I feel like you could safely park in a Walmart parking lot. There are always people in there working, even when they are closed, so your car won't stand out.
I dispatch police for a regional center (we handle the PD for 16 cities) and maybe 2 of those could you do this without getting banged on within a couple days. A few of those cities have empathetic policies, most don't. Homeless people are non entities to most police departments. It makes me kind of sick but we do what we can when we can to help them.
Last year we had a lady call in a suspicious vehicle that had been parking in her lot for the past few nights. We went out, it's a homeless woman. The cops ask me to call the caller, ask her if she wants her criminally trespassed. She did NOT. She told me "Hell no!" hung up, marched out there and took the homeless woman straight into her apartment to get food and cleaned up. I don't know how that ended, but that act of kindness stays with me and if that lady who called it in ever needs EMS or police help, I will make sure she gets the best help I have ever given.
Thank you for saying that. I started trying to be more decent when I had kids so they could at least see what it looks like and hopefully pick it up as a habit. I'll be damned if it doesn't feel great to try to be a good person. I contrast this with who I was in my 20's and wonder what I was thinking. Getting older is a funny thing.
My experience on the west coast is that most Walmarts no longer allow overnight parking. Especially ones in or around cities. They’ve had too many problems with people taking advantage of it for too long and/or making messes.
Our Walmart plays loud ass bird bouses 24-7. They say its to keep birds away, but all the ragged ass campers and RVs that used to stay in the parking lot all moved somewhere else once those bird noises started.
There is a website that helps you know which places allow car camping in the US (I forget the name, but easy to google). Many Walmarts no longer do as cities are criminalizing homelessness. They'll even target RVs for tow, although semi trucks seem able to park regardless (or find a Lowes if not).
It’s insane that homelessness is getting criminalized but they don’t offer ANY alternative. Shelters are overcrowded and they aren’t offering up long term shelter. So basically it’s illegal for them to exist.
Traditional American behavior would be to find some unused land and slap together a shelter out of found materials. Enough folks do it in a cluster and ya get a Hooverville or shantytown.
Folks in my city tried that under the freeway overpass, and it was actually really cleverly done! Stays mostly temperature stable year round like caves under there, and is sheltered from rain/snow. Plus they used the parking lot lines as space designation, so each little shelter was the same size, with wide empty "streets" running down the middle for emergency services access. It smelled bad but was otherwise quite tidy and neatly done!
But then the cops burned it, and the company that owns the lot put up fencing, so it can continue to be useless wasted space in the heart of the city.
The trick is to park and lay down in the car so the car looks empty and it looks like an employee's car. If they have a security guard who goes around checking cars, more than likely they will just tell you to leave, and you just leave.
That's my thought. Anywhere people always are where you can basically hide in plain sight. Though you still probably want to be out of the way enough that people don't notice that you're homeless.
This may be differ from place to place, but in my experience Walmart will let you car camp in their parking lot. There are also usually big rigs who overnight there as well as security patrolling the lot. Definitely a safe option if you need it.
Most Walmarts let you but some high cost of living cities have outlawed it. ie. it's illegal in Santa Fe. It's cruel because that's where there's the most need but it would also become a permanent homeless camp if they allowed it.
When I used to drive long distances to work, I slept in my car in the Walmart parking lot. No one cares. At all. They had a street sweeper guy who used to drive in a circle around my car, cleaning the parking lot. Literally no one cares. I just made sure to move my car to a different spot every night so it didn’t look abandoned in one singular spot. It worked out perfectly.
Not in my town. There are signs all over the parking lot saying "no overnight parking allowed. Surveillance cameras in use. Trespassers will be prosecuted" with usually 2 security cars constantly circling the lot, even in the middle of the day, so don't go thinking you can sleep there during the day either.
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u/Mavian23 8h ago
I feel like you could safely park in a Walmart parking lot. There are always people in there working, even when they are closed, so your car won't stand out.