After selling a house they hated that was on the verge of foreclosure last year, Southern California native Lana Pierce and her fiance decided to live small and bought an RV.

On Friday, March 20, they and a number of others like them in Orange County – working families whose RV is their permanent home – were left struggling to find an affordable place to go, with campgrounds at state and county parks and the OC fairgrounds already or about to be closed down due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Daniel Figueroa, left, and his fiancee Lana Pierce foraged for extra supplies like baby wipes last night when they learned OC Fair and Event Center’s RV park will shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak in Costa Mesa on Friday, March 20, 2020. Their two-year-old son and 9-month-old daughter are asleep inside the trailer. The couple tries to minimize the children’s exposure outside. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Living small came with big problems for Lana Pierce due to OC Fair and Event Center’s RV park shut down, along with other regional and state parks closures, as a result of the coronavirus outbreak in Costa Mesa on Friday, March 20, 2020. She’s asked the local IKEA, Walmart, Orange Coast College and Costco if she can park her 35-foot trailer in their parking lot with no luck. She’s worried about where her fiance and their two young children can stay. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

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Lana Pierce’s fingers fly as she dials local stores, a college and now churches for a place to park her RV as OC Fair and Event Center’s RV park will shuts down due to the coronavirus outbreak in Costa Mesa on Friday, March 20, 2020. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Cones are up and most RV’s are gone with the exceptions of a few holdouts at OC Fair and Event Center’s RV park which shuts down due to the coronavirus outbreak in Costa Mesa on Friday, March 20, 2020. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Lana Pierce, left, says she’s “composed, but terrified,” with the coronavirus outbreak at OC Fair and Event Center’s RV park which will shut down in Costa Mesa on Friday, March 20, 2020. Her fiancé Daniel Figueroa listens as they ponder where to stay. The couple is desperate and reached out to the media for help. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)



Permanent RV couple Lana Pierce, left, and fiancé Daniel Figueroa ponder where they can stay when the OC Fair and Event Center’s RV park shuts down due to the coronavirus outbreak in Costa Mesa on Friday, March 20, 2020. Their two-year-old son and 9-month-old daughter are asleep inside the trailer. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Lana Pierce notes that permanent RV living helped her with her depression and gave her a closer bond to her fiancé and two young children at OC Fair and Event Center’s RV park which will shut down as a result of the coronavirus outbreak in Costa Mesa on Friday, March 20, 2020. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Since Lana Pierce has no where to go, she’s not going anywhere until she’s asked to leave OC Fair and Event Center’s RV park which shuts down in Costa Mesa on Friday, March 20, 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak. She’s asked the local stores and Orange Coast College if she can park her 35-foot trailer in their parking lot with no luck. Next she’ll call the churches. Her 35-foot trailer was one of a handful left. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

“I’m probably one of many people with one of these weird situations,” Pierce said. “We’re not exactly homeless, but we don’t have a place to stay.”

Pierce, her fiance and their two young children most recently parked their RV at the OC Fair and Event Center, but they were told they’ll have to go once their reservation expires on Friday.

The remaining eight campers will be out within the next week, fairgrounds spokeswoman Terry Moore wrote in an email. It’s part of fair officials’ larger effort to close the grounds to the public to help limit the spread of the virus.

It’s a similar story for RV dwellers at county-owned O’Neill Regional Park – cheaper than the fairgrounds but lacking electrical hookups – and Caspers Wilderness Park. The county announced campground closures at those parks earlier in the week “in an effort to minimize the impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) on park patrons, staff, and the Orange County community at large,” and in keeping with federal, state and county health department guidelines, a statement on the county parks website said.

Pierce said she’s reached out to local and state officials for help and has either gotten no answers or less than useful advice. One official directed her to an RV park for people 55 and older; she’s 35. And while the OC fairgrounds charges $45 a day, spots in most privately owned parks run from $65 to $100 or more, she said.

Pierce works, but she also has student loan payments and the expenses that come with small children.

Many Orange County cities have restrictions on where or whether RVs can park on their streets. Some require permits that are only granted to city residents. Others have banned street parking for RVs.

That leaves Pierce and her fellow RVers, some of whom feel like neighbors because they see each other at different campgrounds around the county, in what she calls “this kind of gap in the system” – not technically homeless, but with nowhere to park their homes.

She’d love to go to a private RV park, she said, but “obviously if we could afford it we’d be staying there, because they have a lot more amenities.”