Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Curtis A. Kin ruled against a program that would allow the city to dismantle recreational vehicles it deemed inconveniently or illegally placed Thursday.
Starting January 1, Los Angeles County was granted the ability to dispose of RVs with a value of $4,000 or less as a result of Assembly Bill 630. This new threshold would make it significantly more efficient for the county to dispose of vehicles, allowing them to avoid the auctioning and towing process. However, the bill did not grant the same power to the city of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles city officials then sought the authority under state law to remove abandoned or inoperable RVs worth up to $4,000 within the city limits, a major increase from the previous $500 limit.
The law initially received support from Mayor Karen Bass and some L.A. residents due to health risks posed by abandoned or poorly maintained RVs.
“AB 630 will allow us to expand on this work by bringing people into temporary housing, recycling unsafe and unlivable RVs and making our streets safer,” Bass said of the hearing.
According to California RV Specialists, an RV repair shop in Burbank, even the highest-quality RVs are engineered for seasonal use, not year-round living; the wear-and-tear of daily use can degrade sealants, making vehicles extremely prone to mold.
The number of people living in vehicles has surged across California in recent years due to factors like rent surges and chronic housing shortages, according to Santa Clara County data. RVs have seemingly emerged as a top choice for low-income and homeless individuals, offering a degree of autonomy that shelters and street living do not.
About 6,500 people reside in recreational vehicles across the county, according to the 2025 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count.
Carly Moreno, a head manager at Metro RV, said she had noticed an uptick in RVs being purchased by people wanting to live in the vehicles full-time.
“We just started selling vehicles two years ago,” she said. “Recently, the clientele seems to be more on the lower end and sometimes it just looks like people who are trying to survive.”
Moreno said that the vehicles, when not properly serviced, can pose safety concerns such as leaks and fires.
“The black and gray tanks inside of the RVs are essentially sewage… [so] sometimes that sewage can leak out,” Moreno said. “Rodents will chew on wiring which can actually start a fire, and because they’re not able to get the proper services that they need — including water heater services — the debris will get into the water heater and also cause a fire.”
With proper maintenance, however, Moreno said most safety issues could be addressed while still allowing people to keep their vehicles. The bigger issue, she said, was the harassment people living in vehicles face.
“[We have a] homeless gentleman that we work with frequently … and it is not [even about] the destruction necessarily of the motor homes, it’s more about the harassment that they [receive] based on having a vehicle not really worth anything,” she said. “This gentleman, he is just living on his own, doesn’t do drugs, and is just trying to live in the best way he can. He probably gets harassed daily.”
RVs are commonly purchased at auctions and towed by “vanlords” who rent them to tenants like traditional houses. These vehicles are often parked illegally, connected to nearby power systems, and left to be maintained solely by the tenant. Restrooms are unavailable in these publicly stopped vehicles, posing health risks whenever they are parked.
But vanlords don’t seem to be the root of the problem. Peggy Lee Kennedy, a Venice Justice Committee organizer, said, “[It is] not ideal to criminalize [vanlords] when we’re not providing… [adequate] low-income housing to people.”