‘What did I do wrong?’ cries driver after city towed his car that held his whole life – he had to pay $5k to get it back

A CAR dweller had his home on wheels towed, leaving him with nothing - now he's suing the city for damages.

The city claimed he had 21 unpaid tickets - he said there was no way he had that many.

James Smith lived in San Francisco, California for nearly his entire life, and in 2018, he found himself homeless at 64 years old after working became difficult.

He decided to move out of his apartment and live out of the back of his 2007 Honda Accord in 2018 after his knee replacements and constant back pain made it difficult for him to hold down a job.

He used to volunteer on the Coalition of Homelessness and would help homeless families find safe places to sleep for a night - sometimes even using his own living space to accommodate people.

Having spent many years helping the homeless, he never pictured himself without a roof over his head.

"Never, ever," he told KALW.

"I asked myself, ‘What did I do wrong?'"

A few days before Christmas, Smith parked his car downtown for a few hours and missed the street sweeper coming down the street.

When he returned to the vehicle, it was gone.

"My money, my food, my clothing were in the car," said Smith, devastated.

"So that was my home."

He called the police assuming it was stolen, but the representative informed him his car had been towed.

He was instructed to call AutoReturn, the towing company that held contracts with the city to tow vehicles.

That's when he found out he had 21 different violations attached to his vehicle.

To get his vehicle returned to him, he'd have to pay the towing fee, the storage fees, the balance of the violations, and the late fees.

A sum of nearly $5,000, he said.

"That is extremely too much for anyone with a fixed income — or even not with a fixed income — to have to pay that much money for a car being towed," he said.

This is permanent deprivation. People losing often their only asset, their only way to work, or the only way to take their kids to school, and for many people like Mr. Smith, their only shelter.

Elisa Della-Piana, attorney

Given his situation, Smith couldn't pay - racking up an additional $71 every day the car was left in the lot.

Elisa Della-Piana, the legal director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, said 4,000 cars are towed for overdue fines annually.

Around half of the vehicles towed away are never reclaimed due to the high associated costs.

She added that almost 50,000 cars are sold by the owners because they can't afford the fines.

"People can't afford to pay the tow and storage fees to get them back," she said.

"This is permanent deprivation. People losing often their only asset, their only way to work, or the only way to take their kids to school, and for many people like Mr. Smith, their only shelter."

Her committee, along with the Bay Area Legal Air, decided to sue the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Association (SFMTA) for Smith, saying that Smith's property was unlawfully seized.

They also claimed towing Smith's car was unconstitutional as he was too poor to pay a fine.

"It's unconstitutional to tow where there's not a warrant and there's not a public safety or urgent traffic-convenience issue," she added.

John Coté, a spokesperson for the city attorney's office, denied the allegation that the tow was unconstitutional.

"Mr. Smith received 21 parking tickets," his email read.

"Each one of those tickets included on it a warning that if his car had five or more delinquent parking tickets, it could be impounded."

Smith said that a majority of the citations he earned were before he was homeless.

IGNORANCE WASN'T BLISS

He was bedridden and relied on his caretaker to move his vehicle for him - an action they failed to do.

As a result, he claimed he had no idea that he had over 20 tickets.

"I knew I might have a ticket or two," he said.

"But not as many as they claimed."

Laws in the city dictated at the time that a car with overdue parking tickets could be towed and or booted at any time, even if it was legally parked.

Which is exactly what happened to Smith.

"It's just a hurting thing," he said.

"To come out and find that something that you've been paying on, that you cherish, something that you sleep in, something that you eat in, something that you think on, is gone."

Without a car to sleep in for shelter, he was left to face the cruelty of the streets.

Smith recalled a time when he was sleeping on the street and woke up to a man kicking him and stealing his remaining belongings.

"The little money I had in my pocket, four dollars," he said.

"That was my breakfast and my lunch."

WINDS OF CHANGE

Towing laws were changed around the same time that Smith's car was towed, lowering overall towing and booting fees.

Beforehand, San Francisco's fees were found to be two to three times more expensive than any other city in the nation.

In 2016, laws were passed to allow low-income residents to sign up for payment plans for $5 - less than the original $60 enrollment fee and only two weeks to pay the full amount.

With Della-Piana at his side, his case was moved up the latter to federal court, where a judge ruled in his favor.

In June of 2018, Smith was driven to the tow lot to retrieve his car.

"Every day that that car was gone, I have thought about it. Every day, every hour, I would think about it," he said.

"This is so wonderful, just to be able to wipe my windows down again."

He enrolled in a payment plan for community service at a local non-profit that provides services to the homeless.