Boise-area RV parks are full as people, some facing homelessness, move into vehicles
Nanette Wilson lived in her truck for over a year before she found a place to live.
Her house in Boise burned down and she had nowhere to go, until she saved enough money to purchase a small RV. She moved into the Boise Riverside RV Park in Garden City in 2019 and got a job there working at the front desk.
Since moving into the RV Park, Wilson said she sometimes looks at apartment listings in the area, but everything is too expensive for her. She is a single woman, living on her own, and she said she finally feels safe living at the RV park.
Wilson’s battle to find housing is a common one in the Treasure Valley, as rents and housing prices skyrocket and more people are resorting to moving into their cars and RVs. Even so, RV parks are full, and many in the valley don’t offer long-term leases.
The Idaho Housing and Finance Association’s 2021 Point-in-Time-Count on Jan. 27 found that 557 people were homeless in its Region 3, which includes Ada and Canyon counties, and 321 were living in vehicles.
Jeannette Curtis, outreach program director for CATCH, a housing nonprofit in the Treasure Valley, said 223 people and families in Ada County living in their cars or RVs sought help from the organization last year. So far in 2021, she said, 196 have sought help, including 97 families with children.
“It all boils down to lack of affordable housing,” Curtis said. “If they had an apartment they could afford they would be in it. There just aren’t any.”
A 200-person wait list
Wilson said she has seen more people than ever living in their RVs and looking for places to park permanently.
The Boise Riverside RV Park has 200 applications from people wanting to park there.
“The demand has doubled or tripled,” Wilson said. “We are full every night.”
Wilson said most of the park’s month-to-month residents are people who can’t afford a house or apartment.
“Most people have had to sell their houses and have bought an RV because they can’t afford a new house or can’t afford rent,” she said.
Christine Brown, once a Boise resident who now lives in Texas, said her son is now living in an RV but with no permanent location to park.
Her son was evicted from his apartment in Boise while he was undergoing cancer treatment because he couldn’t pay rent. Brown and her family helped buy him an RV just to get a roof over his head.
“It makes this mama’s heart hurt,” Brown said.
The riverside park charges $500 for the RV site and $100 for the electricity.
“$600 a month is our rent,” Wilson said. “That is good compared to what we are seeing in the community.”
‘It all boils down to lack of affordable housing’
Natalie Sandoval, homeless education liaison for the Nampa School District, said the number of families living in RVs and other vehicles fluctuates. Some months a family will be on a friend’s couch, while in other months they are back in their cars. In general, she is hearing about more families facing homelessness this year than in previous years.
“People who are experiencing homelessness are moving through a continuation of homelessness all of the time,” Sandoval said. “They may score a spot on someone’s couch. Maybe they made some extra money and they can get a hotel room. People are bouncing around homelessness pretty consistently.”
The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Gap Report found that Canyon County has a deficit of 4,380 affordable and available homes for the renters with the lowest incomes.
The fair market rent for a modest two-bedroom home in Canyon County is $1,002, said Kendra Knighten, policy associate for the Idaho Center on Fiscal Policy, in an email. To afford that rent without experiencing housing cost-burden, a renter would need to work full time, 40 hours, at $19.27 per hour. The average renter wage in Canyon County is $12.52 — meaning the average renter would have to work 62 hours each week to afford a modest two-bedroom home. A renter earning minimum wage would have to work 106 hours.
Sandoval said many Nampa families who were facing homelessness bought RVs or campers with their stimulus checks last year.
“Anything they could that gave them a sense of, ‘Maybe this would be better than bouncing around,’ ” Sandoval said.
But this left families with an new problem: where to park their RVs.
Sandoval said RV parks that allow long-term residents are full or require RVs to meet certain standards. Brown said that in her son’s search for a place to park his RV, many places would not allow RVs more than 10 years old.
Sandoval knows of one family parking their camper in Wilder unconnected to any services.
“What we found is families were left with: Where do I park the thing?” Sandoval said.
No safe, affordable parking in Boise
As housing becomes ever less affordable in Canyon and Ada counties, Curtis said there are no safe and affordable parking spots in Boise for people living in their RVs or cars now. She said CATCH has been trying to work with the city of Boise to create some.
In September, median rents in Boise were $1,102 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,308 for a two-bedroom, Apartment List said.
An analysis by the city of Boise says the city needs more than 27,000 new housing units by 2030. Boise city Housing and Community Development Senior Manager Maureen Brewer told the City Council in August that 77% of those units need to be affordable to people making less than 80% of the area’s median income — $67,000 for a three-person household.
In California, the city of Sacramento partnered with a local nonprofit, First Step Communities, to open a city-sanctioned lot for homeless residents to park RVs and other vehicles and even to sleep in tents. The second lot opened in April. The two areas had 150 residents last spring.
The two lots are staffed with case managers 24/7 to help people with housing solutions, CapRadio reported. Residents are not charged for parking or camping there. The city pays $157,000 per month to operate two parking lots and a campground, according to CapRadio.
A solution on the way in Idaho
Mike Dittenber wants to help. He is the executive director of the Caldwell Housing Authority and is passionate about providing housing to everyone in the community.
The housing authority runs Farmway Village, an affordable apartment complex in western Caldwell made up of 225 apartments. Dittenber said the housing authority provides workforce housing, farm labor housing and housing for low-income people.
Now he wants to open an affordable RV park where low-income residents in RVs could park long term.
Dittenber told the Canyon County Planning and Zoning Commission in March that the housing authority gets anywhere from three to 10 phone calls each month from people asking if they can park their RVs at Farmway Village.
“People need decent, safe and sanitary housing,” Dittenber said. “(The housing authority) has open spaces, parks and community amenities which would support the RV park.”
The Planning and Zoning Commission approved the RV park, and Dittenber is preparing to add 219 RV spaces at Farmway Village.
The Caldwell Housing Authority is connected to city sewer and water. Dittenber plans to provide showers and restrooms for the RV park residents. The housing authority would also allow them to connect to hookups for a charge.
The RV park is still in the design phase, but after approval Dittenber hopes to “move some dirt around” this month. He plans to open the park in October 2022.
Rachel Spacek covers western Ada and eastern Canyon counties. Have a story suggestion or a question? Email Spacek at rspacek@idahostatesman.com.
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
