Editorial of May 8, 2025

Are Vehicles the New Housing?

A bill authored by Democratic Assemblymember Corey Jackson currently under consideration by the California Assembly, if passed, would allow college students to live in their vehicles because they can’t find affordable housing. Roughly three out of five of the state’s community college students are housing insecure, according to a survey conducted in 2023 by the Community College League of California—one in four experiences homelessness.

California Assembly Bill 90 (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB90) would require community college districts “to adopt a plan to offer an overnight parking program to eligible students, as defined, and would require the plan to be developed in consultation with basic needs coordinators and campus security, as specified. The bill would require the plan to include, among other things, a procedure for issuing an overnight parking permit. The bill would impose duties on basic needs coordinators related to the community college programs, including when acceptance of applications from eligible students would begin.”

According to a “Newsweek” article published April 26, the bill requires community college districts to adopt plans by September 2026, with a vote on implementation to follow by December 2026. California State University campuses, upon legislative approval, would implement similar programs.

A report issued in September 2022 by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, titled “How Communities Are Responding to Vehicular Homelessness,” points out that communities are seeing an increase in “visible vehicular homelessness” as housing prices continue to rise in many of the nation’s cities. Vehicular homelessness is defined as “people residing in passenger vehicles, including cars and vans.” If recreational vehicles and campers are in disrepair, lack access to utilities or are parked in non-designated locations, this applies to them as well. The report says people sleeping in vehicles are considered to be experiencing unsheltered homelessness by HUD.

The causes of vehicular homelessness are varied and can include job loss or eviction, seasonal employment, inability to afford or secure rental housing, and displacement from natural disasters, the latter two of which are most prevalent.

The ICH report points out that although cities on the West Coast probably have the largest and most visible numbers—people living in vehicles in Los Angeles as of 2020 represented almost half of the city’s unsheltered population and, in California’s Santa Clara County, from 2015-2019 the number of people living in vehicles increased by 146 percent—vehicular homelessness exists across the nation’s cities, suburbs, and in rural areas like ours as well.

A number of communities nationwide are addressing this growing problem with safe parking programs, providing portable or indoor toilets, handwashing, showering, changing stations, food, Wi-Fi, child care and tutoring, documentation services, counseling, financial help for housing and/or vehicle issues, and housing placement services.

Other communities have laws restricting vehicle residency, 35 percent of which, as of 2019, make it difficult or impossible to lawfully reside in one’s vehicle according to the National Homelessness Law Center.

So where are we going with all this? Well, right here in Otsego County, the City of Oneonta—with two colleges—continues to struggle to effectively address its unsheltered population. And, while the situation here is not nearly as dire as in the state of California, is it possible that adoption of a safe parking program in or near the city might be part of the solution?

City officials recognize that the lack of affordable housing remains a significant barrier to addressing homelessness, and the unsheltered population is growing, creating increased concerns about quality of life and public safety. Housing and services solve homelessness. Maybe it’s time for us to think outside the box and consider implementing strategies that will address not only vehicular homelessness, but that will help those who are housing insecure—men and women, young and old, individuals and families—get off the streets, out of their cars, and on the path to living in affordable homes.