Exclusive | Meet the Californians living in RVs to save cash during housing crisis — while others are exploited by ‘vanlords’

In California’s notoriously expensive Bay Area, living out of one’s vehicle has increasing appeal.

Recreational vehicle (RV) parks, once the domain of seasonal workers and adventurous retirees, now host local residents with full-time jobs aiming to cut costs — by avoiding high housing costs altogether. These days, RV parks are filling up even more with state residents aiming to save cash.

Among them are brothers Stefan and Sebastian Goins, who recently made the leap to RV living after six years of rent hikes in their Pleasantville apartment.

They drained their savings to buy a $24,000 32-foot long traveling trailer. But moving to the RV park came with an extra $2,000 in savings each month — as they together pay $1,000 monthly for their parking and utilities hookups — though with some compromises in comfort. 

“I don’t think it’s for everybody, but it’s definitely an option, compared to the alternative,” Sebastian, 34, told The Post. 

For Stefan, an automotive technician, and Sebastian, a cafe supervisor, the idea of living out of a home on wheels wasn’t too far-flung. Their mother, Shiree Goins, has lived in an RV with her husband for eight years. The parents are even eager to move back to the Bay Area from Oregon to be closer to their kids, but they ran into the same problem that Stefan and Sebastian did — the Bay Area’s long-term RV parks are full. 

“I’m looking all the way out in Sacramento, just to see if there’s something out there,” Shiree told The Post.

She and her husband left upstate New York for California RV living as an adventure, but visiting the Bay Area is a particular challenge.

“Finding a space in a clean, taken-care-of RV Park that’s more than just the parking lot is very hard,” she said.

The number of San Franciscans living in their vehicles rose 37% between 2022 and 2024, to 1,444 people, according to city data. In nearby Santa Clara County, at the heart of Silicon Valley, the number of residents sleeping in cars has more than doubled since the pandemic, according to CNBC. 

The trend has led to the emergence of an exploitative “shadow rental market,” in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, run by “vanlords,” who rent out vehicles on public streets. In San Francisco, the illegally parked vehicles are heavily concentrated in the Bayview and Taraval areas. The crisis is complicated by the city’s lack of emergency shelter beds, which could otherwise offer space and resources for vulnerable RV renters, and increased parking enforcement. 

The Golden State overall is famously unaffordable. More than 30% of California home listings were priced at $1 million or more in January, according to a Realtor.com report. A San Francisco family of four earning up to $157,700 annually currently qualifies as “low income,” according to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

San Francisco rents, too, have risen by double digits over the past year, with the median two-bedroom rent hovering around the $3,700 mark in January.

All things considered, the leap from apartment to four wheels worked out well for Stefan and Sebastian. 

In addition to a $600 increase to their former apartment’s rent across six years, the building itself was less than ideal — their apartment flooded whenever it rained, and Stefan’s car was once damaged by gun pellets. 

With no viable two-bedrooms in their budget near their workplaces, the decision was finally made in October. The 2010 trailer they bought came with a bedroom, a fold-out couch, a small kitchen and a table that could fold in.

Finding a place to park the vehicle legally that was close to their jobs was difficult.

“I called probably eight to nine different places within the East Bay,” Stefan said. 

One location they found was available one day, and gone the next, Sebastian said.

Bay Area locals in more dire situations than the Goins opt to park on public roads, without the security and utility hookups that come with RV parks. A previous safe parking site established by city funding closed in March 2025.  

Parking rules in San Francisco became more strictly enforced last year, after the city instituted a 24/7, two-hour parking limit for large vehicles citywide. The new rule was paired with offers of temporary permits, permanent and interim housing, as well as an ongoing vehicle buyback scheme for affected residents.

The initial rollout was criticized for its speed, with advocates claiming housing supply simply wasn’t there for the hundreds of households affected. Outreach teams enrolled 77% of previously counted large vehicle residents who remained in San Francisco after the program’s launch, according to city data. A total of 42 households have gone through the city’s rapid rehousing program so far.

After ending their rental lease, Stefan and Sebastian were able to find an RV park in the East Bay in November.

For Stefan, life in the RV turned out to be a perfect fit, especially with an extra $2,000 in his pocket each month. 

“Now, I can go to the store and I don’t have to look at my wallet and think, ‘Can I afford that?’” Stefan said.

Stefan said he lived as a “shut-in,” when he was renting, but now he has more flexibility to spend on life and on his son, who lives a short drive away. 

“Now in the RV, I can actually choose what I want to do,” he said.

Satisfaction with the living arrangements varies, however. Sebastian is still getting used to life on four wheels.

“I’m still not 100% thrilled about it, but it’s not as bad as you think,” Sebastian said. 

Sebastian left upstate New York and joined Stefan in 2019. He was excited to try out the West Coast, but encountered fierce job competition.

“There’s just so many people here that you’re constantly battling for the opportunity,” he said. “I remember for six months I was applying for job after job after job.”

Even once he found steady work that paid as much as his job in New York, the cost of living was much higher. One of his co-workers recently asked him about his new housing arrangements, considering doing the same thing.

“Some people are just doing it permanently,” he said. “They buy the RV, they park it, and they plan on never really leaving it.”

The brothers have to live more simply to fit into the narrow space, Sebastian said. Cooking on their small burner can make the entire home feel messy, and the trailer’s insulation can make it drafty on colder days.

“I like being simple, but I also like comfortability,” he said. Sebastian said he misses taking baths and running hot water for longer than 10 minutes, but expects to keep living there for at least another few years. 

Stefan plans to live the RV life for at least another decade, and stay local, despite his reservations about the state’s high costs and potential mileage tax.

“I think failed policies and failed politics have just overrun the renting community, because I think we’re being exploited” he said.