The Village

We are The Village, and we are searching for The Promised Land. We are not going to stop looking for it and building it – even though you have gone against the wishes of the people of oakland by destroying what we built. We are not going to stop despite the fact you are hostile and violent to our vision of humanity.

We were told that this meeting was to be between The Village of the Promise Land and city of oakland officials.

However, we were never invited. The residents of The Promise Land were not invited. The volunteers of The Promise Land were not invited. The homeless community members who used The Promise Land services were not invited. Therefore, we declare this meeting illegitimate.

In addition, we have lost absolute faith in you Joe DeVries. You have proven yourself untrustworthy and incapable of the type of leadership needed to address the housing and homeless state of emergency.

Joe deVries –  your job responsibilities make you directly responsible for the destruction of homeless encampments, the displacement and shuffling around of homeless folks and the criminalization of people without shelter. We think you should be fired and your job responsibilities deleted.

Furthermore, in the past two weeks in your engagement with The Promise Land, you have repeatedly lied. On monday January 23rd you came to The Promise Land and told volunteers you admired what we were doing. But a few days later you returned to The Promise Land to supervise the postings of eviction notices. And two days later you supervised the violent and, inhumane demolition of our homes and free much needed services we offered the community.

You have continually lied. Last thursday you lied to reporters and concerned community members and publicly stated the 16 displaced residents of The Promise Land  were offered alternative housing. We were not. You lied to the public and said the city had a contingency plan for taking care for the residents of The Promise Land. We were taken care of. You had the audactiy to lie and say we the residents of The Promise Land were not homeless, but were a group of troublemakers who are antagonistic to the city.  We the residents of The Promise Land were homeless before The Promise Land and you made us homeless once again when you bulldozed The Promise Land. We had homes that we built with housed residents of Oakland. And now we are scattered in the storm because of you, the city administartor and the mayor

We do not trust you Joe DeVries. You told people last thursday you sent intel to the Promise Land to spy on us. You told people last Thursday that you “were told to expect violence when you came to raid” the promise land. you said someone from seigel and yee said that.

You said the neighbors of marcus garvey park complained. Well dozens of neighbors of marcus garvey park volunteered at the promise land and donated material to the promise land. Dozens of neighbors called your direct phone number to let you know they support and believed in the promise land and told you to support our efforts not destroy them. Hundreds of oaklanders signed a petition in support of what we were doing and when our lawyers brought you those petitions who tossed them aside and said “you can get anyone to sign a petition. This petition means nothing.”

Yes, the people of oakland has lost absolute faith in you and the rest of city hall. You completely proved our point. We have made it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that we the people have to take the housing and homeless crisis into our own hands.

The people of oakland housed and homeless – came together and pooled our resources and labor to practice self governance in the midst of an ineffective and illegitimate city hall that has repeatedly chosen to do nothing about the housing crisis and displacement. We came up with a an effective, immediate solution. And you destroyed it

Shame on you, the city administrator and the mayor for going against the wishes of the people. Shame on ya’ll for disrespecting the role as a civic and public servant. Shame on you for bulldozing homes in the height of a housing and homeless crisis. Shame on you for lying. Shame on you for spying on us. Shame on you for criminalizing the work we did.

The $20 million dollars the city has promised for building homes for the homeless and the discussion about the housing crisis the city will have in march doesnt cut it. We need homes today. We dont need anymore talking. And we cannot wait for you to build homes in three to five years from now.

While ya’ll talk and wait to build and finally start to build. The homeless population  will go from 4,000 to 8,000. And while you talk and wait, we will continue to take care of ourselves and live. We will continue to protect ourselves from the elements and create safety and dignity for ourselves despite your hostility and violence and violation of our rights. We will continue to provide food, shelter and clothing for ourselves and each other with dignity and respect.

We also understand that you have expressed to people who met with you last thursday that you wanted to set up this meeting to tell us how to work for you.

We are here to remind you that you are here to work with us. Even tho you gloat about not being an elected official who is not accountable to the city council or the people – we are here to remind you that you infact are a civil and public servant. Your salary is still paid for by the people of oakland. You are here to work for us.  We do not and will not work for you.

Once you have publicly appologize to The Village, once you have placed all 16 permanent residents of The Promised Land in permanent lock and care program homes, once you are ready to work for us, once you are ready to listen and serve us, once you are ready to stop destroying encampments and traumatizing homeless people, once you are ready to stop lying, once you are ready to stop bringing the politics of donald trump to The Town, we will come to the table and talk with you.

But til then, we have work to do. We are in a crisis. and people are in deep need of housing.

The crisis is our permit. Our code is humanity. And the regulations we follow allow for immediate, healthy and proven solutions that will meet the need of those impacted by this state of emergency today.  

By Needa Bee

Our homeless neighbors are some of the most resilient, independent, fiercest, smartest, compassionate, powerhouses  you will ever meet in your life. 

They are survivors who live in constant crisis everyday. And they get shit done. Many are parents, grandparents, workers, survivors. They hold down several jobs and/or hussles. They are resourceful and the masters of recycle, reuse, reimagine. 

You can’t keep them down despite the obstacles they face: 

An estimated 16,000 people experience homelessness in the county. Data compiled in the Alameda Countywide Shelter and Services Survey, May 2004 Report (ACSSS) found that:

•  A vast majority of Alameda County’s homeless people live in Oakland (people in the streets think it’s more)
• We estimate at least 6,000 people are homeless in Oakland. Of that number, only 12% live in curbside communties in tent cities and encampments. A majority live in card\s, RVs and other vehicles.
• Many of the homeless were previously incarcerated, hospitalized or in Foster Care.

• Suffer chronic health conditions such as TB, HIV/AIDS, diabetes and hypertension at a much higher rate than housed individuals; treatment is difficult without a stable environment
• Utilize public services (e.g. hospital emergency rooms. Mental health facilities, jails) more frequently
• Usually experience higher rates of violence and victimization
• Many are husslers and working class folks who hold down one or more streams of income. Many are born and raised in Oakland. But due to gentrification and the outrageous housing market, many cannot afford the human right of housing
• Most folks who are homeless are living on the streets, in parks, in vehicles, couch surfing in the neighbors the once had housing in

What are the experiences of homeless mothers?

• Over 85% of homeless families are headed by women – specifically, by single women with children – and domestic violence is a principal cause homelessness among single mother families.
• Homeless families are typically headed by a young mother with 2 to 3 children, who did not finish high school or is unemployed
• Over 92% of homeless mothers have experienced severe physical and/or sexual abuse during their lifetime
• 63% report that this abuse was perpetrated by an intimate partner

• 1 of every 4 homeless women is homeless because of violence committed against her
• Inadequate housing and shelter options, evictions, discrimination, poverty, and other factors contribute to the crisis of homelessness caused by family violence. Furthermore, many women remain in an abusive relationship because of these barriers

Domestic and sexual violence is the leading cause of homelessness for women and families, and 20–50% of all homeless women and children become homeless as a direct result of fleeing domestic violence.

Homeless women are far more likely to experience violence of all sorts compared with women who are not homeless because of a lack of personal security when living outdoors or in shelters 

Domestic violence shelter providers are prohibited from reporting client information; therefore, estimates likely undercount the number of homeless women and families seeking shelter as a result of domestic violence.

What are the experiences of homeless children?

• Families make up 43% and children comprise 28% of the county’s homeless population.
• By age 12, 83% of homeless children had been exposed to at least one serious violent event
• Almost 25% have witnessed acts of violence within their families
• 15% have seen their father hit their mother
• 11% have seen their mother abused by a male partner
• Children who witness violence are more likely than those who have not to exhibit frequent aggressive and antisocial behavior, increased fearfulness, higher levels of depression and anxiety, and have a greater acceptance of violence as a means of resolving conflict
• Homeless children suffer more health problems than housed children: 38% of children in homeless shelters have asthma, middle ear infection prevalence is 50% higher than the national average, and over 60% of homeless children are under vaccinated (Redlener & Johnson, 1999)
• Nearly one-fifth of homeless children repeat a grade in school and 16% are enrolled in special education classes – rates 100% and 33% higher than housed children; much of this is largely due to their high mobility rate (Institute for Children and Poverty, 2001)

You cannot keep these women and children down. They get up everyday and do it again. Despite the crisis. 

And yet the city of oakland the police and xenophobic gentrifuckers are determined to keep down, shuffle around, criminalize, terrorize, disrespect, steal from homeless women and homeless people in general.

The city of oakland declared a homeless state of emergency and said that we are in a housing crisis. Yet they have been too comfortable to realize the state of emergency themselves and have moving thru the mud with their responses to homelessness. We have a homeless crisis yet the homeless resident of this city continue to have their encampments destroyed by the city and police continue to treat the most vulnerable of our residents as criminals at a $10,000 per eviction price tag. We have a housing crisis caused by gentrification but gentrifiers don’t want to see the people they have displaced and use their race and class privilege and power to get the city to close down recycling centers and destroy encampments and shelters. We have a housing crisis though when we The Village aka the people of oakland created The Promise Land at marcus garvey park last in the end of this january 2017 – where we build homes for the unhoused, got 16 drug addict on the path of recovery and provided sanctuary from the streets for mostly elderly men and women – the city spent upwards of $75,000 to bulldoze homes, a donations distribution program, a community kitchen and a wellness center.

We have a woman who is the mayor of oakland. She likes to say she’s from the town but we have yet to see her act like shes from the town. Cuz the town takes care of each other. The town takes care of its homeless. Countless of individuals in oakland feed and clothe our most vulnerable on the streets of oakland. If libby was from the town she would have been ended this housinging crisis and taken care of the exploded homeless crisis instead of selling it to the highest bidder.

One thing we were clear about when we created The Village and built The Promise Land is that this government from the white house to city hall is ineffective, illegitimate and that we are ungovernable to them. That means it’s time to stop waiting on them to do something to help us and take matters in our own hands. Whether that means taking land to build homes and services, whether that means creating our own institution of public education. Whether that means creating our own health and wellness systems, whether that means creating our own alternatives to their policing system. It’s gonna be up to us to do this. This time of ineffective and illegitimate politicians who refuse to be the activist leaders we so desperately need right now is our call to come together in unity, govern ourselves, solve our own problems, and take control of our future. A future that puts women, indigenous peoples, Black folks, immigrants and all people who have historically and systematically oppressed –  in the forefront.

By Asians For Black Lives Media Committee

Hundreds of Oakland Residents Created An Encampment That Offered Safe & Dignified Space City of Oakland Did Not Provide

At 8:30 AM on the morning of Thursday, February 2, 2017, at least 80 Oakland Police violently raided a village of homes and services for Oakland’s homeless residents which was then bulldozed by the Department of Public Works. The inhumane action went against the wishes of hundreds of Oakland residents who contributed to the creation of the sanctuary at 36th and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, named “The Promise Land” by residents. Sixteen residents, half of them elderly, were displaced. An additional four guests who were seeking sanctuary for the night were also rudely awakened. Two of the evening guests who slept in The Promised Land open air living room, sought refuge because Cal Trans had destroyed their two encampments down the street.

Since early morning on Saturday, January 21, a network of Oakland community members took over Marcus Garvey Park, a public plot of neglected land at 36th Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Way in West Oakland, and had moved in small homes, a healing clinic, and other services, declaring it a people’s encampment for those who needed housing and basic needs and services. The group – which included folks living on Oakland streets, activists from #FeedthePeople and #Asians4BlackLives, The Black Land Liberation Initiative and various individuals from the community – said that the move-in demonstrated their ability to provide what the City of Oakland cannot to its most vulnerable residents.

Although the camp had grown extraordinarily quickly and shown incredible success in reducing harm for Oakland’s unhoused community in such a short time, it was cited for 18 code violations. According to City Hall insiders, both the mayor and the city administrator were motivated by bruised egos as justification for demolishing the widely-supported encampment.

“The City has proven how petty and ineffective they are. The crisis is our permit. Our code is humanity. Our regulations are immediate, healthy solutions that address the urgency of this housing crisis,” said Promise Land founder Needa Bee who is with both #FeedThePeople and Asians4BlackLives. “There are zero codes to follow and zero permits needed to build a tiny home. What they did was cruel and unusual punishment and the people who they hurt the most were the residents. The residents who were still asleep at the time of the raid were all elderly. The sixteen residents of the village have been needlessly traumatized and distressed by the Mayor and City Administrator. I am absolutely disgusted,  but not surprised. Oakland has once again proved it isn’t a sanctuary city, nor does it show compassion to those most vulnerable and in need.”

The group aimed to demonstrate through their visionary encampment that housing is a human right. They also hoped to demonstrate that, in the face of a city government that failed to meet the needs of its people, it is possible for the community to unite to serve serve Oakland’s homeless residents in a dignified and humane manner. The group criticizes the inaction of the City of Oakland, saying that the City has proven to be disloyal to its long term families displaced in this city-initiated housing crisis. The group also claims that the City has not implemented sufficient efforts to address homelessness, such as building permanent public housing for those who have been displaced by the housing crisis, particularly Black and Brown residents.

“What #FeedthePeople offered us is a better situation than what the City has offered us,” said Red,one of the several senior citizens who was housed at The Village. “#FeedthePeople seems to get things rolling. They had a place for us to go to that was safe, dignified, and had services for us all. It’s hard to believe that the city actually bulldozed homes for homeless people in the middle of a housing crisis.” 

 As for the $20 million surprise bond city hall approved for building homes for the homeless the day before The Promise Land was raided, organizers understand that it was the power and effectiveness of their harm reduction based direct action and the movement that grew out of it that got the city to finally develop for those most negatively impacted by gentrification. For years activists and Oakland residents demanded the city to build homes for low income residents in the midst of this housing crisis, and the consistent response from the city was there was not enough money to do so.

 “We are very clear that our unappologetic, bold and beautiful action pushed the city to finally do something they chose not to do for decades. As they say – direct action gets the goods.  It appears the community wants to solve this question with its own effective solutions. The City should listen to the people of Oakland instead of bulldozer over them,” said Promised Land volunteer Ellen Choy of Asians For Black Lives. “But we know all too well the city is known for making promises it does not keep and those homes won’t be built for years.  So despite the hostility we are receiving from the mayor and the city administrator, we intend to hold them accountable to their promise, and in the meantime keep building temporary homes for those who need them until those homes the city is promising are built.”

And the community’s solution was so effective homeless encampments around Oakland were referring to The Village as “The Promise Land”, which led to the name change.

“We call the encampment  The Promise Land because every promise they made to us they came through on,” said Crystal, another resident of the village. “The city has made promises to us and has broken them all. They promised people at the city-sanctioned encampment on Magnolia permanent housing but instead gave temporary hotel vouchers to a chosen few that last four to six months. When that voucher is up, they are back to square one.”

The group began moving into Marcus Garvey Park before dawn on January 21, 2017 and set up the village of services. The center of the village, people on the land said, became a community space reserved for regular people’s assemblies, and provided services to the residents and the greater Oakland community. Volunteers and residents offered hot home cooked meals, edible container gardens, and a provisions distribution program for Oakland residents in need. The village was open to all who need services provided whether you live at the site or not. And no registration is needed. 

“The city claims that neighbors complained they no longer had access to the park, but we never blocked anyone access to the park. We locked the gates of the park from dusk til dawn to protect the land and the people, but our private nightly security team let neighbors in to walk their dogs, and even offered neighbors keys to locked gates if they wanted to walk their dogs in the middle of the night,” said security coordinator Douglas Faatiligia. “We circulated a petition in the neighborhood in support of The Village over a four hour period and collected hundreds of signatures. And many neighbors came to volunteer and donated supplies. The interests of hundreds of neighbors and greater Oakland residents who supported the Promise Land were silenced over the irrational fear of homeless people a dozen or so recently arrived residents expressed to the city.”

The village was narcotics and alcohol free, and begins with prioritizing housing for Black and Brown folks, families, women, elders, and disabled folks. Two residents actually came to the camp seeking support in kicking decades old drug addictions. Both residents managed to stay clean and sober beginning the day they moved in. The city’s decision to destroy the village resulted in their journey to recovery being disrupted.

Organizers also hope that their version of what a compassionate community looks like inspires others to reclaim public land in other parts of Oakland, the Bay Area, and the country, to build similar havens of safety, service and community.

The encampment was never meant to be a permanent solution, but addressed the immediate needs and harm reduction of some of the City of Oakland’s more than 3,050 homeless residents. Oakland’s homeless population makes up 49.2% of all of Alameda County’s houseless. Homeless numbers are growing, spokespeople said, as a direct outcome of the city’s housing affordability crisis. The housing market in Oakland has skyrocketed, and a vast majority of landlords no longer accept Section 8 vouchers. Many of Oakland’s homeless residents have vouchers for Section 8 housing, but cannot find a rental agency that will accept the public housing program. Currently there are only 386 beds available in Oakland shelters. The day the city raided The Promise Land the shelter were all full.

The City of Oakland’s “Compassionate Communities”effort that claims to be a pilot program has earmarked $190,000 of the City’s general budget funds for addressing homelessness. However, the program only allows trash pickup and porta-potties for a single sanctioned encampment for six months. New residents do not get registered for inclusion in the program and were told to leave when the camp footprint was recently halved by force in preparation for permanent closure of the encampment by March 31. The programs are not scalable, and only a select few benefit. An interim housing provision gives residents hotel vouchers that last no longer than 6 months, an unrealistic timeline for finding permanent housing, and the program includes no proposals for long-term subsidized housing. This is not a pilot program to address homelessness. This is an experiment in camp removal and suppression. After being criticized for the false claims of the program, the city responded that their phase two of the program is to create a permanent homeless encampment made up of tiny homes not tall enough for residents to stand up in.

“Housing is a right. Being without a home is not a crime. The politicians that created this crisis are the criminals. Yet folks without shelters have been ignored, harassed, shuffled around, degraded, and criminalized. The responses from city officials, CalTrans, and police has not only been ineffective, but degrading and even criminal,” said #FeedThePeople member Chiedza Kundidzora. “Institutions like CalTrans continually violate homeless communities’ constitutional rights with their protocol towards folks living under freeways. They seize and destroy people’s property without due process, and as a cruel and unusual punishment for circumstances that are treated as criminal. What the city did to The Village is the epitome towards their inhumane stance towards homeless residents” she said.

Activists and residents hoped to unite communities that face displacement, destruction, terror, poverty, and violence to stand together in the fight for housing for all, and promote self-determination in the face of an illegitimate government. Their hopes were manifested much greater than they expected. “We not only mobilized The Town, we also mobilized the New Oakland to stand with and support the people they displaced. This is a beginning of a movement. This is the beginning of a paradigm shift where people are realizing they have the vision and ability and power that the city of oakland does not have,” Kundidzora said. “We started off as a network and in less than two weeks, we have become a movement. We aren’t going to stop. If anything the city’s display of inhumanity has galvanized more people to join us and clearly see the ineffectiveness and illegitimacy of City Hall.

ABOUT #FEED THE PEOPLE

#FeedthePeople, a collective of Oakland residents and activists, including some currently or formerly homeless, has been distributing food and supplies to homeless encampments in the East Bay for over a year. Every Wednesday, volunteers share hot home cooked meals, much needed supplies, hugs and support to people living on the street. They also provide advocacy and support to folks on the streets when they are harassed by police and politicians.

ABOUT #ASIANS4BLACKLIVES

#Asians4BlackLives, a diverse group of people of Asian descent based in the Bay Area, focuses on nonviolent direct action for Black liberation. The group originally came together over two years ago in response to a call from Black Lives Matter Bay Area and the larger Black Lives Matter movement, to show up in solidarity with Black people in their struggle for liberation. The group has been involved in direct actions to support campaigns ranging from #StopUrbanShield to #BlackTransLivesMatter to #NoDAPL and regularly supports calls from Black-led groups for solidarity statements and actions. a4bl.tumblr.com @Asians4BlkLives

By Joyous De Asis

Non-Violent Direct Action (D.A.) is when a person or a group of people break a law peacefuly to be heard and seen, and to call out what is wrong in their community or with the government.

Non-Violent Direct Action is a tactic used in a broader and longer struggle for justice. It is a tactic used when every other tactic has failed. It is a peopl’es last attempt to get justice for there community. People do D.A. when there govermrnt stops listening. 

D.A. almost always works when it is planned out and used in a bigger fight. For example. 

Black Lives Matter, used D.A to draw attention to police terror.  Cesar Chavez used D.A. to organize farmworkers to be treated right and get better working conditions and pay. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr used D.A. to fight for people’s civil and human rights and peace. The American Indian Movement used D.A. to take back sacred land that the government was no longer using. There are a lot more ways when D.A. was successfully used, but these are just some.

Feed The People and Asians For Black Lives are coming together to do a D.A. because the city keeps gentrifying our community. The politicians will not stop making Oakland a place we can not longer live. Because of gentrifcation there are thousands of people unhoused living on Oakland’s streets. Many of us are a “paycheck away” from being homeless ourselves. The politicians will not listen to the people. They will not stop hurting our community. So the people will do D.A. to try to stop gentrification and to try to stop homelessness that gentrification makes.