hoops owned by an Episcopal church in Koreatown, she was one of 16 people in 12 vehicles. Ten of them were female, two were children, and half were employed.
Read Bloomberg’s full coverage:
A toxic combination of slow wage growth and skyrocketing rents has put housing out of reach for a greater number of people.
The Chief Legislative Analyst released a recommendation to adopt the Blumenfield-Krekorian resolution to support Safe Parking programs. The resolution would require the Department of Motor Vehicles to provide supplemental services to Safe Parking programs. Read about the resolution here.
From "Slate Magazine": Living Behind the Wheel. As housing costs soar in major cities, more Americans are living behind the wheel. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development doesn’t collect national data on vehicle residency, but unsheltered homelessness—a category that includes people sleeping in vehicles—is on the rise.
