Homeless migration to RVs creating problems

westernrvparkowner wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
However, the homeless crisis is less about all that, IMO. IDK what the causes are. All the mentally ill congregate in certain cities??
People getting lazier? IDK
It's sure as heck not the economy and hasn't been for a long time.

The recent phenomenon of old RVs becoming urban homeless shelters is, every year there are more/newer RVs that still are "useable" but not road worthy. (Back in the whatever 70s-90s, there weren't the number of RVs that were old, because it was a newer industry.)
Makes sense, I'd live in a leaky RV with a bad engine before living under a bridge!

I think you may have hit the nail directly on the head. It is probably made even worse by the fact that disposing of a used RV usually involves a cost. You can take a car or truck to a wrecking yard and get a few bucks. An RV, not way. They don't want it. Take it to a landfill operation and they are going to have both requirements and conditions (no paper inside, No refrigerant in the refrigerator or AC units, only take them on the third Wednesday of certain months, etc) and will charge a fee, which in my experience is in the hundreds of dollars. Better to give it away and it eventually makes it way to the homeless communities usually by someone who thinks they are doing a good thing.
The homeless problem is one without a solution. Like others have said, most are either mentally ill, highly addicted to drugs and alcohol or just plain willing to live that life. Our society is not willing to involuntarily commit the ill and addicted. We can't suddenly make someone want to work and pay rent. We increasingly decide as a society to not rigorously enforce vagrancy laws and the like and when we do, it just moves the problem, it doesn't provide a solution. Even giving people housing doesn't work, our history with public housing proves that.
For most communities that have severe homeless problems the actually driving force is climate. It's more pleasant to be homeless in San Francisco than it is in Chicago. And once again society has decided that changing climate is also bad public policy, so homelessness in cities such as LA, San Francisco, Portland etc. will continue without an answer.