Residents\u00a0and advocates urged the council to move faster and consider safe parking options already in use in neighboring cities, including San Jose<\/a> and Mountain View<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI have lived experience living in a car and being homeless,\u201d Drew Siegler, an advocate with Showing Up for Racial Justice of Santa Clara County, said over Zoom during public comment. \u201cSafe parking is really probably your best benefit.\u201d<\/p>\n City employee Amanda Sholtz said people living in vehicles have swollen legs and swollen feet. Oftentimes they can barely walk because they\u2019re sitting in their vehicle for long periods of time.<\/p>\n Officials said their approach is aimed at addressing a visible and increasing situation across the city. More than a dozen RVs are parked along Del Rey Avenue near Mathilda Avenue \u2014 highlighting the presence of large, lived in vehicles on city streets.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn\u2019t a single solution that\u2019s going to fix this,\u201d City Manager Tim Kirby said during the meeting. \u201cWe know this isn\u2019t going to solve everything, but it\u2019s a concrete step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n During the meeting, officials outlined three main strategies: develop temporary housing, create a buyback program to help residents transition out of RVs and establish designated parking areas to better manage where large vehicles can stay.<\/p>\n But councilmembers raised concerns about how the programs would work in practice, including cost, timelines, whether they could meaningfully help people now \u2014 not in one to two years \u2014 and if the programs would attract non-Sunnyvale homeless residents.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the people weren\u2019t from Berkeley originally, do we want to be incentivizing people that aren\u2019t from Sunnyvale to be selling their RVs?\u201d District 4 Councilmember Charlsie Chang said at the meeting. \u201cWhat staff has proposed, there\u2019s nothing interim for the Sunnyvale residents now that are unhoused.\u201d<\/p>\n Vice Mayor Richard Mehlinger, who represents District 5, suggested the city remove the RV buyback program from the proposal, but Kirby said once a more concrete plan is developed the RV program could be cut.<\/p>\n District 3 Councilmember Murali Srinivasan, as well as Mehlinger and Chang, questioned whether the city could realistically fund multiple solutions, with surrounding cities such as San Jose already experiencing federal funding cuts<\/a>. Srinivasan pointed out that building temporary housing could take one to two years.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no single solution. That\u2019s my observation,\u201d Srinivasan said. \u201cI also was concerned about the timeline one to two years. I think we need to come up with something in the (interim).\u201d .<\/p>\n The effort comes as homelessness continues to rise across Santa Clara County, with a record 10,711 homeless people<\/a> living in the county, according to a\u00a0count conducted in January 2025<\/a>. In Sunnyvale, approximately 421 people experienced homelessness<\/a> last year, down slightly from the previous count in 2023.<\/p>\n Frustration surfaced during the discussion, with Mehlinger criticizing the city\u2019s progress on safe parking<\/a> \u2014 a strategy that has been discussed for years but has yet to materialize locally.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a serious, serious problem in our community,\u201d Mehlinger said at the meeting. \u201cI cannot accept that there is nowhere in this city that can support a safe parking program.\u201d<\/p>\n
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