SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Being in an RV doesn't always mean someone is on a vacation.
"We got evicted. I actually lost my housing,” Jessica, a woman living in an RV in Mission Bay with her family, told ABC 10News. "We're not here because we want to bother anybody. We're just somewhere safe for me to be with my kids."
There are plenty of people like Jessica who are staying in their RVs in Mission Bay at the moment.
"We receive hundreds and hundreds of complaints from residents who feel like, and it's true, they've seen motor homes that literally haven't moved there in month after month after month," Captain Steve Shebloski with San Diego Police Department’s Neighborhood Policing Division said.
Some like Sarah Bonesteel aren't happy with the amount of mobile homes there.
"Mission Bay Drive was just bombarded with them,” Bonesteel said. "It was all up and down both sides of the street. The biggest problems are the trash. The fact that they don't have anywhere to use the bathroom."
Shagwheil Bullock, who has his RV parked on Mission Bay Drive, has seen it too.
"There are some RVers that just took advantage of it and leave out their trash, and it kind of made the rest of us look bad,” Bullock said.
The San Diego Police Department is cracking down on overnight RV parking in these beach areas.
"Starting July 1st, we started enforcement for different parking violations that occurring, and one of them specifically being the oversized vehicle ordinance,” Shebloski said.
The ordinance restricts RVs from parking in the beach areas from 2 to 6 am, considering that there's space available at the City's H Barracks safe parking lot, in compliance with recent legal settlements.
From July 1 to July 21, Shebloski told ABC 10News the Department has issued 158 citations for those violating that ordinance.
"We don't write any tickets for that without at least a reasonable attempt to contact someone and then offer them an opportunity to go to safe parking,” Shebloski said.
Shebloski also said that there have been 324 citations for other parking violations, such as violation of posted signs, expired registration, fire lane, red zone, handicap parking, etc.
He says 45 people referred to the safe parking lot program.
"It's about education and enforcement. They both go together. So we want to continue to educate the public, whether it's through the media, whether it's just officers interacting with folks. These are the laws,” Shebloski said. “We don't want to give out citations. But there is a certain segment of folks that, for one reason or another, we're going to refuse that, and those folks are going to be subject to enforcement, and that's with any law that we do."
Shebloski did told ABC 10News there are a lot of people parking overnight in these areas that aren’t homeless, who happen to be from out of town.
Jessica stated officers had given her citations as her family is staying out of their RV.
"I make sure I come out, and I talk to them. I say, hey, this is our situation. I'm not here for no reason,” Jessica said.
But she also said it's easier said than done to move to safe parking.
“I literally can't afford to move. I can probably get stuck somewhere, you know, and that's why I can't move. It's not because I don't want to. , The parking situation is unreasonable for me and our life,” Jessica told ABC 10News.
