The Village

Oakland, CA – On December 6, without warning, Mayor Libby Schaaf and her administration violently evicted the 13 residents of the Housing and Dignity Village (HDV), a service hub at S Elmhurst Avenue and Edes Avenue in Deep East Oakland. Over 20 Oakland Police officers were present to lead residents away in handcuffs, as Public Works employees worked overtime to destroy everything on site. On Thursday, Shady Schaaf and her administration showed the people of Oakland that they are liars, that you cannot trust a word they say, that they have absolutely no problem sanctioning violence against unhoused Black and Brown families, and that they truly do not have any respect for or give a fuck about the people of Oakland.

Thursday’s violent eviction of HDV followed a blocked eviction on December 5. For four hours, residents refused to move because in truth there was no adequate housing available for us.  Folks from all over Oakland stood between us and the police. The people of oakland made it clear that they did not support this eviction, and their presence prevented police and members of the Department of Public Works from entering. Candice Elder of the East Oakland Collective and Margaretta Lin of the Dellums Institute for Social Justice negotiated an alternative to eviction. After four hours in the rain, in front of a crowd of dozens, City representatives, member of Councilmember Larry Reid’s office, and the Department of Human Services told HDV residents, advocates, lawyers and brookfield neighbors that HDV residents would not be evicted until all the residents, advocates and legal team could sit down to a roundtable discussion with the city about a viable solution.

The City of Oakland’s statement to the press, released shortly after officials left HDV on Wednesday, is full of lies. It claims that officials never agreed to pause evictions; that they did not agree to a roundtable meeting; that 15 residents were offered housing, and all residents accepted; and that the City would not throw away belongings. In reality, only 13 people lived at HDV, and the City’s incorrect number reflects the level of effort they put in to actually do what they told the federal judge they would do. In truth, seven residents were not offered adequate housing. The remaining six were offered housing only after City officials and staff scrambled during that 4 hour negotiation period to “override” the shelter system and remove other unsheltered brothers and sister from waiting lists and shelter beds to accommodate HDV residents. This was told to our legal time and our advocates.

24 hours after agreeing to sit at a roundtable with us, city employees swarmed HDV in a surprise raid. The agreed-upon meeting never happened. None of us were offered shelter, our belonging were tossed and broken.

At the time of the eviction, most residents were off-site at work or handling business, the children were at school. During the eviction our children were in limbo uncertain of what was going to happen and where they would go that night or the next. As for the four residents on site who were ambushed: One resident was working on a visual arts piece for the City of Berkeley Arts Commission, one resident was getting dressed to go to work, one resident was fixing the village generator station, one resident was resting. We were not allowed to pack. We were not given time to pack. Coverage by independent journalists, corporate media and social media streams shows residents’ belongings were trashed.

To this day none of us have received phone calls from the administration, larry reids office or human services to see our status. They do not know where we are and they have no indication of the consequences of their lies and violent eviction on our safety and stability. We and all other unsheltered oaklanders are not their concern – as long as we are out of sight they are happy. As long as we are not doing for ourselves and the neighborhoods they neglect they are happy.

Yesterday one of us called a shelter were were told would provide us with housing. When the mama identified herself as a member of the hdv she was informed that the shelter worker is not allowed to talk about anything related to HDV and hung up on her. She and her children as do all of us remain on the streets. 

We have asked several times why are we being evicted? Why does joe devries insist we are criminals and our attempts to assert our need and right for sanctuary is illegal? We are clean and sober, we are highly organized, we are the only encampment expliciting serving women and their families. We are the only encampment providing services and resources to our housed and unhoused neighbors. Why us? Our questions were met with silence. The other encampments on public land are left alone at best, at worse they are neglected – even when they are in deep crisis, even when they are riddled with criminal behavior and violence. So why us?

We are certain it is because when we speak we are not only speaking for ourselves but for the at least 9,000 other unsheltered brothers and sisters in oakland. We were evicted in an attempt to silence us. We are also certain we were evicted as confirmed from community members joe has spoken to “punish” us for attempting to provide ourselves with sanctuary. How dare we seek shelter and safety from the streets. Who the fuck do we think we are to think we deserve basic human needs and rights? We are human beings, some of oakland’s most vulnerable, but also most resilient.

Apparently nate miley from alameda county board of Supes understands this.and came to HDV to see what we were doing and offer his support. Alameda county District Attorney nancy o’malley understands and supports us and has agreed to not prosecute any of us if were were arrested. Assemblyman rob bonta understands this and also came to visit the HDV and offer his support. Senator Nancy Skinner supports us. Senator Barbara lee supports us too. All these elected officials called shifty schafft to tell her to not evict. And she would not listen, but rather continued the logic to criminalize us and lie about us. Why did not a single one of you come to visit the housing and dignity village?

We know libby is a bully and a liar who has not a care for Oaklands Black and Brown families, despite her diversity media stunts and lip service. We hope that you city council take the higher moral ground and make decisions based on justice, integrity, equity, compassion and truth. We hope your fear of libby damaging your political careers will not deafen you to the moral outrage our violent eviction and destruction of our home has sparked across the bay area. The bay is pissed. Who do you stand with? A lying bully selling the town off the town or the people of oakland and beyond who are demanding you tap into your humanity?

We demand Libby, City officials and staff that broke their promise to us be held accountable for lying to us and the public. 

We demand Libby and the City cease all evictions and instead upgrade encampments. We believe California has more than enough wealth – much of it stolen from the Black, Indigenous, and Brown ancestors of people currently experiencing homelessness – to improve the quality of life of unhoused residents until permanent housing is available. We demand that special attention is paid to the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing report and recommendations.

We demand a new parcel of land for Housing & Dignity Village to rebuild our Home. The trauma Libby and her administration have caused our children is undeniable and unforgivable. The disruption caused in our lives for no good reason is unconscionable. The use of workers to destroy our belongings and violate our human right to assert our right to housing when you the city have failed to do so is criminal. 

We demand that you not harm the residents of e12 and 23rd who have already been repeatedly traumatized by the administration and opd in an attempt to set the village up for failure. Do not engage in the mayor and the administration’s petty attempt to “punish” the village for the HDV.  do not revoke your original vote on the miller ave property.

The Trump administration is lying to the public, criminalizes the marginalized, destroys sanctuary, refuses to acknowledge the United Nations human rights reports. It’s horrific that in Oakland, California – the Home of progressive thinking and radical movements – the practices of the newly re-elected Mayor, who claims to be a #Resistance leader, mirror the facism of Trump.

The response from Candice Elder, Founder & Executive Director of The East Oakland Collective

The City of Oakland is running with the narrative that the 13 residents of Housing and Dignity Village (“HDV”) refused shelter, so they deserved eviction. Yes they did refuse the offer of temporary shelter beds. The 13 residents of HDV united together to 1) ensure all 13 would be offered shelter before anyone leaves, AND more importantly 2) refused shelter beds because the City was pushing OTHER unhoused people down the shelter bed list to accommodate HDV residents. 

Shelter beds would have been more temporary than the Housing and Dignity Village they were evicted from. They refused as some of the residents called shelter beds a “downgrade” to the safe, clean, sober and intentional community where they were safe. HDV was their preferred temporary home, and it was more like home. As of the day of the first eviction attempt on 12/5, the City of Oakland was still scrambling to find beds for some of the residents that had pets and minors. Also some of the shelter beds were offered outside of Oakland and that would not work for most of the residents.

The City of Oakland is doing everything to ignore the recommendations of the UN to upgrade informal settlements and stop evictions until adequate housing is provided. 

I believe the City also evicted this community faster than any other because a large piece of City owned property was reclaimed by the people, for the people. Reason why we need to have a public lands policy in place that not only includes deeply affordable housing but to allow use of public land to temporarily house the unhoused until there is more permanent solutions.

I am so proud of the residents of HDV. They continue to be examples of resilience and resistance. 

#tellthetruthOakland #homesforall #upgradenotevict

Response from Margaretta Lin, Executive Director of the Dellums Institute for Social Justice

Yesterday, I bore witness to a grave human rights atrocity. This did not occur in a Red State, but here in Oakland, California. Organized by The Village and The East Oakland Collective, unhoused women and children and their supporters took over blighted public land, cleaned up the trash, and began to build homes that were safe and dignified. As we all know, unhoused women and children are extremely vulnerable to great abuse and have very limited housing options. They said they chose the vacant public land at Clara and Edes because it had a fence so that they could be safe from violence and abuse. They set up a medical tent for doctors to provide services to the community. They provided food for the neighbors. They took care of one another so that mothers could work nights or go to school.

Some of the neighbors had legitimate concerns that needed to be addressed through problem solving mediation that Baba Arnold Perkins had volunteered to conduct. So why did no meeting between the City of Oakland, the unhoused residents, and the neighbors occur? Why were the unhoused advocates told by the City of Oakland on Wednesday when there were crowds of supporters and media that the eviction scheduled for Wednesday would not occur until there was a meeting, to only have OPD and Public Works show up the next day to demolish their homes and forcibly evict people? Why did my friends, Mayor Libby Schaaf and Councilmember Larry Reid support an action that the United Nations a month ago said violated international human rights and was “cruel and inhumane”?

So what can we, who stand for justice for all peoples, do now? Friends in the local and national media like Anna Martin Ise Lyfe, Elizabeth Shogren, Darwin BondGraham, Ken Epstein can you do in-depth profile and investigative stories to help prevent this atrocity from occurring again? Anna Martin–I see an amazing This American Life story profiling the unhoused women’s resilience to rebuild their housing and community in the wake of the City’s demolition and eviction. 

Friends in policy research like John A. Powell Julie Nelson Michael McAfee Kalima Rose Eli Moore Joe Brooks can you work with us and boona cheema to craft the nation’s best Equity in Housing and Human Rights policy for Oakland electeds like Nikki Fortunato Bas Rebecca Kaplan Dan Kalb to champion so that our beloved community of Oakland ends these human rights violations?

Friends who are political leaders who had the benefit of being mentored by Ron Dellums like Barbara Lee, Rob Bonta, Keith Carson Nate Miley Ben Bartlett can you exercise your political capital with your friends in Oakland City Hall–ask them why they directed or allowed for this human rights atrocity to occur last night and on other nights?

Friends in activism–continue doing what you already do–showing up for the oppressed and discriminated against.

What happened last night can’t continue. It’s against everything that we say we stand for–human rights and decency. I believe that this is our Selma–a defining moment of our times. Thank you for your willingness to stand with people whose only crime is to not have housing.

Response from Frank Sosa, Community Member

So make no mistake about Oakland’s homeless encampment policy. Oakland has camps everywhere, so much so that they often are fire hazards and health hazards. Oakland seems to be just fine with that, but the minute a camp is politicized, organized, drug free, and safe for womyn and children, the city will shut you down with a quickness. Even if that camp has made the neighborhood they are in cleaner than it was before thus raising property values. Heaven forbid, houseless folks should be organized and look out for each other.

Response From The Village

We The Village, state firmly that housing is a human right and the 9,000 -14,000 unsheltered residents of oakland need to be the city’s number one priority to build immediate permanent housing and immediate dignified transitional housing.

We acknowledge that the city administration has either attempted to destroy what we attempt to do, criminalize what we do, co-opt and capitalize what we do, or worked with us in bad faith. In fact, while The City was getting ready to destroy Housing and Dignity Village, it released a request for funding asking non-profits to carry out the entire Village program design – which we submitted to The City in February 2017, April 2017 and again in September 2017.

The bulldozing and eviction of 16 residents from the Promise Land Village on Feb 2, 2017 has never been rectified and the residents continue to be homeless. 

The herding of rival gangs, folks in mental health crisis, and rival families since October 2017 to present day, to the E12 & 23rd Ave. Village, and the continued herding of unsheltered folks onto the land by OPD is a clear sabatouge to our vision and efforts. As are the city’s refusual to provide adequate trash pick up, and properly serviced portapoties. It also caused harm to our leadership, our volunteers, the individuals herded there and the surrounding neighborhood. These actions were criminal, harmful and dangerous and have yet to be rectified.

The Tuff Shed sites are nothing but an institutional mutation of the village program design and vision that barely scratches the surface of the crisis, wastes millions on dollars in money and resources while violating residents autonomy, dignity, safety. Its nothing more than a nicely packaged cosmetic attempt to shut down and shuffle around sprawling encampments. The only permanent housing people are offered are a bus ticket out of oakland

And the latest attack on the Village efforts: the violent eviction of the highly organized, clean and sober housing and dignity village – was a continuation of the attacks on our work and attempted criminalization of our leadership

And according to community leaders who have spoken to joe de vries taking away the Miller Ave site immediately after the bulldozed the housing and dignity village – a site  the city council voted to give us to open a harm reduction site – is nothing but a petty attempt to punish us for creating housing and dignity village, our unsheltered leadership asserting their constitutional right,  and reacting to this crisis as the emergency it is.

Unlike the  administration, we the village have spent two years talking with unhoused folks to design temporary emergency shelters and blueprints for villages. We have been able to create a solution that is a United Nations model for how to address this crisis at hand. 

Its a shame that the mayor and administration and city council will not work with us. It is as shame that the same time the city was getting ready to bulldoze us and take away the property the agreed to let us manage on miller avenue, they were also releasing a request for funding to funnel federal, state, county, city and private monies to non profits to fund a mutated version of our entire program design. 

By Needa Bee

On October 19^th, the United Nations Special Rapporteur to the Right to Adequate Housing, Lelani Farha, released her new report documenting the “global scandal” of homeless encampments.

In January of 2017, Farha spent time in the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California to meet with unhoused residents and housed advocates and described the conditions as “cruel and inhumane”. The only U.S. cities explicitly called out for violations in the UN’s report on global homelessness are San Francisco and Oakland. 

She states that while the existence of “informal settlements” are human rights violations due to local government’s lack of will to provide permanent housing to all residents, these encampments are also people’s assertion to their denied human right of housing. She declares curbside communities are acts of resilience, resourcefulness and ingenuity in the face of dire circumstances. Rather than criminalize or ignore these settlements, until permanent housing can be offered to all, it is the duty of local governments not to evict curbside communities but to upgrade them and residents of these encampments should participate in all areas of the upgrading, including sanitation, clean water, food services and support services.

Homeless leaders and advocates in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland hosted Ms. Farha, including Coalition on Homelessness, Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP), The East Oakland Collective, The Village/Feed The People, and First They Came For The Homeless. Ms. Farha was able to hear and speak directly with people living in encampments and on our streets about the oppression, hatred and police violence they experience everyday. Representatives from these organizations, curbside leaders who are survivors of continued human rights abuses at the hands of government agencies, as well as legal advocates from Ella Baker Center For Human Rights and the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute will be speaking a Tuesday’s Press Conference.

In Ms. Farha’s report she frames the encampments and street dwelling in the United States under the same vein as the informal settlements around the world. Finding that “the scope and severity of the living conditions in informal settlements make this one of the most pervasive violations of human rights globally,” states the report. The Oakland conditions of discrimination and harassment of encampment residents and punitive denials of access to basic services constitute “cruel and inhuman treatment and is a violation of multiple human rights…Such punitive policies must be prohibited in law and immediately ceased.”   

This assertion falls in line with the 9^th Circuit Courts Sept 4^th decision that criminalization of homelessness violates curbside communities’ 8^th amendment rights and constitutes as cruel and unusual punishment.

“The Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing As a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living, and on the Right to Non-Discrimination in this Context” is being presented at the United Nation’s office in New York on October 19^th. In solidarity with this presentation at the UN, events are planned in New York City; Denver, Colorado, and Oakland, CA October 23. 

Writing in support of WRAPs Right to Rest acts in California, Colorado, and Oregon, the Rapporteur summed up her visit in California: 

“In my capacity as the UN Rapporteur on Housing, I visited California and saw firsthand the human right violations being experienced by people who are homeless. They are the victims of failed policies—not the perpetrators of crime. The state of California must take action to remedy the criminalization of rest…While I toured encampments and drop-in facilities serving homeless people, the community repeatedly expressed that they simply wanted to be treated as human beings. It is dehumanizing, demoralizing, and unjust to criminalize hundreds of thousands of people due to their housing status.”

The report concludes with step by step recommendations to enhance the lives of over 800 million people around the world who live in informal settlements and inhumane conditions concluding:

“That truth is that by any measure — moral, political or legal — it is unacceptable for people to be forced to live this way. Refusing to accept the unacceptable is where we must begin. All actors must mobilize within a shared human rights paradigm around the imperative of upgrading all informal settlements by 2030.” 

The UN Press release on the report can be found here.

The report can be found here: 

Legal Research

By Ellie Brumbaum

Grassroots Movement Continues to Claim Public Land To Provide Shelter and Services for Oakland’s Unhoused Women

On the morning of Saturday, October 27, 2018, a coalition of Oakland community members took over a city-owned plot of land at Edes and Elmhurst in Deep East Oakland, on Chochenyo Ohlone land. They moved in a medical tent, an outdoor kitchen, supplies for a small community garden, and other services. They are declaring it a service hub for curbside communities and housed residents in the area, who have been deprived of basic services by the City of Oakland. It has been named Housing and Dignity Village, and is a clean and sober encampment for the unhoused cisgender and trans women of Oakland, their partners, and their children. As a Community Resource Center and Garden, the Housing and Dignity Village will be a service and community hub for housed and unhoused neighbors.

The coalition includes unhoused and housed Oakland residents from the grassroots community group The Village, members of The East Oakland Collective, and advocates for the human rights of curbside communities. The group denounces city officials’ lack of public land policy that benefits the working class, Black and brown communities who are Oakland’s longest-term residents. This action proclaims that housing is a human right, and housing should be available to all. In particular, it highlights the experience of unsheltered women, and declares their right to safety and long term housing, despite their “unique vulnerability to violence and sexual assault” (UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing), and the high rate of homelessness for survivors of domestic violence (between 22 and 57% of all homeless women report that domestic violence was the immediate cause of their homelessness). In establishing this space, the coalition proclaims that homelessness is a woman’s issue, and registers the hypocrisy of the Mayor, who has written publicly in support of the #MeToo movement, in her gross negligence of the unhoused women and LGBTQIA people of Oakland. These encampment residents’ vulnerability to sexual abuse is a direct result of the absence of any significant low-income housing policy from Libby Schaaf’s office.  

This reclaiming of public land for public good also demonstrates the tenacity of the community to provide for one another, especially those living on the street, in a dignified and compassionate manner when the city refuses to do so. The organizers seek to engage the neighborhood surrounding The Housing and Dignity Village in developing a vision for the parcel that benefits the needs of both the housed residents, and the large curbside community in the area. 

For updates on #HousingAndDignityVillage on social media: 

• The Village on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
• East Oakland Collective on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

The Housing and Dignity Village demands are as follows:

1. Upgrade, Don’t Evict Camps.
2. Public Land for Public Good.
3. Public Land In Public Hands.
4. Section 8 in Condos and Luxury Apartments.
5. NO MORE EVICTIONS! NO MORE SWEEPS!
6. Homelessness Is Not A Crime.
7. No More Tuff Sheds.
8. Respect Unsheltered Neighbors.
9. Public Review & Rule!
10. All current residents of Two Three Hunid Tent City located on E.12th and 23rd Ave. get immediate permanent housing.

A Statement From The 510Day Organizing Committee.

Oakland is our hometown. It is a city with an extraordinary past, a legacy of radical activism, and a rich, diverse culture all its own. It’s the land of the Ohlone people, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense and Funk, the city where Bruce Lee once lived and where Cesar Chavez first started organizing.

It was Tupac’s spiritual home and the home of Soulbeat, Festival at the Lake, the East Bay Dragons, Everett and Jones, Flints, Ricky Henderson, Marshawn Lynch, Gary Payton, Dru Down, Too $hort, and 3XKraxy. Oakland is a community where Black, White, Asian and Pacific Islander, Native American, and LatinX people have lived together for generations.

Over the past several years Oakland has experienced a wave of gentrification and displacement characterized by skyrocketing housing prices and a rising cost of living. Many locals have been pushed out of the area, creating a huge demographic shift. The African-American population declined drastically from 48% in 1980 to 28% by 2010.  Black people, Black culture, and Black communities are the underpinning of Oakland’s history, culture, and identity. We must tell the truth about what is actually happening in this moment. 

The consequences of gentrification have been devastating for those of us raised here. We have watched as our friends and family members have moved away. Some of our neighborhoods have become unrecognizable. We have witnessed a rise in homelessness like we have never seen. And we are experiencing the criminalization of Black and Brown people, increasingly made to feel unwelcome in our own city.

On January 20, 2017, one hundred residents – some of us housed and some of us homeless – were sick and tired of the housing crisis. City officials had disregarded 17 years of demands to address the needs of Oakland’s low-income communities of color. We started a movement called The Village, and we declared ourselves ungovernable by a government that has proven to be ineffective and illegitimate – from Oakland City Hall to The White House. We began to build emergency shelters on underused, neglected lands for those who no longer had a roof in the city they called home. 

We are now in urgent need of a new land site for the ‘villlage’ which will be displaced for construction. The City has promised to but after many months has not identified a site. There are no designated sites for the other several thousand people living on the streets either. Forcing people and camps to frequently move is a misuse of resources that causes stress and trauma. We must have more effective and respectful solutions, both for practical reasons and as a matter of racial justice. The majority of people who are homeless in Oakland are Black, which we see as the intentional result of decades of discriminatory housing policies and widespread structural racism. We insist that Black and Brown Oakland residents have a right to stay here, and to take up public space and thrive. 

The right to exist in public space has increasingly been threatened, such as in April when a white woman called the police on a Black family for using a charcoal grill at Lake Merritt. Her racist actions sparked national outrage. The Oakland community and Oakland youth leaders responded with two major events, “510 Day” and “BBQ’N While Black” which drew numbers into the thousands and sent a strong message of resistance. 

These movements to reclaim public space are important. But we also need to change the policies and practices that govern our community to realize our vision for an inclusive and equitable Oakland. We must fight for what will make it possible for Black people and other people of color to remain in Oakland. The identity and heart and soul of our city are on the line.

As politicians and candidates prepare for the November elections, we stand firm that we are ungovernable to those who seek to build careers, make profit or consolidate power for their personal gain. We do not endorse candidates, and have little faith in a system created off the rape, murder, theft, slavery, terror and genocide of Native Americans and stolen Africans. But we offer this guidance in the hope that whoever holds public office will work for the good of the public:

1. Politicians are public servants but too often they behave as public siphons, misappropriating public resources for private agendas instead of the public good. Unaccountable and non-transparent privatization of public resources is not what The Town needs.

2. The continued and blatant disregard of our communities’ needs results in widespread human rights and civil rights abuses and is unacceptable.

3. Oakland leaders must use the #WeStillHere Platform to guide decison-making. This will ensure that Black, Brown, immigrant, indigenous, working class, low-income, no-income, curbside and marginalized communities – the very communities that are the backbone of the innovative, soulful and resilient culture Oakland is famous for – are front and center in the policies and practices elected and appointed officials enact. 

The Village stands behind the #WeStillHere Platform. We want and will fight for:

• Quality low-income and no-income housing & shelter for all.
• The use of public land and public resources to improve the quality of life for Oaklanders being displaced.
• Equitably-resourced public schools that are relevant to students of color, which include programs that advance Black and Brown students in math and sciences, and that have supports such as restorative justice and peer counseling programs.
• An end to the criminalization & mass incarceration of communities of color, and the right to have fun without being criminalized.
• An investment in community-based alternatives to policing and incarceration.
• Quality jobs & economic opportunity for Oakland locals.
• Communities of belonging for immigrants, just immigration policies, and non-cooperation with ICE.
• Access to health care, healthy living, and healthy food options for all. 
• The preservation and innovation of Oakland’s authentic culture.

We stand for an equitable Oakland where the lives of families of color, immigrants and low-income residents are valued and protected. Gentrification threatens to erase the history, culture, and identity of Oakland in just a matter of years. Oakland is far too special of a place for this to happen. We envision an Oakland that continues to be racially diverse and rich with the tradition of activism. We want an inclusive Oakland, one which embraces the future and stays true to our past. We urge political candidates to be committed and fight for this vision.

510Day Organizing Committee is: Young Oakland, Village in Oakland, Leon DNas Sykes, Jordan Warren, Urban Peace Movement, AYPAL, The East Oakland Collective, The Real Oakland, CURYJ. 

By Brooke Trespe and Needa Bee

You are being played, Oakland. On the eve of the city’s photo op, the unveiling of the second Tuff Shed lot in Northgate, we are compelled to tell you the truth of how these sites are being used politically and what they are like on the inside.

When the people of Oakland moved the City Council to unanimously pass a Shelter Crisis Declaration Oct 3, 2017 that would immediately allow emergency temporary housing and services to be created as a pathway to permanent housing in the midst of this homeless state of emergency, using sanctioned sites as a pretext for area evictions and doubling people up in uninsulated tool sheds with no running water or electricity was not what we were talking about.

CITY SANCTIONED SITES = EVICTIONS

Each time the city has sanctioned a site for outdoor emergency use, an explicit part of their plans is to evict all other camps in the area. The “Compassionate Communities” at Peralta/35th, the tentative village site at 23rd&12th Ave, the first Tuffshed yard at 5th and Brush… All included explicit directives to OPD and DPW to evict all other camps in the area no matter how many people it would displace and put into motion. The first Tuffshed yard put over 100 people into motion while only providing slots for 40.

In this way, these are pilot programs more for camp suppression and eviction than providing entry to housing, herding our unhoused neighbors more out of sight away from services or driving them into a few now unsafe, filthy ‘mega-camps’ that these evictions are creating.
This second “ONC” (“Outdoor Navigation Center”) or Tuffshed yard is to be no different. The city has planned that all residents of camps in the Northgate area are to be evicted, easily three times the number of people that could possibly be admitted to the 40 person Tuffshed yard. The city claims that the St. Vincent DePaul shelter will take in the overflow. This is nonsense.  The nearby center is already at capacity, is only a temp overnight shelter and has zero capacity to take in 80 more people and their belongings. If this were in any way a realistic option, those camping on the street nextdoor would already be utilizing it.

The city’s implementation of the Tuffshed yard will while opening up 40 slots for sleeping in sheds will also:

• Forcibly evict 100+ other unhoused neighbors.
• Push people further to the margins including into sprawling, unsafe ‘mega-camps’ such as the complex at 35th/Peralta.
• Destabilize and stress all the other camps across downtown and the west that will be taking in the displaced.

The city is still servicing appearances, creating photo ops for themselves and political cover for evictions more than facing the realities of our city and the homelessness crisis gripping it.

LIFE ON THE INSIDE OF A TUFFSHED CAMP

Increased policing, poor conditions, group punishments

A testimony from a recently evicted resident of the Tuff Shed site on 5th Street (see attached video https://www.facebook.com/731643677003021/videos/967948560039197/) exposes inhumane and substandard living conditions that the city has applauded and promised to replicate. The Tuff Sheds themselves, with a total lack of insulation and hardly any ventilation, are not satisfactory for human beings to live in to begin with. A tiny window is the only form of lighting, leaving disabled residents struggling to get around or see what they are doing.
Even more egregious is the behavior of Operation Dignity, a so-called outreach organization the city is paying nearly half a million dollars of funding to staff the site (that funding was lobbied by Oakland residents to originally be set aside for increasing services for unsheltered residents across Oakland). Operation Dignity runs the site through coercion, bullying and neglecting the residents, and especially the disabled and mentally ill. Residents report that the staff has used their power to force cooperation by withholding food, water and electricity as forms of collective punishment.

When resident Gary Nash confronted a staff member and threatened to report his grievances, he was met with violence and was ultimately evicted for defending himself. Now, his elderly disabled mother Robyin Clark is being evicted as well for allowing her son to visit her on site. Robyin, a long time unhoused community member who was seen as the nurturer and protector of the area, has been tirelessly advocating for others on site and worries about the mismanagement and abuse of power that will inevitably increase now that she has been forced to vacate. Knowing that Robyin is fighting cancer, the city has only offered her a short, temporary stay in a hotel for five days, suggesting she try a temporary homeless shelter without any further assistance, aid or hospice.
Residents report that when the generator meant to provide electricity is powered, it is only from 9:00 pm until 1:00 pm, leaving them without power throughout the day.  Robyin, who suffers from COPD and cancer, has been unable to charge and run the equipment she desperately needs to stay alive. In an attempt to self-organize and reclaim agency, some residents have tried to bring in their own generators, which have been prohibited due to safety concerns while the city’s generator sits atop a gasoline soaked rug and wooden platform. Donors even offered to provide the encampment with $70,000 worth of solar panels to provide energy for all the tuff sheds, an offer that was refused for the encampment and used only for the staff office. The office also implements signal blocking technology to prevent residents from accessing the WiFi.

SO WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

On the other end of the spectrum, The Village attempts to work with our unhoused community members rather than around them, pioneering a holistic approach towards permanent housing that starts with creating interim housing and services centering the needs, experiences, ideas and voices of the unsheltered community. We recently learned that what little land was granted to us in October 2017 for our efforts is going to be taken from us in a few months, reinforcing our belief that a local government that profits off of the housing crisis will be unwilling to alleviate it.

We demand that the city invest into community driven interim solutions such as The Village and stop wasting the public’s precious resources on failed debacles such as the Tuff Shed encampments.

We demand that the City stop sabotaging the Village and other community efforts. All negotiations have stopped on their end not only in regard to finding a site that meets the criteria for a viable village but also in regard to permitting our portable shower/toilet bus which is waiting to be put into service. All the city has committed to is to bulldozing the site at 23rd St./12th Ave which never met the criteria and which was turned into an unsafe mega-camp by their regime of area evictions.

We demand a full moratorium on camp evictions.

We demand that the inhumane management change at the Tuffshed yards or be turned over to the Village or other community groups that are capable of working with the unhoused rather than against them.

By Needa Bee

City Forced To Adopt Safe Havens Due To Success Of Militant Grassroots Efforts

Nine months after bulldozing The Village – a radical community effort to immediately provide shelters and services to Oakland’s homeless – the City Administration granted the movement a large parcel of land in East Oakland.

“We are happy that we have the support of city council and staff in City Hall. We are thrilled that the City Administration finally saw the light, and instead of continuing to fight us, found inspiration in our vision and model and is fleshing out their plan called the Safe Haven,” said one of The Village’s lead organizers Needa Bee. “We are happy that the City did the right thing. It was a long, frustrating and slow winding road. But we are happy we have reached the goal: for the City to accept that housing is a human right, that homelessness is not a crime and that everyone deserves a place to call home.”

In the middle of the night on January 20, 2017, under the cloak of the year’s largest rain storm and overshadowed by the inauguration of Donald Trump, a group of nearly 100 grassroots community activists seized Grove Shafter Park, aka Marcus Garvey Park, on the West Oakland/North Oakland border and began building homes and services for Oakland’s unhoused. Their action was a result of the City’s zero response to a homelessness and housing crisis that City Council had declared the previous year. With a zero dollar budget, in 13 days the movement grew into hundreds of volunteers who built 6 homes and offered dozens of services to anyone who needed them, including hot meals, health and wellness services, provisions, a bathroom and two hot showers. In less than two weeks 16 chronically homeless drug users were sheltered and off drugs. 

The City responded by spending $75,000 taxpayer dollars to bulldoze the effort.

Since then, The Village, through the creation of the Homeless Advocacy Working Group – a body created out of the rubble of the bulldozers –  has been tirelessly lobbying City Hall to pass the Shelter Crisis Ordinance, which would give The Village and other community groups public land to continue their work without harassment, and to get the City to come up with their own solutions. This past Tuesday, October 3rd, City Council passed the Shelter Crisis Ordinance and gave the green light for homeless encampments with shelters and services to be created on City-owned or managed lands. Yesterday the City Administration offered The Village a parcel of land in East Oakland located at East 12 and 23rd Ave.

“The level of egotism and resistance from the Administration has been ridiculous. But we are so happy that they are finally on the humanitarian page and accept that the shelters, closing down encampments, shuffling and criminalizing homeless just don’t work. Our efforts have helped shift the Administration’s approach to the crisis,” Bee said. “We have now opened the door for others in the community to step to the plate and throw down. Which is what needs to happen. We are going to need 100 different solutions and as many villages as possible to deal with this crisis. The homeless population is in the thousands and the 40 Tuff Sheds the City will provide in their safe havens and the 40 shelters we will provide in our first village will barely scratch the surface.”

The East Oakland Collective is a supporter of The Village and has been doing work in Deep East Oakland to serve the homeless community. The Village hopes they are next in line to receive public lands to implement their solutions to this crisis.

The Village plans to operate several sites in several neighborhoods using City, County and private lands they will lease to the community group. The Village is also planning to purchase lands to build both temporary and permanent housing. Each village will serve a particular demographic of the diverse unsheltered population. There will be a village for those in recovery, a harm reduction village, a site for families with children and elders who have been recently homeless due to gentrification, an LGBTQ community, a women’s location and an encampment for RVs and campers.

Unlike the City’s safe havens, The Village will build custom designed homes that are 12 feet high and 120 square feet in area for individuals. Larger dwellings will be built for families depending on their size. Sites will also include wrap around services, job training, employment opportunities for residents, 24 hour community security, sanitation services, a computer lab, art studio, health and wellness clinic, chicken coops and gardens. For the broader community, food services and provision distribution programs will also be offered. 

The Village is completely run on donations and volunteers and is significantly less costly than the City’s $550,000 per encampment version. Bee said the support from the community, nonprofits, religious groups and the unhoused is vast. 

“We started as a direct action, and when they bulldozed us we became a mighty movement. And now we are a membership based organization and alliance of many organizations,” said Bobby Qui, member and builder with The Village. “And now we are going to need all hands on deck. Winter is around the corner and the rains are coming. Let’s get folks off the sidewalks, into supportive environments towards self–sufficiency and ultimately into permanent housing. 

If people want to learn how to plug in, they can follow them on their Facebook page The Village in Oakland #feedthepeople. Currently they are accepting gift cards to hardware and home improvement stores as well as donations of building materials.