‘We just need a little help’: how a safe parking plan for people living in cars split a US town

Jodi Jackson moved to Sedona, Arizona, last year for a slower pace of life. The 52-year-old has found the affluent town – known for its red rocks and appeal to the new age crowd – to be welcoming.

Working in a local laundromat, she comes into contact with a wide range of customers, from those cleaning linens for short-term rentals to those living in their cars.

Jackson herself lives in an RV, having left an abusive relationship and spending time in jail and rehab; she is one of many in the area who sleep in vehicles, priced out by the high cost and low availability of housing.

Related: Americans living in their cars are finding refuge in ‘safe parking lots’

Finding a safe and affordable place to park has proved impossible. To camp, Jackson moves between a nearby state park and the parking lots of businesses that don’t hassle her.

Under a program proposed by the city, she could get a place to sleep safely and legally: somewhere she could pull in her RV after work and leave in the morning. But the scheme, designed to cater to the town’s workforce, has been put on hold in the face of vocal opposition.

“We may not be housed and living in town, but we’re the ones who are doing your laundry, working at your gas stations, working at your restaurants – all of the lower-wage jobs – delivering your pizza, for God’s sake,” Jackson said. “We’re not bad people. We just need a little bit of help.”

Stories of businesses and employees wading through the effects of local housing issues abound – from restaurants cutting hours or simplifying menus, to an unhoused teacher – as people on fixed incomes grapple with rents increased beyond their capacity.

But in the vacation destination spot, where rents are high and short-term rentals make up a sizable chunk of the housing market, a vocal segment of Jackson’s neighbors don’t want to see the parking lot open up.

Sedona’s Safe Place to Park program – similar to ones that now dot the US, amid an ongoing housing crisis nationwide – faces an uncertain future after becoming a flashpoint for the city’s housing woes. The episode serves as a microcosm of the difficulties communities face when trying to address homelessness, and the deep need for affordable housing – even in wealthy places.

A group of residents is gathering signatures to put the program to a citywide vote. The group has until 11 April to get nearly 600 valid signatures of Sedona voters.

The program

Safe Place to Park would use a parking lot on city-owned land at the Sedona Cultural Park, a long defunct amphitheater, to hold 40 vehicles that come in and out around work schedules.

Slated to last two years, the program would be overseen by a social services organization that would vet people staying on the lot. The site, which would provide bathrooms and showers, was designed to offer people already sleeping in vehicles – in business parking lots, on residential streets and on forest roads – with a place to do so safely and legally.

The intent is that working adults will make up the majority of the program’s users, but other groups with Sedona ties who are suffering from housing issues – such as people with children in Sedona schools, older adults and people with disabilities on fixed incomes – wouldn’t be turned away, said Rhonda Bishop, executive director of the Verde Valley Homeless Coalition, which was tapped to manage the program.

The city says it has housing projects in the works that will bring permanent affordable housing to locals. When the city purchased the cultural park land in 2022, the initial idea was to use it for housing, though that will require planning.

The goal of Safe Place to Park is to find the people who sleep there a permanent place to live. But the pace of building in the area is slow – and the need is immediate.

The town of about 10,000 is landlocked by forest, making growth difficult. Many residents oppose increased housing density, such as larger apartment buildings, because it doesn’t fit the small-town feel of the area. And there’s a strong streak of not-in-my-backyardism that arises whenever new developments come around.

Sedona is short of 1,260 affordable units, according to the city council, and house prices have increased 50% since 2020. The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $2,150.

A ‘last-ditch’ idea

This city, like many others across the country, is struggling with a great exacerbator of its housing crisis: the proliferation of short-term rentals.

In 2017, the Republican-led Arizona legislature made it illegal for cities and towns to regulate short-term rentals such as Airbnbs. Cities and towns like Sedona have been fighting to get the ability to regulate these homes ever since, to little avail. Some minor regulations, such as requiring short-term rentals to register with the city, were allowed in recent years, but efforts to overhaul vacation rentals have been blocked by Republican leaders in the statehouse.

Short-term rentals now account for 17% of Sedona’s housing stock. Scott Jablow, the town’s mayor, and other city officials want the ability to cap the number of short-term rentals, while exempting existing ones.

“Every other state in the country, they allow the cities and towns to govern it themselves, to regulate it themselves,” Jablow said.

Related: The US has empty buildings it could use to tackle homelessness. Why is it selling them off?

As a bevy of short-term rental regulation bills fell by the wayside during the latest legislative session, the city’s lack of affordable and available housing persisted.

The parking program is a last resort, according to Jablow. But as a group of residents take aim, he’s prepared to defend it.

“It was not the best idea,” he said. “It’s not even a great idea. It’s a sucky idea, actually. It’s a last-ditch effort of an idea. We’re not proud of it, but we have to do something.”

During his decade-plus in local government, Jablow has been on the frontline of this crisis, hearing frequently from both people who have lost housing and employers who have lost workers because of it.

One recent caller, who made $75,000 annually, lost her housing and couldn’t find anything she could afford on that salary, he recalled.

At the same time, local employers often can’t find workers who can afford to live nearby. “We will do anything for our staff because we just don’t have any choices,” said Steve Segner, who owns a hotel in town and supports the parking program. “We can’t lay them off in the slow season. We’ve got to treat them right.”

The backlash

After seven hours of testimony earlier this month, all but one member of the city council voted in favor of a zoning change to greenlight the parking program.

Two big issues combined for the group against the project: a faction that wants to see the cultural park brought back to life, and another which thinks the project will turn Sedona into a destination for people living in cars. Some people sit in both camps.

Others suggest the program isn’t a humane way to house people, or question the choice of location.

Bill Noonan, who eventually filed the paperwork to refer the program for a vote, told the council meeting that he wanted to see the cultural park restored to a music venue, with another spot used for the program. But he also pointed to an issue that spans far beyond one town in Arizona.

“I moved here from Portland two years ago to escape the homeless crisis that was created by the city there,” said Noonan, “so I’m sorry to see the Sedona city council considering making some of the mistakes that Portland made 20 years ago that destroyed that once-beautiful city.”

A website launched by the program’s opponents summarizes their opposition. They believe the program will bring in outsiders who are unemployed, crowding out the workers it intends to help. They fear the people who live there wouldn’t follow community rules against smoking and leaving trash.

The group leading the opposition, Save the Cultural Park Committee, did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Critics also nod to the larger housing crisis the community faces: “The City’s proposal for a homeless car camp at Cultural Park does nothing to address the true problem of assisting homeless workers to have a permanent, affordable INDOOR place to live,” the website says. “Their approach is not caring, it is not humane.”

A divisive Band-Aid

At the council meeting, the lone vote against the project came from the vice-mayor Holli Ploog, who generally understands the need for the program, but found the voices against it overwhelming. While the city is unable to call a ballot on the program itself without voters organizing a petition for one, she would have done so were it an option.

Ploog has been stopped in the grocery store and pulled aside by friends, seeing a level of attention unlike any other issue that has come before the council since she joined a few years ago.

“To divide our community, to break our community over this – which is a short-term Band-Aid that doesn’t even solve the problem – to me, it wasn’t worth it,” Ploog said in a interview. “We need housing, and I want us to rally around housing.”

The questions of restoring the cultural park or approving the parking program aren’t mutually exclusive, she noted. With the parking program set to be temporary, it wouldn’t interfere with an eventual reimagining of the park – which, even if people decide to rally around that idea, would take years.

“It’s so complicated now and it’s so confusing, and there’s so much misinformation,” said Ploog. “But the emotion has been stirred up, and there’s a lot of fear also – fear that once you start down this path, you won’t be able to stop it.”

The politics

Opponents of the program warn it could attract people to Sedona and create a constituency that want it extended beyond two years.

A Change.org petition calling to stop the program dings the mayor and city officials for doing media interviews about the program, saying: “Now the adage ‘If you Build It, They will Come’ will become a reality for this beautiful town.”

This claim has been challenged by the National Vehicle Residency Collective, which advocates for people living in their vehicles both as a last resort and by choice, tracks safe parking programs around the country. The growing trend includes cities throughout the country, and especially in the western US.

Graham Pruss, the collective’s director, said such programs have not really seen a rise in people from other cities moving to access safe parking programs.

People often live in their cars near where they used to live, he said, “using their vehicle as a way to maintain a connection with their familiar community”, including their jobs, medical providers, family and friends; sometimes within a few blocks of their former homes.

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The backlash to the program is common to any efforts to help the unhoused, Pruss said. Segner, the hotel owner, suggested the vocal opposition parallels the political divide in the US, played out locally.

“Sedona is primarily a liberal community in the heart of a red state, or purple state,” he said. “And then there’s a faction of people in town – a small faction – that don’t like anything that has a liberal smell or taste to it.”

‘Open to anything’

Since the parking program has become mixed up with the possible revival of the cultural park, some pointed to another part of town, the Dells, that could be used instead. But Jablow said this area presents environmental concerns: it’s across the street from a wastewater treatment plant, where the city sprays effluent water. And there’s no guarantee moving the project would quell the negative response.

Bishop, of the homeless coalition, has found it “embarrassing” that a portion of the community is “so against really just helping other people”.

She said her group is ready to provide additional services to help find stable housing for this population. Having those affected in a set location, with caseworkers who build a rapport with them, would be a step forward, she said.

“This is probably not going to happen, and it’s too bad,” Bishop said. “Because people are just afraid to have ‘the homeless’ in their community.”

Jablow, for his part, seems exasperated.

He is not prepared to push ahead with the project while campaigners are gathering signatures. He believes it’s needed immediately, but doesn’t want to waste money on a program that never sees the light of day.

The parking program isn’t the best idea, Jablow concedes. But he has yet to hear a viable alternative.

“Give me an idea,” the mayor said. “I’m open to anything.”