SEATTLE — The city of Seattle wants to crack down on the number of RVs being used as shelter on the streets, especially ones that have serious damage.
Ballard is one place where streets lined with RVs aren’t hard to find. For some, the vehicles are their last possession, but others are simply renting them.
In a Friday morning meeting, the City Council will be talking about new legislation that would ban people from renting out extensively damaged RVs and penalizing anyone who does so.
The city says when it did cleanups, it found out some people living in RVs don't even have the keys to the vehicles and were unable to move them, because they were renting the vehicle from another person.
It's a practice called "RV ranching,” which leads to towed vehicles repeatedly reappearing on the same streets.
KIRO 7 has spoken with neighbors in various neighborhoods many times in the past about their frustration with the RV shuffle and lack of real progress from cleanups.
The city now wants to permanently remove the most dilapidated RVs by banning people from renting or living in them, especially those considered a safety or health hazard.
The city believes just two to five people are responsible for the majority of RV ranching in the city.
There's currently no law against the practice.