Katie Wilson’s RV Ban Veto Survives!

On Thursday, the Seattle City Council officially declined to override Mayor Katie Wilson’s veto, killing the effective RV ban it passed last month. Bill sponsor Dan Strauss, who was very upset about the whole thing, garnered only five votes for the override, failing to meet the two-thirds threshold he needed to override a mayoral veto.

Everyone saw this coming after Councilmember Rob Saka’s last-minute change of position on the ordinance last week. It puts an end to a bruising political fight between Wilson and Strauss, who is also the council’s budget chair.

The vote ensures hundreds of homeless Seattleites who live in RVs and other large vehicles won’t have to enroll in a specialized permitting system to retain the right to park for 72 hours on city streets. Advocates said the proposed system—which would have only allowed people surveyed in a one-time census to obtain a permit—wouldn’t work for most RV residents who are transient and may lack other forms of paperwork.

Wilson issued the veto against the bill—her first as mayor— because the permitting system would be difficult to enforce, legally risky, expensive (costing about $3.5 million over the next five years), and could drive more people into unsheltered homelessness. The city charter required the council to vote on Wilson’s veto within 30 days.

Despite losing the veto vote, Strauss succeeded in passing most of his legislative agenda on RV resident reforms, including four ordinances and one non-binding resolution. These changes include adding more funding for vehicle resident outreach, authorizing city-owned vehicle storage lots, and updating the city’s definition of “junk vehicles” to streamline parking enforcement. Strauss’s proposal for a working group was also incorporated in Wilson’s executive order signed last week. An interim report is due in early January, with final recommendations expected by the end of March.

Wilson’s veto came after fierce opposition from homeless service providers, vehicle residents, and other progressive advocates. Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, says that as of yesterday, constituents had sent more than 4,700 emails to council members and the mayor. About 30 people testified at yesterday’s special meeting, with most speaking against the RV ban.

Prior to the vote, council members spent about an hour relitigating their perspectives on the legislation. Strauss stubbornly defended his bill, saying “doing nothing is not an option.” He also compared advocates’ concerns about the “harmful” and “draconian” nature of the permitting system to the type of complaints middle-class neighbors tend to lodge against new shelter and affordable housing.

“These are the same concerns of complexity, of expense, of potential harmful impacts that I have literally heard about setting up tiny house villages [and] providing medically assisted treatment at shelters,” Strauss said.

Other moderates on the council reiterated their positions. Councilmember Bob Kettle said the impacts on neighborhoods by RV residents needed to be considered; Councilmembers Maritza Rivera and Debora Juarez said drug dealing, sex trafficking, and other crimes were being committed in RVs. Juarez, an interim appointee who will be replaced by newly elected progressive Nilu Jenks in two weeks, also had choice words for Wilson’s leadership, saying the public would see her veto as “dishonesty, inconsistency, [and] lack of leadership.”

The three progressives on the council, while (thankfully) less verbose, also stuck to their same talking points before the vote. Councilmember Dionne Foster said the one-time nature of the permitting system was a deal breaker, as it would exclude future families who may become homeless and have to live in their vehicles. Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck thanked advocates for their testimony, while Councilmember Eddie Lin called for unity despite policy disagreements.

Saka, whose pivotal flip-flop changed the outcome of the vote, said leadership is in part about “having the humility and grace to change your mind if new information becomes available.”

His comments seemed to anger Strauss, who responded that calling the mayor’s veto “‘a new path’ is duplicitous.” In a point of order, Saka accused Strauss of impugning his motives, motivation, and character, which is against the council’s decorum rules. What’s a council meeting without a little drama, right?

Strauss’s comments angered activists, too. Chanel Horner, a human rights advocate and former vehicle resident who currently lives in a tiny home, saw it as a false equivalence.

“He tried to compare us to Republicans, and that was unfounded,” Horner said. “Republicans are like ‘not in my backyard.’ We’re basically the opposite.”

Eisinger also took issue with the stigmatizing framing of RV residents as a public safety issue; instead of going through the council’s human services committee, Strauss’s bill was passed by the public safety committee. She says serious crime should be investigated and dealt with regardless of if the perpetrator lives in a house or a vehicle.

Now that Strauss’s bill is dead, where will the money for establishing the permitting program go? Strauss sponsored a budget provision to prevent Wilson from spending the roughly $800,000 a year on other purposes. He wants the RV working group to release its recommendations before unlocking those funds, which will require another vote by the city council.

Here’s an idea: Services and shelter for homeless vehicle residents are woefully underfunded. After a year and a half without any safe lots in the city, the Low Income Housing Institute is set to open Glassyard Commons in West Seattle later this month, which will have 72 spots available.

The city is setting aside funding for a second safe lot to open next year, which Horner argued should go to a different service provider so that homeless people have multiple options to choose from. But even that won’t be enough, she says, and ultimately there just isn’t enough housing available for everyone living on the streets.

“If we just had more housing, we’d have somewhere to move people to,” Horner said. “We wouldn’t have to be in an RV in the first place.”