Response to a post by a fellow activist celebrating their acquisition of an E350 camper van as mobile affordable dwelling.
Mobile affordable housing! On this subject of affordable, I bet there are some ways to tweak the engine to optimize gas mileage, although I am not familiar with that terrain. Maybe the 350s already are pretty affordable to run.?
I always say to myself that if I’m going to live in a van, I would try to find a strip down one of those E150 basic contractor vans. Not sure what their mileage is either.
Anyway, always love your posts, and happy new year to you. May massive growth in the affordable housing ecosystem be a part of 2025!
Another piece of the picture can be, how do we find/create more places where people can park without being hassled by law enforcement?
Normalize legal, safe, by-right parking for van dwellers and other mobile dwellers!
Even if I look at it from a hard-core ruthless fiscal-conservative standpoint, it makes sense. Seems like it’s a lot more fiscally prudent to provide bathrooms and showers and a safe parking area, than the over-policing alternative which brings in all sorts of costs and messy problems.
But then again if we legitimize that this is a real valid need that society, municipal govts etc can easily accommodate, the “respectable citizens brigade” doesn’t get to wield its toxic shaming social norms against mobile-dwelling people, and the prison-industrial complex doesn’t get to make massive amounts of money.
So … that is another obstacle for likeminded people to dismantle!
I talk with my neighborhood group and city about this kind of thing a lot, and I’m hoping we may be building a little bit of support. At least a couple of my neighbors agree that we should be setting up safe, free (or super cheap like $2-5 a night, or pay what u can) campgrounds in every neighborhood.
The perimeter of the parking areas could be planted lushly with fruit trees and vegetables. Etc.!
It could even be a fixed address, with a mail kiosk: little mailboxes for each parking spot.
Just a few thoughts. I would love to hear more. I picture it being a flourishing part of the local economy and society. A hotbed of teaching, skill sharing, etc. I definitely see the housed population getting involved in mutual sharing of resources.
BTW there is a very big group on Facebook called Car Camping. Pretty sure it started out just as people recreational camping, but a lot of people living in their vehicles have joined the group as well. It’s mostly a very productive exchange, but there is some definite class warfare in there, and a lot of the conversations offer opportunities to reset the social norms.
Photo: New Year’s sunrise on the beach down the street from my house. Which is beautiful, but very lacking in public toilets. They have either been taken away, or have restricted hours.
(On this note, I would like to never have to teach a workshop on how to pee in public without getting arrested. And how to poop in public in a sanitary manner without getting arrested. Right up there with how to sleep in public without getting arrested. But at the rate things are going, I don’t hold out much hope that I won’t someday sooner rather than later feel compelled to give such workshops. It shouldn’t come to this though.)