Seattle News, Views, and Brews
Aug 12, 2026 · 28 min · 16 segments
The Seattle Police Department faces a growing number of questions after a deadly shooting, a major miscommunication of emergency information, and the forced resignation of Chief Shon Barnes. Plus, the…
Erica C. BarnettGuest
Brian CallananHost
In the Public Safety Committee meeting this week, Councilmember Dan Strauss is sponsoring a proposal for what he calls a Vehicle Resident Assistance Program.
One out of every four people who are unsheltered in our region lives in a vehicle.
That's data from the 2024 point-in-time count, as quoted by the Councilmember.
But Strauss points out that there are zero shelters set up for people living in vehicles, no safe parking slots open, and the city is outsourcing its response to this problem.
rely on contracted outreach for the majority of our services.
Two-thirds of those contracts are run by an organization called that is fiscally sponsored by another one.
I just say all of this because it is a gaping hole in how we address homelessness to not be able to provide the services to people who have very unique needs compared to couch surfing, compared to youth homelessness, compared to street homelessness.
And I want to break down this proposal from Strauss because it seems like it would represent a very different approach from the city.
It would restrict parking for RVs to two hours maximum in all areas of the city.
Once you get that permit, the permit would be revoked if a permit holder turns down offers of appropriate shelter six times.
Well, let's start actually with what Strauss said about there being no shelter for people living in RVs, because I do want to.
mentioned, you know, there is, you described some of the sort of stick elements of the proposal, and I want to talk about those, but just quickly, the rest of the proposal would provide or would pay for some combination of shelter, probably like a tiny house village, with rvs on site the idea is to have two of those uh the city is about to open one well about to in november at the glassyard it's going to be called the glassyard commons and a lot in west seattle it would pay for that it would also expand the unified care team by another seven people that's the group that goes around and does outreach to encampments but also sweeps encampments
so that's sort of the the side of you know let's let's give people in rvs a place to live thank you the The stick side, as you described, I mean, it's pretty harsh.
Right now, RVs are allowed in industrial land, but this includes industrial land unless you get one of these permits.
And there's all kind of ways you can have a permit revoked besides, you know, refusing appropriate quote unquote shelter, which is not defined in the legislation in any way.
I am really concerned about that phrase in terms of how this goes forward legally.
In the Public Safety Committee meeting this week, Councilmember Dan Strauss is sponsoring a proposal for what he calls a Vehicle Resident Assistance Program.
One out of every four people who are unsheltered in our region lives in a vehicle.
That's data from the 2024 point-in-time count, as quoted by the Councilmember.
But Strauss points out that there are zero shelters set up for people living in vehicles, no safe parking slots open, and the city is outsourcing its response to this problem.
rely on contracted outreach for the majority of our services.
Two-thirds of those contracts are run by an organization called that is fiscally sponsored by another one.
I just say all of this because it is a gaping hole in how we address homelessness to not be able to provide the services to people who have very unique needs compared to couch surfing, compared to youth homelessness, compared to street homelessness.
And I want to break down this proposal from Strauss because it seems like it would represent a very different approach from the city.
It would restrict parking for RVs to two hours maximum in all areas of the city.
Once you get that permit, the permit would be revoked if a permit holder turns down offers of appropriate shelter six times.
Well, let's start actually with what Strauss said about there being no shelter for people living in RVs, because I do want to.
mentioned, you know, there is, you described some of the sort of stick elements of the proposal, and I want to talk about those, but just quickly, the rest of the proposal would provide or would pay for some combination of shelter, probably like a tiny house village, with rvs on site the idea is to have two of those uh the city is about to open one well about to in november at the glassyard it's going to be called the glassyard commons and a lot in west seattle it would pay for that it would also expand the unified care team by another seven people that's the group that goes around and does outreach to encampments but also sweeps encampments
so that's sort of the the side of you know let's let's give people in rvs a place to live thank you the The stick side, as you described, I mean, it's pretty harsh.
Right now, RVs are allowed in industrial land, but this includes industrial land unless you get one of these permits.
And there's all kind of ways you can have a permit revoked besides, you know, refusing appropriate quote unquote shelter, which is not defined in the legislation in any way.
I am really concerned about that phrase in terms of how this goes forward legally.
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