Capt. Steve Shebloski, head of San Diego Neighborhood Policing Division, said he receives the most parking complaints about Mission Bay \u2014 where RVs line the roads and fill the parking spaces on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
That led City Council President Joe LaCava to push for increased enforcement of parking regulations, which prohibit people from parking around Mission Bay between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. A federal lawsuit had tied the city\u2019s hands, but now \u2014 after the opening of a new safe parking lot at H Barracks \u2014 San Diego police officers are starting to crack down.<\/p>\n
Because people now have another place to camp, cops can start ticketing them for being parked where they aren\u2019t supposed to be.<\/p>\n
However, for Bridget Montgomery, 56, who has been living out of her RV, Mission Bay remains one of the few places she feels safe. The city\u2019s newfound energy to enforce parking regulations has just created more debt for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just makes it harder for us, because they\u2019re telling us we\u2019ve got to move,\u201d she said holding a $112.00 parking ticket, one of several she received over the past three months. \u201cYou don\u2019t have the gas to keep having to start your vehicle and move it, start it, move it again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The H Barracks safe parking site has 43 vehicles enrolled \u2014 but capacity for 190 vehicles.<\/p>\n
RV campers are referred to H Barracks to spend the night, but it\u2019s too soon to tell if this will have an impact on Mission Bay. Some campers are struggling with homelessness, while others are taking advantage of the free parking.<\/p>\n
The presence of expensive RVs indicates some people are not living there in desperation but embracing a lifestyle on the road.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ariana Drehsler<\/p>\n
\/<\/p>\n
Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n
Parked RV\u2019s in a parking lot in Mission Bay on July 31, 2025.<\/p>\n
Jeff Johnson, chair from the Mission Bay Park Committee, said at the height of the pandemic hundreds of RVs were parked along East Mission Bay Drive, scattered across parking lots in the area and along Fiesta Island. They would park overnight, and he\u2019d often come across fractured sewage tanks or notice vans staying for months on end.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy problem with this is not classist,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are different classes of people and one of the problems with the lack of enforcement is opportunists,\u201d Johnson said, referring to people with money and means who just want a free place to camp.<\/p>\n
Since 2022, he\u2019s been filming the growing number of RVs through late night drives in Mission Bay on his social media channels. The goal: Get the city to do something.<\/p>\n
LaCava wants to address the neighbors\u2019 complaints with immediate and long-term solutions. He has pushed for expanding the city\u2019s Safe Parking Program and considered restriping Mission Bay Drive to create diagonal parking so RVs can\u2019t fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question is for those people that are living in those vehicles as a last resort, what do we do with them?\u201d said LaCava. \u201cHow do we deal with them compassionately?\u201d<\/p>\n
Things came to a head in 2017 when a federal lawsuit challenged the city<\/a> for issuing tickets to people living out of their vehicles. The complaint, filed by a group of unhoused folks living in their cars, said the laws were unconstitutional. It created a standstill for the city to ticket campers.\u202f<\/p>\n That is until a legal settlement<\/a> and H Barracks, a safe parking lot next to the San Diego International Airport, opened in May after a series of setbacks<\/a>. With a new space nearby for people to park from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., it allowed the Police Department to come back in and start handing out citations.\u202f<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the enforcement phase,\u201d said LaCava.<\/p>\n H Barracks can take up to 190 vehicles, including space for oversized cars and RVs. The city has also dedicated a total of 30 spots to the police department, 25 for motorhomes, and five for passenger vehicles for referrals.<\/p>\n \u201cWe check before to make sure there\u2019s spots available. There has been every single night \u2013 and make sure we can refer somebody down there,\u201d said Capt. Shebloski. \u201cIf they accept, they\u2019re good to go. They don\u2019t get a ticket.\u201d\u202f<\/p>\n Capt. Shebloski said in the last month, they made 45 referrals to H Barracks.\u202f<\/p>\n The challenge is getting more people to go.<\/p>\n For Montgomery, who\u2019s having to maneuver the city with her large RV \u201cRose,\u201d going to H Barracks with the whole family is unrealistic. They don\u2019t have enough gas money pooled together to move the car everyday into the facility \u2013 let alone to leave Mission Bay when parking is illegal between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.\u202f<\/p>\n So the family doesn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just hard, they don\u2019t understand, you know?\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s like if you quit giving us these tickets, then we can do what we need to do, instead of having to stress and try and figure out a way to pay these tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n The former nurse has seven kids. She\u2019s been living with three of her sons and two dogs in their RV since 2022. She lost her husband, a Navy SEAL, to cancer in 2013. The bank took her home and she moved into an apartment where the family lived until 2022 but then was evicted.\u202f<\/p>\n \u201cThis was supposed to be our camping vehicle,\u201d she said, recalling road trips with her husband and kids.\u202f<\/p>\n Organizations like PATH San Diego often do outreach in these areas, introducing themselves to people and briefing them on the different resources available. Cory Stapleton, program manager of coordinated street outreach, said increased enforcement in the area has decreased the number of RVs, but it isn\u2019t clear if they are leaving in favor of H Barracks parking.<\/p>\n Stapleton said while H Barracks is a good option, it doesn\u2019t accommodate the needs of every individual in Mission Bay.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery additional shelter resource is absolutely needed, and our outreach focuses on finding the right resource for the right person at the right time,\u201d said Stapleton.<\/p>\n Stapleton said some people choose to run the risk of getting ticketed because they can\u2019t utilize the safe parking program.<\/p>\n People living out of their RVs in Mission Bay said the costs of using the H Barracks lot add up, because they must move their cars in and out of the lot each morning.<\/p>\n Ariana Drehsler<\/p>\n \/<\/p>\n Voice of San Diego<\/p>\n Jeffrey Coyne, 66, a veteran, stands in front of his parked RV in a parking lot in Mission Bay on July 31, 2025.<\/p>\n Jeffrey Coyne, 66, lives just across the road from Montgomery. The Navy veteran spends most of his days fine tuning the RV he bought a month ago, after being asked to leave his apartment by Veteran Affairs.<\/p>\n When asked about H Barracks, he shared similar concerns to Montgomery. \u201cI don\u2019t mind the rules,\u201d he said. \u201cLeaving every day with my motor home, coming back and forth all the time, could get expensive on gas and it\u2019s not something I really want to do.\u201d\u202f<\/p>\n Coyne\u2019s income includes Social Security, and he makes up to $500 a month collecting cans and bottles. He\u2019s in the process of buying some land in the desert where he hopes to keep his motorhome and build his own house.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been up there too, I\u2019ve had money and houses,\u201d he said pointing to the homes surrounding Mission Bay. \u201cWe\u2019re just regular people trying to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Capt. Steve Shebloski, head of San Diego Neighborhood Policing Division, said he receives the most parking complaints about…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":140108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-140107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-sandiego","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115016757682471622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n