Trending Around The Nation: How School Parking Lots Are Becoming Safe Places For Homeless Families

By Neal Morton,
The Hechinger Report
Republished by The 19th
Special to the New Journal and Guide

SAN DIEGO

As an 8-year-old boy steered his bicycle in figure eights, his mother piled three plates with pizza and pineapple slices from an outdoor kitchen shared with more than a dozen other families who call this parking lot home.

She carried the plates past her family’s sedan — their last asset and, until recently, their only shelter — and placed the dinner inside a recreational vehicle assigned to them for the next six months. After dinner, she helped the third grader with his homework, then made sure he showered and brushed his teeth before bed. The next morning, she drove the 10 miles to her son’s school, where she works as a part-time site monitor. Their belongings and beds and private bathroom, meanwhile, remained secure at the city-owned lot, where homeless families like theirs find temporary stability.

“He likes it here,” said the mother, M., who is being referred to by her first initial to protect her family’s privacy. “We can actually cook. I waste less money. There’s a lot to like.”

Since late last year, M. and her family have been living in parking lots opened by the city of San Diego, the local school district and a nonprofit partner. Priced out of San Diego’s housing market, they now call the RV lot their temporary home as they meet with a caseworker who helps them search for more permanent housing.

Family homelessness hit a record high in 2024, as the end of federal pandemic assistance and rising inflation pushed more families with children and unaccompanied youth out of their homes. A sluggish labor market and high housing costs have further strained family budgets. And now, as the number and visibility of unhoused families continue to climb, a handful of school districts are considering their parking lots as a way to shelter homeless students and their families.

The city of San Diego began experimenting in 2017, when it partnered with nonprofit Jewish Family Service (JFS) to convert the first of what are now four parking lots into safe places to sleep. It added its first lot prioritizing families in 2023. A few months later, as the city pushed a sweeping ban on public camping, officials with San Diego Unified School District approached the city with the idea of turning a vacant elementary and other district properties into temporary shelters.

The model is now spreading beyond California. In Ohio, the Cincinnati school district later this spring will open its first safe parking lot for families at a downtown elementary school. The teachers union for Fayette County Public Schools, in neighboring Kentucky, has asked its school board to follow Cincinnati’s lead.

San Diego’s parking program has drawn some opposition, including from nearby residents and private developers who worry about crime and impact on property values. Progressives here also wonder, quietly, whether the program diverts attention and resources from addressing why families lose their housing in the first place.

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The Trump administration, meanwhile, also has criticized safe parking lots as “dystopian” and “reprehensible” — even as it plans for major cuts to long-term housing programs. With the exception of the Rose Canyon lot where M. and her family are staying, San Diego’s safe parking sites do not offer RVs. All sites offer security and portable bathrooms to families and most include microwaves and seating areas.

“The goal is for this to be a way station,” Kristy Drake, the district’s liaison for homeless and foster youth, said of the school district’s lot. “When families drive onto this lot,” Drake added, “they come into this wider network of support and resources. The goal is to move on. Hopefully no one’s there too long.”

Never before have so many families in the U.S. lived without stable housing, according to the most recent data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Its annual homeless census from January 2024 found nearly 260,000 people in families with children experiencing homelessness — a jump of more than 50 percent since before the pandemic. 

And those figures are likely undercounts: Experts often note that HUD’s numbers don’t capture “hidden” homelessness, such as families who sometimes pay out of pocket to stay in hotels and motels or couch-surf with friends and families to avoid the streets. And while the agency still hasn’t released homeless numbers for 2025, early data from school districts and states around the country suggest youth homelessness continues to rise.

In California, family homelessness has risen 14 percent since before the pandemic.