Last week a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge halted the city of Los Angeles from dismantling abandoned and inoperable RVs parked on public streets. Judge Curtis A. Kin ruled that Assembly Bill 630 grants that authority to counties, not cities, and that the city of Los Angeles had no legal power to implement the program.
On its face, this appears to be a technical jurisdictional dispute. Underneath it sits a larger civic question that continues to press on communities across California:
Who owns the streets?
AB 630 allows Los Angeles County to tow and dismantle abandoned or inoperable RVs valued up to $4,000 after notice requirements are met. The previous threshold was $500.
Lawmakers expanded the limit because derelict vehicles used as long-term shelter have created growing public health and safety concerns. The court’s ruling does not weigh in on whether dismantling RVs is good policy. It states only that the city of Los Angeles lacks the statutory authority to carry it out.
While legal boundaries are clarified, the vehicles remain. The tension between individual hardship and collective rights continues.
On one side are individuals living in RVs because they have run out of options. Many struggle with addiction, untreated mental illness, or crushing Southern California housing costs. Their circumstances are difficult and visible.
On the other side are residents and business owners who depend on public infrastructure functioning as designed. Roads exist for transportation. Sidewalks exist for passage. Parks exist for recreation. Public space is a shared societal asset, built and maintained with public funds for common use.
When a street becomes a long-term encampment, something fundamental shifts. A public asset that belongs to millions becomes private territory for a few. What was ours becomes theirs in practice. The intended public purpose is interrupted.
This transfer of public assets into private living space does not occur through purchase, lease, or public vote. It occurs through the continued occupation by those living in encampments and official inaction. Remain long enough and a street becomes a living room. Camp long enough and a sidewalk becomes a front yard. Persist long enough and shared property becomes de facto possession.
If a private citizen fenced off part of a park for personal use, authorities would remove the fence. If a business permanently blocked a public lane for storage, citations would follow. Public infrastructure cannot be appropriated for exclusive use simply because enforcement is uncomfortable. Allowing encampments to remain indefinitely amounts to an unmanaged transfer of public goods into private control.
I have watched this shift happen in real time.
Several years ago a broken-down RV parked beneath the Interstate 5 overpass near a mini storage facility in which I am a partner. Within weeks one vehicle became several. Busted trailers and broken RVs clustered together. Furniture and debris spread outward. Customers expressed concern about safety. A break-in attempt followed. The road felt threatening. Passersby felt uneasy. After many months of repeated calls to authorities, the area eventually cleared, except for the trash left behind.
Communities change quickly when unmanaged encampments take hold. Conditions rarely improve on their own. Trash accumulates. Real fire risks increase. Neighbors alter routines. Communities absorb costs that never appear in a public budget.
Compassion for people in crisis remains essential. Order in shared spaces remains essential as well. When officials hesitate to enforce reasonable boundaries, vulnerable people remain in unstable conditions and surrounding neighborhoods absorb the consequences.
Los Angeles County voters approved a half-cent sales tax to address homelessness. That vote carried a promise that public funds would move people from chaos toward structure. Allowing broken vehicles to sit for months or years without intervention does not fulfill that promise. Intervention must mean movement into safer and more stable environments.
America protects individual liberty within a framework of shared responsibility. No one has the right to steal, threaten, or create hazardous conditions for others. Long-term encampments that generate refuse, fire risk and fear place pressure on the rights of everyone nearby. The balance between individual hardship and collective stability cannot tilt indefinitely in one direction.
The current approach serves no one well. People living in broken trailers deserve safer conditions than piles of debris along a freeway. Taxpayers deserve infrastructure that functions as infrastructure. Business owners deserve predictability. Families deserve sidewalks that feel safe.
Solutions exist. Develop safe parking zones with sanitation and oversight. Establish clear time limits. Require meaningful connection to services. Provide transparent accounting of homelessness tax dollars. Coordinate county and city authority so that laws passed in Sacramento translate into action on the ground.
Public infrastructure belongs to all of us. Its use should reflect that shared ownership. Streets cannot quietly become private territory because officials are reluctant to act. Public property cannot drift into exclusive control through inertia.
Judge Kin clarified who holds authority under AB 630. The larger responsibility now rests with elected leaders. A functioning city requires both compassion and enforcement. Without both, disorder expands and public trust erodes.
The streets belong to everyone. Government exists to defend that fact.
Gary Horton is chairman of the College of the Canyons Foundation board. His “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
