LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The Los Angeles City Council today will vote on whether to once again prohibit people from sleeping in their cars in residential neighborhoods and near schools by passing a six-month extension of the law.
The City Council did not pass an expected extension before the July recess, unintentionally giving people living out of their cars a grace period during that time.
In mid-July, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore said the vehicle-dwelling law that was extended by six months in December expired at the end of June.
“A proposed ordinance, which would reinstate (the ordinance) and provide a new sunset date of Jan. 1, 2020, is currently pending in city council. However, this proposed ordinance has not been approved yet,” Moore wrote on July 17.
The prohibition would last every day from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and designate at least a 500-foot buffer from schools, and people cannot be sleeping while parked on any residential streets.
Representatives for City Councilman Mitch O'Farrell, who chairs the city council's Homeless and Poverty Committee, said the council had been planning to revive the ordinance at today's meeting.
It was illegal for decades to live in a vehicle in the city until a 2014 federal court ruling struck down the ban. The council responded by drafting the law that made it illegal to live in a vehicle in certain areas. The council extended the law by six months in June 2018, then voted again in December 2018 to extend it for another six months.
Homeless advocates have long criticized the law, saying it criminalizes homelessness.
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