When Seattle reinstated the 72-hour street parking limit, I immediately became concerned. I leave my car parked on the street for weeks on end because my garage is full of stuff! If the City got serious, I’d need to take out another mortgage to pay the fines.
But then all the news reports suggested that people living in RVs were the target cohort of this parking enforcement. Huh? Towing probably-disabled RVs that people were living in … wasn’t what I had in mind.
Weeks went by, and more stories of anti-homeless enforcement theater hit the news. In the meantime, my car stayed where it was on the street. No tickets. I left town for a week-and-a-half on vacation, and no one so much as drew a dick in the summer pollen that settled on my car, much less ticketed me.
This is bullshit. Targeting homeless people living in vans is the lowest of the low, especially when my neighbors and I get to park our cars on the street in our nice neighborhood, rent-free and without a care in the world.
If the Mayor’s administration gave half a rat's ass about addressing the roots of homelessness or even just upholding basic equity under the law, then he’d send the goddamn parking officers to the not-so-poor and not-so-diverse parts of town and give us some goddamn parking tickets.
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