The Living in Your Car Podcast
The Living in Your Car Podcast
Is It Legal to Live in Your Car? Navigating Legal Challenges Following the Grant's Pass Ruling
Curious about the legal hurdles of living in your car? Discover how local ordinances and federal laws create a maze of regulations you need to navigate. In this episode, Elizabeth Off Grid takes a deep dive into the Grants Pass versus Johnson Supreme Court decision and its implications for van dwellers and car residents. We'll unravel the complexities surrounding land ownership and how specific ordinances can result in hefty fines and constitutional debates over the Eighth Amendment. Using Grants Pass, Oregon, as a focal point, Elizabeth sheds light on how some municipalities enforce stringent rules against sleeping in public spaces, including vehicles.
Explore the intricacies of parking regulations across various cities, from the bustling streets of San Francisco to other parts of the Bay Area and beyond. We'll dissect terms like "house car," "camper," and "trailer coach," while discussing regulations that ban overnight habitation in residential neighborhoods. Elizabeth also shares insights into vehicle habitation ordinances near recreational spots and popular parking lots like Walmart and Planet Fitness. Get practical tips for stealth camping, avoiding unnecessary fines, and ensuring your vehicular lifestyle remains under the radar. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand the legal landscape of living on four wheels.
Join us on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@elizabethoffgrid
Hi, this is Elizabeth Off Grid, and you are listening to the Living in your Car podcast, where we talk about all aspects of living in a car, suv, pickup or minivan, whether you're a full-time nomad, temporarily staying in a vehicle until you get life figured out or just going on a road trip. Join us for all kinds of topics that apply to you. Hey, this is Elizabeth Offgrid, and in this episode of Living in your Car podcast, we're going to talk about whether or not it's legal to live in your car Car podcast. We're going to talk about whether or not it's legal to live in your car, both generally and in light of the Grants Pass versus Johnson Johnson's the name, right, yeah Decision that just came down from the Supreme Court very recently. I'm a lawyer and I live in my vehicle. I've lived in a vehicle for over a year, and so I'm analyzing this both from the perspective as a lawyer as also from someone who lives in their car, who looks up these rules and tries to figure this out. So I am not accidentally breaking the law and get fined or what have you, or get my car towed or any of the things that can happen. So the short answer is is it legal to live in your car.
Speaker 1:Grants Pass doesn't change that in many places. Because here's what it comes down to Whether or not it's legal to live in your car depends on the local law, the local ordinance of that city, of that county, of whoever owns the land. So if it is a federal government because you're in a national park, a national forest, a BLM land, then it's their rules. If it is you're in a state park or some state forest, then it is the state who decides. But in most places where people are living in their car and they're not in somewhere where they know it's definitely legal like way out in some BLM land and dispersed camping they're parking in a city or a town and so it is about the local ordinance, the local rules, the local laws of that town. Now what the Grants Pass decision says is that they can enforce those laws. That's the short version of that and we're going to go into it a little bit deeper. But that's the reason that this may or may not matter to you, because it still depends on the local laws. Some places have very, very, very strict laws, including Grants Pass, and we're going to talk about their rules specifically. Some places have kind of medium rules and some places don't really have a rule at all, or it's something as simple as you can't park here for more than a certain number of days in a row, so you just need to move your car a little bit. So let's look at first the case itself grants pass, and what the rules were there and what happened in that case and whether or not I think it was correctly decided. Short version is I think it was not correctly decided, but as well as some examples of the laws in different places and how they are different, how you can navigate that.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's first look at Grants Pass. So what's Grants Pass is? It is a town in Oregon that is a city of. I'm looking at the case that was decided before the Supreme Court, the written holdings, the written opinions by the Supreme Court, to kind of get some of the facts. So it has 38,000 people, it's in Southern Oregon I've actually driven through it, it's right on the five and they have three different ordinances that they have.
Speaker 1:Ordinances are laws, local laws that make it unlawful to sleep in public, and so this isn't about being homeless. This is about is it legal to sleep in public, in the public, not inside a hotel, not inside an official campground, not inside an apartment, a house, et cetera. So there's a couple of different rules. One is that you are not allowed to camp on any sidewalk, street, alley, lane, public right of way, park bench or any other publicly owned property or under any bridge or viaduct. And a campsite is defined as any place where bedding, sleeping bag or other material is used for bedding purposes, or any stove or fire is placed, established or maintained for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live. So this includes sleeping in a car. This includes not even like making a bed, but literally being in your car.
Speaker 1:Let's say you don't like live in your car all the time. You just pull over because you're tired and you're gonna sleep. Before you get back on the highway and you lean back your seat and roll up your hoodie and put it under your head oh, you're illegal. You're illegal, okay. This isn't just someone camping in the park with a tent. This is any sleeping. It doesn't matter if you're doing it at three o'clock in the afternoon or all night long. It doesn't matter if you're taking a five minute nap, really.
Speaker 1:So the fines start at $295 because homeless people. They can afford $300 fine. It increases more and more and more. Once you've been cited twice, you can have an exclusion order barring you from that particular location for 30 days and then if you violate that order then you can go to jail. 30 days in jail, $1,200 fine.
Speaker 1:So the idea is is this cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution? So in the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution I'm going to actually pull it up here so I can quote it for y'all the Eighth Amendment says excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. The reason that was in there it was actually England had already passed a law against cruel and unusual punishment and the reason is is there I'm looking at the Wikipedia that kind of gives a little bit of background about this is that back when you know King James II was running things in England, that a guy named Titus Oates was tried for perjury which is where you lie under oath and because allegedly he had wrongly accused people and people had gotten executed. So this was a really big deal. So not do they just put him in jail for perjury, which could still happen here in the United States that they had an annual ordeal where he would be taken out once a year for two days of pillory plus one day of whipping while tied to a moving cart. Obviously, that's terrible. So, and, by the way, pillory is where they have that thing, that stock thing, and you put your head through in your arms, so anyway, and people would come by and, shall we say, violate you while you were in there. I didn't think about that, you think you're just trapped there, but, yeah, all right. So that was decided. That was a cruel, unusual, very disproportionate in this terrible way, and it was really meant to just be barbaric, to just be terrible, to just create notoriety. I mean, it was just over the top, not humane thing to do. So we put that in our constitution, you know, a couple hundred years ago, and then since then, we've interpreted different ways. Now we're still saying that the death penalty is not cruel and unusual, even though we're one of the very few countries in the world that actually does a death penalty. That's a topic for another video at some other future time. But what this case was, the Grants Pass case was about, was that is, fining people and potentially putting them in the jail for camping in public, cruel and unusual punishment and the Ninth Circuit, which is the appellate court level that covers the kind of western part of the United States, said yes, it was.
Speaker 1:And the idea is that look someone who is sleeping in their car, sleeping on the sidewalk, sleeping in the park, and they're homeless. They can't help it. Now, I actually can, so I'm not counting myself in this category, but let's assume someone is truly homeless. They have no other option. They have no employment, they have no income. They don't have a choice. They're sleeping because they need to sleep and it's just finding them. Whether or not they're sleeping during the day, during the night, it doesn't have any specificity about whether or not they're in a car, whether or not they're around children, whether or not they're hurting anybody, whether or not they're stinking anything up, whether or not they've erected a tent or they're literally just nodding off while leaning against a tree. Okay, as long as they have any kind of bedding, including putting their hoodie under their head to cushion their head, bam. Or putting a blanket, bam. There you go. And, by the way, this is in a part of Oregon where it would get cold at night. If it's in the winter, okay. So you definitely are going to need a blanket at least some time of the year.
Speaker 1:The Ninth Circuit said you can't do this, which meant that you could only enforce these laws if you offered this person shelter and they didn't take it. And this is really relevant because a lot of cities maybe every city doesn't actually have enough shelter in the western part of the United States for people who are homeless. So, for example, someone may be in Grants Pass and you could offer them shelter, but the shelter is a religious institution and they have all kinds of religious rules there, including you have to go to religious services for being able to stay there, and so a lot of people aren't going to take them up on that, and I don't actually blame them to. You don't want to be forced to go to a religious service just so you can sleep there. And there'll be all kinds of other rules about smoking, about alcohol use and also rules about you can't be with your significant other. They'll have rules about being gay or trans. They'll have rules about pets. Usually you can't have that. I mean, there's a whole lot of things that will go into that.
Speaker 1:The Supreme Court, the majority of the Supreme Court, the conservatives of the Supreme Court, said this isn't cruel and useful because we're not punishing the status of someone, we're just punishing them for their behavior, and I mean it's 70 pages long, but that's really what it says. It's your behavior and this is a law. These are laws that are similar to other places and so it's not a problem. Now, as the dissent which is, the judges who did not agree, the justices who did not agree say, that is not necessarily true, and I'm going to quote Senator Meyer for this. Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is the only option. The city of Grants passed jails and fines those people for sleeping anywhere in public at any time, including in their cars, if they use as little as a blanket to keep warm or a rolled up shirt as a pillow. For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional. Punishing people for their status is cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment. Unfortunately, this was a dissent, which means that it did not win.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's just three justices the liberal, progressive types of justices there and the thing is, this has been a ridiculous thing in this place. You know, they give all kinds of examples of people who, for example, one guy who had been homeless for 20 years. A social worker was trying to find this guy housing, but the problem is he kept getting arrested just for literally being homeless. So she actually had made him a T-shirt that said please do not arrest me, my outreach workers working on my housing, yeah, and finally he got stable housing through the social workers work and he had no problems after that. The thing is, this is about housing, okay, this is about housing. This is about the status of someone being homeless Okay, but this, while I could go on and on and on about the politics of homelessness, let's get into the actual issue here, which is is it legal to sleep in your car?
Speaker 1:Does this make it illegal to sleep in your car? And, as I said, it all depends on local law. So, grants pass, my goodness, do not try to sleep in your car there. Okay, you keep driving down the five. Do not stop, unless you're going to be in an official campground or you're staying at a hotel and you're actually going to go in the hotel or whatever, because it is not legal to sleep in your car there, even during the daytime. If you're going to take a nap, I don't even think you should do that in your car.
Speaker 1:But is that true everywhere? And the answer is no. So every other place I mean every place has very specific rules. Some places don't even have any rules about sleeping in a vehicle or sleeping outside, so sometimes the rules are about literally sleeping and where you sleep and what stuff you have. Some of the rules are about what cars can be there and about parking. There are effectively parking rules, okay, so, for example, let's talk about a couple different cities in the San Francisco Bay area, because I've researched this and also because it shows you that the rules may not be what you thought. So let's talk about San Francisco and I use San Francisco partially because that's my legal residence, but also because San Francisco is kind of thought of in the world and the United States as being this super liberal, super procrusive city, and you're People think that, but it is definitely not. They actually have very fairly strict rules about homelessness and sleeping in your vehicle Not as strict as Grants Pass, but it's still strict. So I'm going to read you the exact rules.
Speaker 1:Okay, in San Francisco, the ordinance says no person shall use or occupy or permit the use or occupancy of any house, car, camper or trailer coach for human habitation, which includes, but is not limited to sleeping, eating, resting either single or in groups on any street, park, bench, square, avenue, alley or public way within the city of San Francisco, which is City and County of San Francisco, which is the same place, between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am. Now that's actually very interesting because in this you could sleep during the day in this vehicle, you can do your eating during the day in this vehicle, you can park during the day in this vehicle, but just not between 10 pm and 6 am. So that says that one of the things that you can do in some places is you can just flip your days. You can sleep in during the day and then during the night you drive around, you go to different places, whatever you stay awake and then you aren't violating the rules in theory. I'd say in theory, because I don't know what the cops are actually going to do. I don't think in San Francisco they're really going after people about this very much. I think they're really focusing on tent encampments and things like that. But yes, now, but there's a couple limits, right? So there's the 10 pm to 6 am, and then there's the definitions of a house car, camper or trailer coach. So I'm going to click on definitions.
Speaker 1:House car shall mean a motor vehicle originally designed or permanently or temporarily altered and equipped for human habitation, or to which a camper has been permanently or temporary attached. So my vehicle probably would count as that. I say probably because have I altered it and equipped it? Now I've equipped it for human habitation, but I would actually argue that I have not altered it and equipped it. Now I've equipped it for human habitation, but I would actually argue that I have not altered it because this is a no-build. I haven't taken anything out Now. Would I win that? Probably not with the cops, but I probably wouldn't win that in court. However, that's an issue for another day.
Speaker 1:Camper is a camper shall mean a structure designed to be mounted on a motor vehicle and to provide facilities for human habitation or camping purposes. Trailer coach is a structure designed to be drawn by a motor vehicle for human habitation or human occupancy for carrying persons or property on its own. Now there's another rule about sleeping in your car, just sleeping in your car. No person shall use or occupy or permit the use or occupancy of any motor vehicle for human habitation, either singly, in groups on any street, park, bench, square, avenue, alley or public way within a residential neighborhood of the city and county of San Francisco between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am. Motor vehicle means any self-propelled vehicle other than a house car, camper or trailer coach. Residential neighborhood is actually about what it's zoned for. Is that area area zoned residential and habitation means using it as a dwelling place. But it does not mean the use of a motor vehicle for alleviation of sickness or temporary physical inability to operate such a motor vehicle.
Speaker 1:So if you just stop to take a nap in your regular car in the city or county of san francisco because you feel dizzy, for example, or you have a migraine, that's not under this rule. I don't know what the cops would do, probably. I mean I feel like they have better things to do in San Francisco, but that would. That shouldn't be a problem. And also, this is residential neighborhood.
Speaker 1:So let me give you a hypothetical. Let's say I hadn't done anything in this car to make it be a camper, right, it's just regular car, and I park in, not in a residential neighborhood. So I park in an industrial neighborhood, okay, and I stop and lean my seat back and put a pillow under my head and go to sleep, or I roll up my, make it be less beddy, I roll up my jacket and put it under my head and go to sleep. That's not violating this as long as I'm not a residential neighborhood, and so the reason I use this as an example is I think it really shows how you have to dive into the exact rules. So this is about what time it is, this is about exactly where you're parked and what your whatever thing that you sleep in is, how it's defined and what specific things you are doing.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, that is different than other cities and towns in the San Francisco Bay Area, so there's some places where they don't have any rule really on sleeping in a vehicle. They just are relying on the parking ordinance, so they're relying on. There's actually many towns in the San Francisco Bay Area where I have dived into their local ordinances and the rule is about how long can you park there or what time you can park there. So, for example, there are towns where all the parking in kind of downtown has a limit, or in certain areas by certain parks, things like that, where you're not allowed to park there from 3 am to 5 am and the idea is is that they're making it so you really can't sleep overnight there. But instead of it making all these like chaotic rules about what is a camper, what is sleeping, what is a bed, they actually just give you a time Can't sleep, park there at all for any purposes between 3 am and 5 am, so you can park and sleep there during the day. You can set your clock for an alarm at 2.55. You can arrive there at 5.05. Like in the morning, all those things are fine. It's just about those two hours.
Speaker 1:They also, a lot of these places have rules about 72 hours, that you have to move your vehicle every 72 hours and when they go after encampments of cars and RVs that are parked in the street, it's because they either literally can't be moved or because they've been parked there for more than 72 hours, for more than three days. So if you move your vehicle every day, then you don't ever run into this problem and that's actually what I do. I don't sleep overnight in the city or county of San Francisco proper in my vehicle. I sleep in other places that and multiple other places actually that have this 72 hour kind of a rule, that have rules about certain hours that you can park there, that kind of stuff. And also it really does depend upon the character of the neighborhood, because in many places the cops aren't like patrolling around and keeping track of this. They're not doing that. What it is is it do the local people in that patrolling around and keeping track of this? They're not doing that. What it is is it do the local people in that area report you and fill out the form or call the cops or whatever they do, to report someone being there? And if you're parked somewhere where nobody cares because it is an industrial area or whatever, then you're totally fine. Now so we're not just looking at California, let's look at some ordinances in other places. So just looking at California, let's look at some ordinances in other places.
Speaker 1:So Utah, utah is a great place to do recreation, to do all kinds of hiking and camping and things like that. Let's look at Moab. Now Moab had a lot of people who were sleeping in vehicles, sleeping in RVs, camper vans, et cetera in town, and now you really can't do that how they did. It is actually both ways that I talked about both having a rule about what vehicles you could actually have in town about RVs and things and then also having a rule about parking. So you cannot, it is unlawful an infraction to park or cause to park or leave standing any inoperative vehicle, truck, recreation, a vehicle, a trailer on a public road, blah, blah, blah. Except for loading or unloading equipment, In no instance shall the vehicle be parked for a period of time that will exceed four consecutive hours, four hours. You can only park there for four hours. So you can probably take a nap, but that's it. And they should have a really strict parking rule and that would apply even if you're not sleeping in the car and they can tow you, by the way, under that rule.
Speaker 1:Also, it is unlawful to park any vehicle or motor home upon a public road, street, alley or lot or lot. So that means also the Walmart parking lot thing. I don't actually know if there's a Walmart or Moab, but just as an example, other than designated recreational vehicle parks, other than an RV park, campground for human habitation or overnight parking, anything left can be fined, impounded, removed. So there's a lot of places, a lot of towns that are near places that are recreational areas, that make rules like this Because people, people really got on everybody's nerves. The locals. People really got on everybody's nerves of the locals and they were leaving out garbage and setting up campsites and random places and parked there for days, weeks, months at a time, and that just doesn't work, and whether it is a Walmart parking lot or the street. One thing I did want to make sure I mention here is these local ordinances are about typically are about parking on the street, on public property but, but in some places they've also made a local ordinance about the parking lots.
Speaker 1:So whether or not you can park on a Walmart parking lot is in about three different things. First, does the Walmart care? Generally speaking, walmart itself does not care. They're happy for you to park there and come in and spend money. The second is does the owner of the land care? A lot of times Walmart does not own the land. Though the Walmart is on, it is owned by somebody else who owns that entire shopping area or whatever it is, and they don't want you to park there. This happens a lot with Planet Fitness, especially because Planet Fitness tend to be in strip malls and not like freestanding Planet Fitnesses or they're in some sort of shopping area, and so what happens is is the plan of fitness doesn't care. It's 24 hours, but the land owner doesn't want these people camping in the lot and the reason is is because some people have decided to like live there and been there for weeks at a time and set up their barbecue and like set up their chairs and all this stuff and made it totally obvious and so it ruined it for all of us who are trying to be stealth. But then also the local area can make it against the rules. The local area can make it so you cannot have overnight parking or camping or however, or having a vehicle that people can reside in. Whatever they make up the rule. And then even if Walmart or Planet Fitness is happy for you to sleep in the vehicle, even if they happen to own the property themselves or the landlord just actually doesn't even remotely care, it may be illegal to let people sleep in the parking lot there, even for someone like Planet Fitness. That's open 24-7. Walmarts aren't open 24-7 anymore. They're actually only open from 6 am to 11 pm, I think everywhere. So you don't really have that whole well, the place is open kind of thing left. Now there's still tons of places where you can sleep in Walmarts.
Speaker 1:I've slept in Walmarts in tons of places. I don't ever ask for permission, to be honest. I just go ahead and do it. There's always other people who are doing it, the ones I select. I always look on iOverlander to make sure that other people have slept there and no one has cared. But in some places it just isn't allowed, and I typically do it on kind of places that are far away from touristy areas, so it's just people who are spending one night and they're just on the road.
Speaker 1:So let's look at one other ordinance, and this one is in San Diego. Now, this is a very controversial one. There was a class action, they paid out millions of dollars and all this kind of stuff. But of course, all this is going to give me change now, now that the Supreme Court came down with something saying that they can actually have these ordinances in theory. But there was a settlement. Okay, I'm just going to go into exactly what this ordinance says, and says it is unlawful for any person to use a vehicle for human habitation on any street or public property, unless the street or public property is specifically authorized for such use, and then as follows between the hours of 9 pm and 6 am and within 500 feet of a residence and within 500 feet of a school and the evidence of human habitation. Okay, this is the thing that actually really gets me.
Speaker 1:Human habitation may include observations, considering all the circumstances, that a person is using the vehicle for sleeping, bathing, preparing or cooking meals, possessing or storing items that are not associated with ordinary vehicle use, such as a sleeping bag, bedroll, blanket, sheet, pillow, used bedding, kitchen utensils, cookware, cooking equipment, camping gear, food, water, personal grooming items or containers of feces or urine. Evidence of human habitation may also include observations, considering all the circumstances, that a person has obscured some or all the vehicle's windows, there is litter, rubbish or waste in and around the vehicle, there is a furniture set up in and around the vehicle, such as chairs, tables, umbrellas or portable cooking equipment, or there's evidence of human urination or defecation around the vehicle. Now, I do have to say something about this overall is that this shows what the cops and what other people are bothered by and how they identify people who are sleeping in their car. So obviously, people peeing and pooping outside their car my goodness, pooping outside their car, my goodness. Setting up camp? Okay, setting up furniture, setting up cooking equipment outside, just on the street, on the sidewalk. Garbage all over the place.
Speaker 1:All right, these are all things you could just not do. Okay, like. So it really drives me up a wall when I see people who have done that, because that makes it so freaking obvious. Now, covering your windows is an interesting thing, because people sometimes just cover their windows to keep their car cool, and when they're not even in their car, you know what I mean. But it does show that one way to kind of sneak around this is to not cover windows. So one thing you could do in a vehicle like this is not cover the front. I might put a thing literally on this not cover these sides, not have anything up in front, have it look like a regular car and then back here I have on my blackout windows and just rely on that that might sneak past. What you could also do is put up a black sheet or some sort of curtain here. That just makes it somewhat like the cops could figure it out. They like came like right here, like really looking in the window, but it would be harder to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, if someone reported you, yes, but if you were not around a residence or a school, you shouldn't be falling under this rule anyway. Now that's actually hard. 500 feet is actually a fairly big distance, 500 feet of a school. There's schools all over the place, but and that and it does not include community college and stuff like that it's only for, like, kid schools, it's for high school and middle school and grade schools, I'm assuming it. I don't know if it also includes preschools and stuff, but let's just assume it does.
Speaker 1:Now, this was very controversial. It's still very controversial in San Diego and if you search San Diego vehicle habitation ordinance and look at the news, there was a settlement of $3.2 million and you know there's all these different people who are upset, san Diego residents who are upset because people live in their cars in a family-friendly neighborhood and because the thing is is that there's some people who are like me, who can easily be stealth and who are traveling from place to place and just happen to be in town for a while, and then there's other people who are living somewhere all the time. Now, really, people like me I mean the city shouldn't actually care about me in the sense of, like I'm not their concern, I can just leave, but the people who have been living in that city for decades really should be taken care of by that city by helping them figure out how to fix up their life right. But that isn't necessarily happening. Instead, in a lot of these places, they're going after people to effectively just shift them around, move them, move them, move them, move them, move them, instead of actually fixing the problem right.
Speaker 1:So the short answer is, after this very long podcast video, is that it depends on the local rules. That the Supreme Court's case. All it says is that local places can enforce their rules now, but everywhere has a different set of rules. Some of them literally don't have a rule, or the rule is just about parking ordinances. It's about when can you park, how long can you park and, by the way, don't forget the car. The vehicle needs to be able to be moved and it needs to have legal tags. So I'm assuming that you have legal tags, the car's legal to drive, that it is drivable, you know. So you're also going to need that too, but we're assuming that some places don't have specific rules about it. Some places also do have safe parking places where they have parking lots or areas that are specifically designated for people to park in and live. Now sometimes you actually have to get, like, effectively, a permit for that, you have to get permission to apply for it, blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of rules and some places there's less rules. Typically, the rules are going to be about things like the vehicle has to be able to run, it has to have legal tags, it has to not be leaking whatever, it can't be dumping things. You know stuff like that. But some places are also going to have rules about people's behavior and that may or may not work for you.
Speaker 1:So what do I recommend and what do I do? I look up the rules of where I'm going to go. So, for example, I was in the Phoenix area, the suburbs of Phoenix. I actually didn't try to park in Phoenix proper, but the suburbs of Phoenix have rules that you can't park an RV on the street at all, not even like to not live in. You can't even just park it. If it's your RV, you can't park it in your own driveway. So some places have really strict rules. And the thing is, when places have a really strict rule, not only do I want to get in trouble because of the rule, it also tells you the character of the people who live there that they have those rules Like. Do I really want to sleep there or spend any time there if people are like that Probably no, you know.
Speaker 1:And so in that particular suburb of Phoenix, I think I spent one or two nights in my car, but that was all I was going to do. I was like I have, you know, rolled the dice and won and I'm getting out of here now that I can. So and I was just sleeping in my Honda Civic, so it looked less like someone who is going to is sleeping in it. This is a little bit more not that this is obvious at all, but it's more like some possible to sleep in. However, my Honda Civic was over 10 years old, so it looked sketchier of a car, right? Yeah, so there's a balance. One of the nice things about having a new car is that my car since I have a 2024 car and this is 2024, my car looks fairly non-sketchy, so it looks less like a homeless person and more like an eccentric YouTuber, right?
Speaker 1:I recommend that you look up the rules of where you're going, which can be difficult. You can start going, you can Google it, what you know parking ordinances in the name of the city, or sleeping in a car name of the city and just try to find some articles, especially find the local ordinances, find out if there's a lot of news on this, if there are people complaining about it a lot, et cetera. And try to, of course, have your vehicle be very stealth and I've done videos and podcasts about how to make your vehicle be stealth and trying to be as stealth as possible and then make a decision if you're going to break the rules or not. And the thing is, most of the time you break the rules, no one's going to care, especially if you're strategic about where you park. You don't park in front of someone's house. You don't park in a place where it's going to be obvious. You arrive at dark and you leave before it's light. You make it so it's. No one can tell you're sleeping in a vehicle. It's much less likely for someone to report you.
Speaker 1:The only time I've gotten a knock on the window was because they were actually. The cops were there because the car parked behind me and they were trying to figure out if I was associated with them or had any information, which I had none. However, it woke me up and I left, and now I actually don't park in that city anymore because it's such a safe city, the cops don't have anything better to do than to do that kind of stuff. But the places where I park now, which is in a completely different part of the San Francisco Bay Area than where I started out, the cops got better things to do. They're only going to come if someone specifically calls on your vehicle and they have time to go there and they think it's actually worth it, because most of the time they're not. Especially, there are so many people sleeping in vehicles they have to pick and choose which things make sense for them to spend their time and energy on.
Speaker 1:This case isn't the end of the world overall for all of us who live in our vehicles. However, it does mean that the rules that already exist can be enforced, and more rules may be coming, and the best way to deal with that is to be informed of those rules so you can decide whether it makes sense for you to stay or for you to leave. Again, this is Elizabeth Off Grid. If you would like to subscribe to this podcast, you can subscribe on all the various places where podcasts are hosted and where you can stream them, and you can also watch the podcast on YouTube on my channel, elizabeth Offgrid. Thanks a lot for listening or watching. Talk to you next time, bye-bye.