Nearly a week after city officials forced them to leave Zoo Road, the tight-knit Latinx RV community that had formed along Winston Drive is now scattered throughout the Bay Area. While some families have found city-sponsored housing, others are desperately looking for a safe place to park their vehicles.

With the Winston Drive clearing scheduled for August 1, the RV community formed a caravan on July 29 and occupied a vacant lot at the San Francisco Zoo in a desperate attempt to find a safe, alternative parking spot. When police temporarily relocated the caravan to Zoo Road later that evening, RV residents hoped the new location could become a viable, long-term alternative parking spot for their vehicles.

“I think we’re much better off here,” said Yorman Roa, 30, on Aug. 2. At the time, Roa lived in his RV with his wife and two daughters. “There are no cars speeding by and there aren’t many people around… I think this place is a little safer and quieter,” Roa said.

Hopes for a long-term solution quickly faded, however, as their new location on Zoo Road became a grueling, weeks-long affair with parking tickets and fear of tow trucks as city workers enforced a 72-hour parking rule in the area.

“In many cases, we had to get up at 4 a.m. to move the RVs,” said Roa, whose unregistered RV was towed on Aug. 12. “We had to spend the night in our car because they didn’t leave us anything… all our stuff was in our RV.” With the help of friends, Roa was able to get his RV back the next day.

On Tuesday, August 13, city workers posted “No Stopping” signs along Zoo Road, citing street cleaning and lane marking, forcing the remaining RV residents to find another location by midnight or face immediate towing.

Ahead of the Zoo Road eviction deadline, the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) said it had contacted 22 families, 20 of whom agreed to participate in the city’s rapid reintegration program. These residents must spend about 30% of their income on rent, an amount that will gradually increase over time.

Angela Arostegui, another resident who lives in a mobile home with her husband and two children, said the relentless pressure from city workers has exhausted families and forced them to sign leases they would otherwise have avoided.

“The city has brought us to the brink. They have been very persecuting us,” Arostegui said. “First they gave us four hours (for parking) on ​​Winston (Drive), and (on Zoo Road) not a single day has gone by that they haven’t given us a ticket, saying we’re not allowed to be here.”

Both the Roa family and the Arostegui family were among those who were offered and accepted a lease with the city. Several of the former RV residents said they would sell their RVs, while others are looking for a place to store them – “just in case.”

“Thank God the pain and sacrifice were worth something,” Roa said. He said he signed a lease the day he picked up his RV, with a move-in date of Friday, Aug. 16. “Now we can sleep peacefully; we can rest.”

While several families are leaving their RVs behind and moving into subsidized rentals at Parkmerced, other RV residents from Winston Drive are still unsure where they will park next.

“The city has done nothing for us,” said Marcivon Oliviera, 46, an Uber and Lyft driver from Brazil. He said about 20 other RV residents from Winston Drive are now parked in Palo Alto and are forced to move every 72 hours, constantly looking for a new street to park on.