Vehicle Lodging Survey

From Dennis Hathaway (as posted on VeniceCA):

The issue of people living in vehicles on Venice streets is obviously pushing buttons right now, and creating lots of rhetoric from various points of view. I've heard claims that there are "hundreds" of such vehicles on the streets, as well as assertions that the numbers are greatly exaggerated.

In order to try to shed some light on this, I conducted an informal survey last night by driving the major streets of Venice and counting the vehicles that looked as if they were being used as living quarters. Beginning around 10 p.m., I drove all of Rose Ave., Pacific Ave., Main St., Lincoln Blvd., Venice Blvd., Walgrove Ave., Penmar Ave., California Ave., Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice Way and Grand Ave. Also parts of Windward Ave., Palms Blvd., Mildred Ave., Flower Ave., Sunset Ave., , Hampton Dr., and 7th Avenue.

I counted a total of 73 vehicles. By far the largest concentration was on Rose Avenue west of Lincoln, and the side streets south from Rose between Lincoln and Hampton Dr., a total of 37. The next largest concentration was on Venice Blvd. west of Lincoln, a total of 13. There were just scatterings of vehicles on the other streets. (Most of the vehicles were parked singly, although there were a few collections of two and three. I also drove a few blocks randomly on smaller residential streets, but didn't see any vehicles, nor much in the way of empty parking spaces, for that matter.)

This was a very imperfect survey, of course, because I obviously didn't see every vehicle in Venice used as living quarters, and because I may have counted vehicles owned by residents and just parked on the street, although I avoided counting those that looked obviously new and expensive, or didn't have any coverings over the windshields/windows.