Sunnyvale leaders are moving forward with a plan to address homelessness among people living in their vehicles, but how quickly solutions can be implemented is unclear.

The City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to develop proposals for interim housing on city-owned land, a potential RV buyback program and a permitted parking system for oversized vehicles on designated streets. This comes after two years of reviewing increasing homelessness and determining that a safe parking program wasn’t viable and operational management would be too costly. District 6 Councilmember Eileen Le recused herself from the vote because she lives within 500 feet of one of the locations.

Residents and advocates urged the council to move faster and consider safe parking options already in use in neighboring cities, including San Jose and Mountain View.

“I have lived experience living in a car and being homeless,” Drew Siegler, an advocate with Showing Up for Racial Justice of Santa Clara County, said over Zoom during public comment. “Safe parking is really probably your best benefit.”

City employee Amanda Sholtz said people living in vehicles have swollen legs and swollen feet. Oftentimes they can barely walk because they’re sitting in their vehicle for long periods of time.

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 — highlighting the presence of large, lived in vehicles on city streets.

“There isn’t a single solution that’s going to fix this,” City Manager Tim Kirby said during the meeting. “We know this isn’t going to solve everything, but it’s a concrete step in the right direction.”

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.

But councilmembers raised concerns about how the programs would work in practice, including cost, timelines, whether they could meaningfully help people now — not in one to two years — and if the programs would attract non-Sunnyvale homeless residents.

“Most of the people weren’t from Berkeley originally, do we want to be incentivizing people that aren’t from Sunnyvale to be selling their RVs?” District 4 Councilmember Charlsie Chang said at the meeting. “What staff has proposed, there’s nothing interim for the Sunnyvale residents now that are unhoused.”

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.

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. Srinivasan pointed out that building temporary housing could take one to two years.

“There is no single solution. That’s my observation,” Srinivasan said. “I also was concerned about the timeline one to two years. I think we need to come up with something in the (interim).” .

The effort comes as homelessness continues to rise across Santa Clara County, with a record 10,711 homeless people living in the county, according to a count conducted in January 2025. In Sunnyvale, approximately 421 people experienced homelessness last year, down slightly from the previous count in 2023.

Frustration surfaced during the discussion, with Mehlinger criticizing the city’s progress on safe parking — a strategy that has been discussed for years but has yet to materialize locally.

“It is a serious, serious problem in our community,” Mehlinger said at the meeting. “I cannot accept that there is nowhere in this city that can support a safe parking program.”

As the conversation shifted from policy to impact, residents living in their vehicles called for solutions that address current conditions, not just long-term plans.

“To say I’m disappointed is an understatement,” resident Angela Ralph, who wants the city to create a safe parking site for people living in their RVs, said over Zoom during public comment.

City staff said one of the main barriers has been funding, noting there are limited state or county funding sources available for safe parking programs, unlike interim housing which may qualify for outside grants.

“The homelessness crisis in Sunnyvale is a disaster. It is a manmade disaster,” Le said speaking as a resident, not a councilmember, after recusing herself. “One to two years is an eternity. It is a lifetime to people living on the streets, to people who have to live in their cars every night.”

Contact Maryanne Casas-Perez at maryanne@sanjosespotlight.com or @CasasPerezRed on X.

This story originally appeared in San José Spotlight.