follow us on fb @TheVillageIn Oakland – #feedthepeople join one of our volunteer committees
contact us 510-355-7010
donate towards out efforts to build emergency shelters, upgrade curbside communities, provide provisions, and share meals & groceries click here
Our Goals
- Provide immediate support and advocacy to our curbside residents including but not limited to hot meals, groceries, provisions, connecting folks to services and resources, encampment upgrades.
- Develop curbside residents as leaders and advocates for the unsheltered.
- Advocate and work on policies and legislation that decriminalize homelessness, protect the human and civil rights of curbside communities, hold government bodies accountable during this affordable housing crisis and homeless state of emergency.
- Use and make replicable The Village housing model as a new form of Rapid Rehousing – both permanent and transitional.
- Create Supportive Housing in a holistic way that will lead towards a path of self sufficency.
- Create a path towards financial security with financial literacy, job training, job opportunities and opportunities to be part of worker owned collectives and collective home ownership.
In the beginning…
The idea is simple and as ancient as human history – it takes The Village. We are a network of seasoned community activists and organizers, artists, unhoused leaders, grassroots and non-profit leaders, family and friends, business people and housed allies who believe homelessness is not a crime, housing a human right and that we need to ensure home for all by any and all means. Since December 2016 up until this point we have been driven thru 100% volunteerism and 100% community donations.
The Village started as a direct action that became a movement. We are now moving towards becoming a supported housing development and management agency, a non profit service provider, and a job opportunity program for our curbside residents. What will makes us different than the multitude of homeless non-profits in existence? Our approach is radical and innovative. It was informed by the current affordable housing crisis and homeless state of emergency we are experiencing and designed to help put an end to it.
We started off with a vision that was inspired by the audacity of Occupy/Decolonize Oakland and the healing powers of Standing Rock/Osechi Sakowin. We were driven by an urgency to immediately build emergency shelter and sportive services while City Hall ignored the growing crisis. It would be a radical and beautiful community labor of love that would pressure the buerocrats to DO SOMETHING. And that is exactly what we did.
Little did we know that years later we would still be building emergency homes, providing services, and pushing the beurocrats to do something humane and impactful. All while creating of a new model of temporary AND permanent rapid rehousing, employment and support services for curbside communities.
As our vision (and the political climate) becomes a reality, the depth and scope of work points to a need for sustainability. We are at a juncture – and have made a decision to establish a solid foundation so that housing security can be gained for generations to come from those in poverty to those struggling economically in The New Oakland.
The Bay Area is seeing an influx of wealth, housing and jobs like we’ve never seen. But none of this abundance is for Oakland’s generations deep working class and low income Black and POC communities. We realize only a community driven response will be the catalyst for immediate, alternative forms to permanent housing. We realize that creating stable, full and part time positions for curbside residents and couch surfers WHILE housing them is one of the best approaches to this crisis rooted in deep inequity.
Whether it be lack of job training, a deficit of local outreach to the Oaklanders, or discrimination – not having access to this wave of employment is directly linked to not having access to this inflated housing market. How can Oakland’s working class and lower income communities afford the raising cost of living if they cannot access the jobs that will support the new economic culture of their homeland?
Thru careful analysis of the economic climate coupled with extended surveys to the unsheltered, we realize that in order to achieve self-sufficiency and secure adequate permanent housing being players in a competitive job market is part of the solution to preventing and ending homelessness
As we build our future of stability, sanctuary and sustainability – we continue to remain in the trenches. We continue to provide food, provisions, advocacy, temporary upgraded housing, and education for Oakland’s curbside communities. We assert, ensure, protect, advocate and co-create basic needs and rights of Oakland residents who have fallen victim of the housing crisis and homeless state of emergency. Check out our Get Active! page to plug into our on going volunteer opportunities. Housed and Unhoused folks both encouraged to join and work side by side.
We continue to believe using a diversity of tactics to reach our goals is necessary in the current political, economic and historic moment we are in: direct action and policy reform; adverse possession and purchasing lands; reparations and self-determination; serve the unsheltered and self-governance of unsheltered. We assert housing is a human right, that there are enough public resources to house all Oakland residents, and that homelessness is not a crime.

#HousingIsAHumanRight #HomesForAll #HomelessnessIsNotACrime





































































