SF’s RV Crackdown Backfired: 6 Takeaways From El Tecolote’s Investigation

An El Tecolote investigation reveals how officials quietly coordinated a crackdown, using parking laws and construction projects to push out RV residents. 

For years, dozens of working-class families living in RVs along Winston Drive built a stable, self-reliant community on San Francisco’s west side. But in 2024, new city policies tore it apart.

An El Tecolote investigation — based on thousands of internal emails, city records and firsthand accounts — reveals how officials quietly coordinated a crackdown, using parking laws and construction projects to push out RV residents even when safe alternatives didn’t exist.

Behind closed doors, staff warned the crackdown would likely fail and destabilize vulnerable residents. But officials moved forward anyway — citing political pressure, optics and infrastructure plans.

“We still need a reasonable, feasible answer to the question, ‘Where will all these people go if they can’t park here?’” SFMTA’s policy analyst Andy Thornley wrote in a May 2023 email to homelessness director Emily Cohen.

He added that Supervisor Melgar “understands fully” the risks of mass displacement.

Officials framed the evictions as public safety measures or routine maintenance. But records show a broader pattern. These five takeaways reveal how the crackdown unfolded — and how it became San Francisco’s playbook for displacing RV communities.

1. A crackdown driven by politics, not safety

Publicly, city leaders said the Winston Drive displacement was about safety and the need for more parking near San Francisco State University. SFSU official Jason Porth cited “syringes with needles, broken beer bottles, a chair.” Supervisor Melgar echoed those concerns, requesting 4-hour parking limits to protect schools and pedestrians.

But internal emails tell a different story. SFMTA staff noted that most RV residents on Winston were “mostly obeying parking rules,” staying registered, moving their vehicles for street cleaning, and keeping the area tidy. Even so, Melgar and SFMTA moved ahead with new 4-hour parking restrictions designed to force residents out.

Residents say the deepest betrayal came from Melgar — the city’s only Latina supervisor at the time — who had personally visited the community and promised families they wouldn’t be displaced without alternatives.

“We trusted [Melgar] a lot,” said Angela Arostegui, who lived in an RV on Winston with her husband and two daughters. “She gave us false hope. She played with us.”

Melgar, in a written response to El Tecolote’s investigative findings, rejected claims that her office misled RV residents.

“My staff and I worked for 3 years to find safe alternatives for the folks living on Winston and Buckingham drives. It took great effort,” wrote Melgar on April 28, 2025. “However, the goal was always to restore the public right of way, and I never said anything to the contrary.”

2. When tickets didn’t work, the city turned to construction — and optics

A July 2024 court ruling blocked San Francisco from towing legally parked vehicles for unpaid tickets. With towing off the table, officials looked for other tactics.

Melgar pushed for 4-hour limits on Winston, even though SFMTA staff noted enforcement would be difficult.

“Bear in mind that this enforcement will not result in towing,” SFMTA liaison Joél Ramos wrote in a July 2024 email. “It is the Supervisor’s hope that the threat and/or issuance of parking citations alone will result in people moving the RVs.”

When tickets didn’t work, officials used a street repaving project to clear RVs, citing safety and logistics. The project became a public-facing justification that masked what internal emails described as political urgency.

The strategy worked. Families were pushed out. The press framed the evictions as development-driven.

Three days before the city’s July 2024 deadline to clear Winston Drive, more than 20 RVs caravanned to an empty private lot near the San Francisco Zoo in an attempt to pressure the city to provide an alternative safe parking site. That same night, police and park rangers redirected them to Zoo Road, near the Pomeroy Center.

That same strategy — combining parking restrictions and construction — was quickly replicated on Zoo Road.

SFMTA began enforcing the 72-hour parking rule. But internal emails questioned its use.

“The purpose of [the] 72-hour rule is to ensure vehicles are not abandoned,” wrote SFMTA’s Chadwick Lee. “I do not believe it’s applicable in this case.”

Director of Parking Enforcement Scott Edwards said in another email: “If a vehicle moves an inch, then it cannot be cited or towed.”

To work around this limitation, SFMTA signed a work order for curb painting and restriping on Zoo Road, using the same contract from Winston. Advocates questioned whether the work was even necessary.

“Families who did not qualify for housing who were promised safe parking for 3 years by [the] city are being evicted again,” read a Coalition on Homelessness Instagram post. “We spoke to workers who confirmed the [restriping] work has been completed so why exactly does the city require them to move?”

3. Evictions resulted in predictable consequences

Even before enforcement began, internal emails flagged likely fallout: displaced families would scatter across the city.

As early as March 2023, SFMTA policy manager Hank Wilson flagged in an email to Melgar’s office the likely fallout: “as we all know, the proposed 4-hour time limits would impact the large number of vehicles (120 or so).” He added that “It likely will push those folks living in vehicles to other blocks in the City.”

That’s exactly what happened. As RVs were cleared from Winston and Zoo Road, they appeared on John Muir Drive, Vidal, 19th Avenue, the Bayview neighborhood, and beyond. Neighbors complained. Supervisors called for new restrictions.

“As many predicted, displacing these vehicles from Winston Drive has merely moved the problem to other areas,” wrote an anonymous constituent to District 4 Supervisor Joe Engardio on Aug. 9, 2024. “Each day more and more RVs, vans, trailers, and trucks are showing up in front of Rolph Nicol Park and around the Merced Manor Reservoir.”

“We obviously need a bigger citywide plan and process,” wrote Thornley on Aug. 21, responding to a complaint on Phelps Street. “Or we’ll just keep pushing large vehicles around from neighborhood to neighborhood — not good for anyone.”

4. Winston became the city’s de-facto eviction playbook

After Winston and Zoo Road, SFMTA began using the same enforcement blueprint across the city.

By December 2024, 19th Avenue had become the next target. “Question might be how will we handle enforcement,” wrote (PDF) SFMTA’s Director of Streets Viktoriya Wise to Thornley. “My plan is to say we would handle it similar to Winston. Do you agree?”

Thornley replied with a now-refined strategy: legislate the restriction, coordinate sign installation, post multilingual flyers, allow a two-week grace period and begin enforcement — while looping the homeless department and other agencies to manage fallout. But he also flagged the limits of this strategy: “Vidal Drive is more parked-up than it’s ever been,” he wrote. “It’s a stark illustration of our limitations, to put it mildly.”

In a statement to El Tecolote, SFMTA said: “We’ll continue working with the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, SFPD, and the Mayor’s Office to make sure that anyone living on our streets or in recreational vehicles (RVs) has information about the many city services and resources available to them.”

5. Immigrant families suffered most

Throughout the eviction process, it was working-class immigrant families who were hit hardest.

San Francisco offered the Arostegui family a city subsidy in Parkmerced. Their rent is income-based, with support lasting up to three years. “Time flies,” said Angela Arostegui. “We’re already trying to find a more permanent option.”

Other relatives weren’t as lucky. Angela’s cousin Marlon remains in an RV nearby. Her nephew Lisandro, who couldn’t move in time, sold his RV and left San Francisco. He and his wife slept in their car before settling in Las Vegas. “At least in Winston, I had my family close,” Lisandro said. “We were helping each other. That made it easier.”

The Rosales family now lives under the shadow of another looming eviction. Verónica Cañas and her mother Eusebia were offered the same subsidy program to move into Parkmerced, but said they are being pressured to pay more rent soon, despite their inability to find stable work.

“If they kick us out,” Eusebia said, “we’ll return to our RVs again.”

For Angela Arostegui, who was leaving Zoo Road in August 2024, relentless pressure from city workers left the families exhausted and feeling coerced into signing rental agreements they didn’t fully understand or might have declined under different circumstances.

“The city has us at the brink of the abyss,” said Angela Arostegui. “First on Winston, they gave us 4-hour parking rules. Then on Zoo Road, there wasn’t a day without a ticket or a knock on the door.”

While several families moved out from Zoo Road into subsidized rentals at Parkmerced, other RV residents from Winston Drive remain uncertain about where they will park next.

“The city did nothing for us,” said Marcivon Oliviera, 46, an Uber and Lyft driver from Brazil. He said about twenty other RV residents from Winston Drive are now parking in Palo Alto, forced to move every 72 hours in a continuous search for a new street on which to park.

6. The city is doubling down on the same strategy

On Tuesday, Mayor Daniel Lurie unveiled a sweeping new policy that would expand the tactics used on Winston Drive into a citywide mandate. His new legislation, introduced with support from Supervisor Melgar and others, would impose 24/7 two-hour parking limits for large vehicles across San Francisco.

Framed as part of Lurie’s “Breaking the Cycle” homelessness plan, the bill pledges $13 million for housing subsidies, a vehicle buyback program and specialized outreach teams. It would also create a temporary permit for people actively working with case managers to avoid displacement.

Supporters say the plan balances compassion with accountability. But advocates argue it formalizes the same enforcement-first model that scattered RV families from block to block, and now risks pushing even more residents into crisis.

Read part one of El Tecolote’s investigation here.