The San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Innovation is crafting a new tool designed to answer pressing questions from RV dwellers about the city’s upcoming ban on long-term street parking: An AI chatbot.
The chatbot, which is still in its testing phase, according to three people familiar with the project, is designed to help those living RVs navigate city bureaucracy ahead of a Nov. 1 ban on all “large vehicles” parked for more than two hours on city streets.
Any vehicle violating the ban would be subject to towing, making it exceptionally hard for people residing in an RV to stay in San Francisco for any length of time.
But there is an exception, albeit a temporary one: RV dwellers who meet the city’s qualifications can apply for a permit that allows for a six-month parking extension while they attempt to secure housing.
If the chatbot is launched in the coming weeks, hundreds of marginally housed RV dwellers could soon have just days to pull out their phones, navigate to a city website and ask a chatbot how to get a permit to allow them to continue to park on city streets.
Mayoral spokesperson Charles Lutvak did not confirm whether the city will release a chatbot aimed at RV users, but said that the Lurie administration “is always looking for innovative ways to make government more responsive to San Franciscans and get accurate, timely information out to every community in our city.”
The six-month parking extension is critical for those living in RVs. Without it, RV dwellers would have to leave the city.
“If you want to stay in your RV, you can do so outside of San Francisco,” Lurie said in July. San Francisco currently does not have a safe parking site for RVs, and has no plans to create one in the future.
RV users say they’re not listed on S.F. database
The six-month extension has been a source of urgent questions and concerns.
To qualify, an RV dweller must have lived in an RV in San Francisco before May 31 of this year, and have evidence to support that claim.
For most, that means they must have been included in the city’s “large vehicle database,” a list of 437 license plate numbers taken down by the Healthy Streets Operations Center during its May survey of large vehicles within city limits.
But many RV dwellers, some of whom have lived in San Francisco for years, were told their vehicle is not listed in that database, case managers and RV residents say. That means they will have to go through an appeals process to obtain a permit — perhaps also guided by the AI chatbot.
Armando Bravo Martinez, who has lived in his vehicle for the past two years, for example, received an email from the City and County of San Francisco this month stating that he was not in the database, along with at least three other RV dwellers he knows, he says.
“I was dumbfounded,” said Martinez. “I thought, ‘How can this be possible?’ I’ve been kicked out from neighborhood to neighborhood by the city for two years.”
Mission Local documented Martinez living in his RV back in April.
In order to find out if a vehicle has been recorded by the Healthy Streets Operations Center, an RV user must fill out an inquiry form listed on the Large Refuge Permit Program website, which was launched on Sept. 18 — 44 days before enforcement is set to begin.
Another RV dweller, who was granted anonymity, filled out the inquiry form in Spanish to see if they were listed in the database. The city returned an email in English, confirming that no, the RV dweller was not listed.
The email stated that any questions could be settled by contacting 311 or the permitting program website. There was no option to email back with any further questions.
San Francisco City Hall embraces AI
While San Francisco city government has experimented with AI before, namely when Mayor Danile Lurie rolled out an OpenAI-powered chatbot for city workers, the RV chatbot would be the first time the city government has used an AI tool to interface with its residents.
This summer, the San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association launched @AskSgtKen, an AI assistant on X, formerly Twitter, designed to recruit job-seekers to join the sheriff’s department.
Between posting daily inspirational quotes, if a user tags the bot with a question, the tool answers it — while not-so-subtly guiding them toward filling out a recruitment application.
When Ken Lomba, president of the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, asked the tool for the time, “Sgt Ken” responded, “Sorry, I don’t have the current time for you, but I can help with information about becoming a Deputy Sheriff!”
The decision to test an AI chatbot came after the city sent outreach workers to answer questions from RV dwellers two months ago. Those workers discovered a lot of confusion and questions as the November ban looms.
It’s unclear whether the tool aimed at RV dwellers will be conversational, like “Sgt Ken” or ChatGPT. For stressed RV dwellers worried that their homes will be taken away from them, turning to a chatbot instead of a human could carry risks.
San Francisco is not the only city struggling with RVs. In San Jose, Mayor Matt Mahan chose a different tactic, opening up several safe-sleeping sites and running them at a fraction of the cost of San Francisco’s former site.
“It’s not that expensive to run an RV park,” Mahan told Mission Local in July.
They’ve got to be f*cking kidding.
I’ve been working with several companies putting together AI tools, and what’s been discovered is that the “smarter” they are, the more susceptible to “hallucination” (where they just make stuff up) and distraction (where they’ll respond to any question at all)
The answer has been to simply download one of the pre-done LLM apps (meaning almost no environmntal impact and fully secured locally) and then keeping all of your instructions in a separate database. Then, it’s kind of the equivalent of a high-school kid who’s very very very good at finding stuff in the library – which may simply be 100000 forms and documents you give it – and if it isn’t there, just says it doesn’t know, which is a LOT better than just making stuff up. Still, I’m one of the guys who’s shouting “REPRESENTATIVE!! REPRESENTATIVE!!” while some annoying chatbot is guiding me through menus on the phone, so I’m basically anti-chatbot entirely. lol.
Performative disrespect towards vulnerable people in the name of a speculative bubble that afaict primarily exists to further enrich some of the vilest douchebags alive.
Hope it doesn’t tell any of these poor rv
dwellers to eat rocks and glue.
Yep ideally it just gives them needles and tells them to inject opioids.
It will absolutely do that: https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/meth-is-what-makes-you-able-to-do-your-job-ai-can-push-you-to-relapse-if-youre-struggling-with-addiction-study-finds
Ah yes, the ever entertaining “I wish poor people would die” online humor genre. How’s your shonen power fantasy playing out? Have you yet transcended your own humanity by licking filth from the shoes of those who hate you, me, and innocent kids from Central America? No? Shocker. Keep simping, I’m sure Sam Altman will realize your genius in the fullness of time.
Since 2016, Sheedy, the crane company, has parked dozens of long, large vehicles on 24th Street, east of Illinois St toward Warm Water Cove. I’ve reported it a couple of times to 311. This was the original site of the no long vehicles overnight enforcement a while back. Imagine the revenue and penalties the SFMTA is passing up by ignoring the obvious issue. Shameful.
People don’t live in cranes. They have a business nearby obviously and are entitled to park licensed vehicles on streets. Calling 311 shouldn’t do anything because it’s not illegal. Weird flex is weird.
Wth. This is so inhumane! We should ABSOLUTELY be spending the resources to make sure these folks have a real to help them navigate the process. We have the money to expand the service hours of the Permit Center to handhold the permit expediters hired rich people while they add a 50th bedroom to their 6th home. Meanwhile we don’t even have the decency to give someone some support while we’re telling them from even having a home. Disgusting.
We all “navigate the process” while not expecting someone to be supplied by the City to help each one of us. Homeless drug addicts are on their mobile phones when they aren’t passed out – if that group can figure “it” out then the people in RVs can figure “it” out as well.
Als: what is the point of bringing up that people have mobile phones? Be specific.
Specifically, a mobile phone provides a way to use the “system” that the City and the County make available. If you can use a mobile phone then by default you are using some level of AI / ChatBot (i.e. drug addicts living on the street are doing it). You are using some level of ChatBot and don’t “ABSOLUTLEY need real help to navigate the system”.
This use appears to be prohibited by the City’s own Generative AI Guidelines:
Prohibited Uses
To protect public trust, safety, and ethical standards, do not use GenAI tools for any of the following:
– Relying on AI to create City official documents or make decisions without expert human review.
– Relying on AI to review legal or regulatory issues.
https://www.sf.gov/reports–july-2025–san-francisco-generative-ai-guidelines
I want that chatbot to help them find a trash can. “It looks like you need to empty your waste. Can I help, or do you just plan to toss it all into the street?”
You have got to be kidding me! They are NOT supposed to be living on our streets. They collect taxpayer subsidies to do drugs and refuse to work. With the subsidies they get from gov/taxpayers, they need to either move to RV parks or another state where they can afford to live. This is how the majority of us live! We work, we pay taxes, and we live where we can afford to pay our bills!!!
Let’s not forget the Candlestick RV Park fiasco. Another useless idea out of a progressive-city-run “safe parking” site for homeless RV dwellers. $140,000 per spot annually, and millions of dollars wasted on people who refuse to work and contribute to society! ENOUGH!
Why are you so angry?
She’s angry because rampant income inequality and unchecked capitalism are destroying as much of the social compact and the daily quality of life as they possibly can. The explosion in numbers of people suffering on the streets is just one example, but there are hundreds.
But she has decided to blame icky unhoused people for this situation, the very people who did not cause it and who suffer even more from it than she ever will. Because she’s blaming suffering people, it’s going to rot her soul and will never satisfy her, but she doesn’t seem to know that yet.
Or, maybe because she has had to deal with the army of RV dwellers taking over the street, running generators all night, and leaving only waste in their wake. And having a city hall that equates progress with chaos. It’s nonsense like this that gets us an authoritarian president.
Katie Miller, I think you need to stop what you’re doing and get some help for whatever is going on with you. And not from a Chat GPT “therapist” either.
Do some math Katie Miller. Pretending to be jealous of people trapped in RV’s on our streets, a situation they obviously only choose over a temporary shelter “bed” that’s a chalklline on a warehouse floor, giving up all their possessions in the process along with their pets? You disgust me to the core of my Americanism with your bile. I hope you get with Jesus someday.