New Safe Parking Site Frees City to Push Campers Out of Mission Bay  

This post has been updated.

Capt. Steve Shebloski, head of San Diego Neighborhood Policing Division, said he receives the most parking complaints about Mission Bay — where RVs line the roads and fill the parking spaces on a daily basis. 

That led City Council President Joe LaCava to push for increased enforcement of parking regulations, which prohibit people from parking around Mission Bay between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. A federal lawsuit had tied the city’s hands, but now — after the opening of a new safe parking lot at H Barracks — San Diego police officers are starting to crack down. 

Because people now have another place to camp, cops can start ticketing them for being parked where they aren’t supposed to be. 

However, for Bridget Montgomery, 56, who has been living out of her RV, Mission Bay remains one of the few places she feels safe. The city’s newfound energy to enforce parking regulations has just created more debt for her.  

“It just makes it harder for us, because they’re telling us we’ve got to move,” she said holding a $112.00 parking ticket, one of several she received over the past three months. “You don’t have the gas to keep having to start your vehicle and move it, start it, move it again.” 

The H Barracks safe parking site has 43 vehicles enrolled — but capacity for 190 vehicles.  

RV campers are referred to H Barracks to spend the night, but it’s too soon to tell if this will have an impact on Mission Bay. Some campers are struggling with homelessness, while others are taking advantage of the free parking. 

The presence of expensive RVs indicates some people are not living there in desperation but embracing a lifestyle on the road.  

Jeff Johnson, chair from the Mission Bay Park Committee, said at the height of the pandemic hundreds of RVs were parked along East Mission Bay Drive, scattered across parking lots in the area and along Fiesta Island. They would park overnight, and he’d often come across fractured sewage tanks or notice vans staying for months on end. 

“My problem with this is not classist,” he said. “There are different classes of people and one of the problems with the lack of enforcement is opportunists,” Johnson said, referring to people with money and means who just want a free place to camp.  

Since 2022, he’s been filming the growing number of RVs through late night drives in Mission Bay on his social media channels. The goal: Get the city to do something. 

LaCava wants to address the neighbors’ complaints with immediate and long-term solutions. He has pushed for expanding the city’s Safe Parking Program and considered restriping Mission Bay Drive to create diagonal parking so RVs can’t fit.  

“The question is for those people that are living in those vehicles as a last resort, what do we do with them?” said LaCava. “How do we deal with them compassionately?” 

Things came to a head in 2017 when a federal lawsuit challenged the city for issuing tickets to people living out of their vehicles. The complaint, filed by a group of unhoused folks living in their cars, said the laws were unconstitutional. It created a standstill for the city to ticket campers.  

That is until a legal settlement and H Barracks, a safe parking lot next to the San Diego International Airport, opened in May after a series of setbacks. With a new space nearby for people to park from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m., it allowed the Police Department to come back in and start handing out citations.  

“We’re in the enforcement phase,” said LaCava. 

H Barracks can take up to 190 vehicles, including space for oversized cars and RVs. The city has also dedicated a total of 30 spots to the police department, 25 for motorhomes, and five for passenger vehicles for referrals. 

“We check before to make sure there’s spots available. There has been every single night – and make sure we can refer somebody down there,” said Capt. Shebloski. “If they accept, they’re good to go. They don’t get a ticket.”  

Capt. Shebloski said in the last month, they made 45 referrals to H Barracks.  

The challenge is getting more people to go. 

For Montgomery, who’s having to maneuver the city with her large RV “Rose,” going to H Barracks with the whole family is unrealistic. They don’t have enough gas money pooled together to move the car everyday into the facility – let alone to leave Mission Bay when parking is illegal between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.  

So the family doesn’t move. 

“It’s just hard, they don’t understand, you know?” she said. “It’s like if you quit giving us these tickets, then we can do what we need to do, instead of having to stress and try and figure out a way to pay these tickets.” 

The former nurse has seven kids. She’s been living with three of her sons and two dogs in their RV since 2022. She lost her husband, a Navy SEAL, to cancer in 2013. The bank took her home and she moved into an apartment where the family lived until 2022 but then was evicted.  

“This was supposed to be our camping vehicle,” she said, recalling road trips with her husband and kids.  

Organizations like PATH San Diego often do outreach in these areas, introducing themselves to people and briefing them on the different resources available. Cory Stapleton, program manager of coordinated street outreach, said increased enforcement in the area has decreased the number of RVs, but it isn’t clear if they are leaving in favor of H Barracks parking. 

Stapleton said while H Barracks is a good option, it doesn’t accommodate the needs of every individual in Mission Bay.  

“Every additional shelter resource is absolutely needed, and our outreach focuses on finding the right resource for the right person at the right time,” said Stapleton. 

Stapleton said some people choose to run the risk of getting ticketed because they can’t utilize the safe parking program. 

People living out of their RVs in Mission Bay said the costs of using the H Barracks lot add up, because they must move their cars in and out of the lot each morning.  

Jeffrey Coyne, 66, lives just across the road from Montgomery. The Navy veteran spends most of his days fine tuning the RV he bought a month ago, after being asked to leave his apartment by Veteran Affairs. 

When asked about H Barracks, he shared similar concerns to Montgomery. “I don’t mind the rules,” he said. “Leaving every day with my motor home, coming back and forth all the time, could get expensive on gas and it’s not something I really want to do.”  

Coyne’s income includes Social Security, and he makes up to $500 a month collecting cans and bottles. He’s in the process of buying some land in the desert where he hopes to keep his motorhome and build his own house. 

“I’ve been up there too, I’ve had money and houses,” he said pointing to the homes surrounding Mission Bay. “We’re just regular people trying to survive.” 

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the timing of a federal lawsuit challenging the city’s ticketing of people living in vehicles. The lawsuit was filed in 2017 and a settlement was finalized in 2024.