James Vlos lives out of four vehicles— a 1981 Sierra Grande, a 1989 Chevrolet Crew Cab, a 1982 Custom Deluxe van and a 1957 GMC pick up. He’s scattered them throughout the city, occupying spaces up on Capitol Hill, on a busy side street in Belltown known for its fancy dog salon and on Queen Anne Hill, stationed on a quiet street lined with verdant maples.
At least, that’s where they were on July 5. Chances are he’s moved them since then, parked them on another road or driven them to a different neighborhood altogether. It’s an automotive chess game that Vlos has to play because the city requires cars parked on the street to be moved every 72 hours. Otherwise, it means he might be facing a $35 parking ticket slipped under the wiper. Or an abandoned vehicle citation glued to the windshield. From there, it’s a tow truck. “And if you’re too indigent to pay the towing charges,” says Vlos, 38, “then you lose your vehicle.”
The loss Vlos speaks of is rooted in experience. In the decade since he’s been living out of vehicles, he estimates that he’s owned a couple hundred of them. But the lion’s share is gone. “Most likely turned into ‘Vulcanized’ metal,” he says.
What’s left are unpaid fines, towing and storage fees, amounting to nearly $11,000. The debt, held by a collection agency, represents the complete anti
thesis of what Vlos claims was his rationale for moving into that first vehicle — a 1971 Dodge pick-up truck — ten years ago. “I thought I could save enough money to keep carrying on,” says Vlos, who currently works for the Port of Seattle, “so living in my vehicle was the only way out.”
He’s not alone. All over the city, along traffic-choked streets in the SODO, in quiet neighborhoods in North Seattle, and all manner of places in between, people are living in and out of their vehicles. But exactly how many people? No one really seems to know.
“There are a lot,” says Sgt. Paul Gracy of the Seattle Police Department (SPD). He says he’s aware of people sleeping in and living out of vehicles parked under Spokane St., but there’s no clear way to determine their numbers. As long as a vehicle is moved every 72 hours, no law is broken by someone living in it, as there’s no city ordinance making the act illegal. “We prefer that people would rather live in a house” if at all possible, he says. “But we don’t go out seeking people in vehicles.”
Cars left unmoved for more than 72 hours are considered abandoned. Citizens noting such vehicles can call the abandoned vehicle hotline, or log on to the SPD website to submit a report. From there, parking enforcement ventures out to conduct an inspection. If verified, an enforcement official will adhere an orange citation — which Vlos calls a “move-it-or-lose-it” sticker — to the front windshield, notifying the owner the vehicle will be towed if not moved in 72 hours.
Gloria Tate, parking enforcement supervisor, says that when parking officials encounter someone in an abandoned vehicle, they inform the individual that an official will return in three days to ensure the vehicle is no longer there. In her 30 years in the department, she says the number of people encountered by parking officials in “abandoned cars” has grown. “It’s been kind of gradual,” she says, “[but we] notice more that people are living in cars.”
Even so, Tate can’t come up with hard figures as to how many people officials have encountered living in cited vehicles. “No one’s tracking how many people or inputting it into any sort of system,” she says.
But some data does exist. During this year’s One Night Count, conducted by Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless (SKCCH), an overnight tally of homeless people in areas of King County identified 654 people living in cars or trucks. SKCCH executive director Alison Eisinger says counters were instructed, upon seeing a vehicle that looked to have been lived in, to assume two people were in the vehicle. Thus, she says, the figure obtained is a conservative estimate.
Vlos, who says he knows what to look for, proposes a quick tour of SODO to see if car campers can be found.
Down on Sixth Ave. S., Vlos eyes a camper. “Pull over right here,” he says.
Vlos says he’s pretty sure someone’s living out of it, as he used to live out of a vehicle he’d parked close by that’s since been towed. Vlos knocks. No answer. He goes around to the back. An abandoned vehicle citation, apparently scraped off the windshield and tossed near a rear tire, says the vehicle should have been moved the week before.
Through the rear door, unmade beds are visible. He points to the license plate: expired tags. Next to the door is a message, scrawled in pencil: “To contact owner…” with a local phone number. A call produces a woman’s voice who says, promptly, “I’m not interested.”
Vlos suggests traveling down to Spokane St. There, under the overpass, is a line of close to thirty vehicles, including vans, cars, trucks, Winnebagos, even a school bus. Walking from one to the next, Vlos indicates clothes strewn inside, mattresses crowded on van floors, and more dead tags. “If we came back at night, we’d find some people,” he says.
In a nearby van, a man stands hunched over, putting on a shirt. Vlos knocks, saying, “I’m not the cops.” The side door opens.
Out steps Robert, maneuvering past a two-burner hot plate inside. He says parking officials, who had just come to check on the vehicle, had awoken him. For three years, he’s been living out of vehicles, he says, moving the van and a blue four-door parked next of it every three or four days. It’s a lifestyle he says he enjoys.
“I don’t like the idea of paying rent,” he says, as he hurries off to get lunch.
While Vlos agrees that “nobody wants to pay rent,” he confesses that if he could afford it, he’d rather not live in one of his four vehicles.
“I don’t live out of vehicles because I enjoy it,” he says. “I mean, I’d prefer to have property, land, a place to stay. I live out of vehicles hoping I [can] somehow work my way out of debt. But it never seems to ever happen.” n