Now, police say helping homeless RV owners find needed social services could lead to more permanent solutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is to chip away one at a time and make a difference,\u201d Capt. Steve Shebloski told dozens of beach area residents at a Thursday night forum in Liberty Station. \u201cIt\u2019s a little slower, but I think it\u2019s going to have more permanent results than living in a constant whac-a-mole world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shebloski also said mass towing \u2014 which would be difficult legally \u2014 would likely prompt RV owners to relocate to city streets within residential neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to just move a problem from Pacific Beach to Mission Bay to La Jolla to Clairemont to Tierrasanta,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Mission](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1755963969_263_SUT-L-May-revise-002.jpg\")
Mission Bay Park is seen on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in San Diego. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Since the city\u2019s Mission Bay Park crackdown was launched July 2, police have issued nearly 1,485 citations, persuaded 96 people to move their RVs into city-sponsored safe parking lots and gotten 28 people to seek social services help.<\/p>\n
\u201cNearly 1,500 citations and many successful referrals into safe parking \u2014 it\u2019s only been six weeks,\u201d said Shebloski, who leads the department\u2019s Neighborhood Policing Division.<\/p>\n
Cracking down at all\u00a0only became possible this spring when San Diego opened the H Barracks safe parking lot, where 25 of the 180 slots are reserved for motor homes or other large recreational vehicles.<\/p>\n
In last year\u2019s settlement<\/a>, San Diego agreed not to tow oversized vehicles unless enough safe parking lot spots were available for them to relocate. Before H Barracks, the city didn\u2019t have enough of those slots.<\/p>\n Between when the lawsuit settlement was finalized<\/a> and the opening of H Barracks<\/a>, the number of RVs in Mission Bay Park and some other hotspots exploded because the city couldn\u2019t tow them away.<\/p>\n In the settlement of the case, Bloom v. San Diego, the city agreed not to enforce its oversized vehicle ordinance or its vehicle habitation ordinance unless slots are available in safe parking lots.<\/p>\n The city also agreed not to enforce a previous rule that motor homes would be towed after getting five citations under the oversized vehicle ordinance, which bans parking large vehicles on most city streets between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.<\/p>\n A large vehicle is defined as being either more than 27 feet long or more than 7 feet high. A rule against parking such vehicles within 50 feet of an intersection remains in place and enforceable, police said.<\/p>\n Even though San Diego now has the power to tow, Shebloski said officials still have chosen to take a less aggressive approach.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t want to ambush or carpet-bomb people with tickets,\u201d he said. \u201cWe wanted to do it in a compassionate way.\u201d<\/p>\n Shebloski said that doesn\u2019t mean the police don\u2019t sympathize with residents and other users of Mission Bay Park who are bothered by the RVs.<\/p>\n \u201cMission Bay Park is a great example of an area that become a de facto RV park with no services, no dump stations, no trash receptacles and no enforcement,\u201d he said,<\/p>\n Sgt. Mike Wallace, who is leading the city\u2019s crackdown, provided more detailed insight into why mass towing doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n \u201cTowing a vehicle is a 20-minute to 1-hour ordeal,\u201d said Wallace, explaining that towing the first one or two vehicles his team comes across each morning would prevent them from citing hundreds of others.<\/p>\n Wallace said his team typically begins their efforts about 1:30 a.m. While they usually focus on East Mission Bay Drive, they sometimes shift to Fiesta Island, Quivira Basin, Ski Beach or other locations.<\/p>\n Wallace echoed Shebloski\u2019s suggestion that slow and steady is the proper strategy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re adapting to the obstacles that we\u2019re facing through continuous contacts and continuous enforcement,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are getting compliance \u2014 I know it doesn\u2019t seem that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Wallace called the process \u201cfluid\u201d and described it as a sort of trial-and-error approach. But he insisted police are making steady progress.<\/p>\n He also said police are exploring new strategies but didn\u2019t disclose them. \u201cWe are looking at other areas of stepping up our enforcement and our outreach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Originally Published: August 23, 2025 at 5:00 AM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six weeks into San Diego\u2019s crackdown on motor homes that have taken up semi-permanent residence in Mission Bay…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":169486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,728,8629,50,80,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-169485","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-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-local-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115078862318387569","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169485","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=169485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/SUT-L-H-Barracks-Presser-001.jpg\")
The H Barracks lot near San Diego International Airport has 190 spots for homeless people who live in their vehicles. (Howard Lipin)<\/p>\n