8 20-0239 Subject: 2020 Supplemental Encampment Management Policy
From: The Life Enrichment Committee
Recommendation: Adopt A Resolution Adopting The Administration's Proposed Encampment Management Policy, To Be Implemented Upon Adoption By The Administration [TITLE CHANGE]
I strongly oppose this racist and inhumane policy. This policy displaces people and in no way serves public safety. This policy is simply an extension of what has been going on in Oakland now for years, which is using "safety" as a way to justify gentrifiers pushing out the human consequences of the housing crisis that they helped create. Please vote no.
As an attorney with the Ella Baker Center, I believe this policy will be unconstitutional, ineffective, immoral and expensive. I am calling for the vote on this policy to be delayed until after the election.
I do not support the current proposed EMP policy and ask that you first seek policy input from the Homeless Advisory Commission that is currently being formed and scheduled for appointment in November.
The proposed policy has laid good ground work for rules and guidelines around this critical and growing issue in Oakland. The final details would benefit from more input from the community that will be mostly impacted, the unhoused. The smaller details, like square footage of space, are very important to those who are living in a tent. As well as the bigger criteria, like the 50-foot residential buffer that when applied will define over 90% of Oakland as “high sensitive” areas that could subject to encampment closure.
A policy that enables encampment closures in most of Oakland creates fear in every unhoused community member that the city can start the closure process at any time. Policy like this is not recommended by a UN representative, US National guidelines or even our own city staff in their July staff report without adequate paths to housing. We all know we don’t have enough temporary or long-term affordable housing. This policy also lacks racial justice analysis and leaves the inequity concerns to be resolved after policy approval. Several Bay Area legal organizations oppose this policy.
As a West Oakland resident, I support this policy. It is appalling that District 3 has more than twice as many (45) encampments as any other district and little has been done in the more than two years I've lived here. I cannot walk a quarter mile in any direction without running into one. I cannot take my niece to the playground or park because of needles and trash. This policy strikes a middle ground between people experiencing homelessness who need a safe home without harming residents who want to enjoy the neighborhoods our tax dollars pay for.
This is a racist policy that with disproportionately affect Black and Brown communities in service of raising property values for White people. Do not do this.
if you can gentrify the town you can provide housing for its homeless. this is a racist policy that further criminalizes people who lack basic needs.
John Sander, Wood Street Community Action Group - Lead
about 4 years ago
Please find this note of support from the Wood Street Community Action Group, we are comprised of over 50 homeowners, residents and business owners in the Prescott neighborhood and in the Wood Street corridor from 7th Street to Emeryville.
You’ve heard from us before and we are in full support of the City of Oakland Encampment Management Policy. We look forward to this policy being passed today. This is a long overdue policy and we are pleased to see so many of our concerns and suggestions represented in this policy document.
While passage of this document is a critical step, putting it into action and enforcing this policy is paramount. The Wood Street Corridor has grown exponentially out of control in the months of Covid and many of the forward steps that were in motion have come to a complete stop, resulting in moving the progress we had made and were making backwards. Developers struggle with getting the financial backing they need to build the critically needed housing in this corridor that will ultimately help with the homeless catastrophe. We cannot delay these much needed projects any longer.
I am a D1 resident and strongly oppose this racist measure. This measure is simply an extension of what has been going on in Oakland now for years, which is using "safety" as a way to justify gentrifiers pushing out the human consequences of the housing crisis that they helped create. This isn't about safety for anyone. If it was, the city would use these resources to put direct aid services near these camps to keep people healthy and tested, and instead it is moving them in the middle of pandemic, and unthinkable option, that clearly punishes black communities the hardest. This policy is on it's face racist, a misuse of funds, and not at all address the root problem or keeping people safe.
I am a D3 resident and strongly oppose the EMP. This policy is extremely harmful and created to further criminalize the unhoused and treat them as an eye sore to be hidden away instead of providing much needed housing and services! It would cause extreme unnecessary trauma and dehumanization of our unhoused neighbors. This policy violates CDC covid safety recommendations (evicting folks during a pandemic) putting all at risk. Unsheltered people need housing and services, not constant "enforcement" and displacement. Stop criminalizing and displacing the unhoused!
Realizing each neighborhood/district is different with some not having the exposure or numbers. Our neighborhood has a huge encampment presence that's taking over our parks, streets and sidewalks.
On a daily basis by way of navigating in and out of our community we are exposed to the unhoused (who need housing), mentally and/or physically ill, and criminal opportunists who have taken over some encampments and mandate the street right of way, use of parks or sidewalks.
There was a recent incident where a woman driving down wood street, was prevented from proceeding, shot twice and car-jacked, A person coming to her aid was also shot.
Gunfire and fires are all too often. A recent fire required additional fire units/engines for water supply and need for additional crews on the ground. A water shuttle operation was utilized because there are no hydrants in the area.
Please adopt this policy, that provides clear direction and the needed tools for City Staff & Departments to manage these encampments.
I am writing to urge the council to reject the proposed Encampment Management Policy. Upgrade, don’t evict. The actual problem is that our cities cannot survive unless we focus on and stop the forces that are creating an ever-growing number of un-housed, evicted, and foreclosed people and secondly the political abdication of responsibility for providing housing at all for tens of thousands people who lack the means to stay housed in this real estate market.
Adoption of this policy will surely result in increased misery, suffering and death of unhoused people. I urge you to provide the pathway to housing you have promised.
Nell Myhand
I am a concerned resident of D3 in strong opposition, writing to urge you to vote NO on Oakland’s proposed “Encampment Management Policy.” This proposed policy is inhumane and is an attempt to legalize the unconstitutional criminalization and displacement of unhoused Oakland residents, while doing nothing to remedy the Oakland homelessness crisis. Repeated displacement and harassment of Oakland’s encampment residents prevents them from accessing resources that they need to obtain housing. When encampment residents are displaced, it causes unnecessary trauma and cuts them off from services in the community. When the property of encampment residents is seized, this includes not only legal identification documents necessary to obtain housing, but also irreplaceable personal items like photographs of loved ones. The proposed policy is unconstitutional and inhumane. It would disproportionately harm people of color and disabled people, as 42% of Oakland’s homeless population is disabled (as of 2019). The proposed policy disregards constitutional due process rights and the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure, as guaranteed by the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. If this policy is passed, the Oakland City Council will be responsible for intentionally violating the constitutional rights of Oakland’s most vulnerable residents. I strongly oppose this policy and emphatically urge the Oakland City Council to vote NO.
As a resident of D6 I strongly oppose this policy. I participated in the survey and believed it to be written in a way that promoted fear. There has been ongoing concern of Councilmember Taylor's inability to reach all of his constituents which leads me to believe the data is not a true representation of D6. This topic should be held for the Homeless Commission in November and not rushed. There is more information to be collected and opinions to be heard. This should not be rushed and instead given appropriate time to due our due diligence in creating policy that helps to enrich all of Oaklanders life, not just a privileged group.
I strongly support this proposal. 50 feet is more than reasonable, it’s the width of two buildings. This proposal would force the city to allocate its own resources, its MANY vacant lots and buildings that sit while power players argue over profit. The school district is the largest landowner in Oakland (which means Oakland residents, including the unhoused are the largest landowners). A full 15 sites now sit vacant and people are upset with residents who live near encampments for wanting a safe, clean neighborhood free of needles, trash and vermin? No one should be living in that and no one should have it outside their door. The misplaced priorities are simply bizarre. Please vote in support of this proposal and find another solution besides the status quo. Please!
I am a resident of D1 who is appalled that our city council would even consider a policy that would so drastically negatively impact our unhoused residents at any time, but ESPECIALLY during a global pandemic that is having a drastically more severe impact on our already compromised communities. We should be legalizing emergency housing and financing care for folks on the street, not criminalizing and banning them from seeking safety wherever they can! This racist policy would do untold harm, and I urge our Council members not just to oppose it, but to formulate ways to provide actual support for our houseless neighbors by collaborating directly with them and their advocates.
I strongly oppose the proposed Encampment Management Plan. The plan is designed to push Oakland's unhoused residents to the outskirts of the city where they have less access to help, services, and public transportation in order to appease housed residents who don't want to acknowledge, let alone have to witness and confront the struggles of other human beings.
The "buffer zones" push people out, leaves little or no place to go.
This is not a police issue. This is a social services issue. Oakland has made it clear that we want to defund the police and allocate money toward services that help build the community and all of its members. No one should have a criminal record or even more debt as a result of policing their homelessness.
Covid has us in health and financial crises, exacerbating these issues. Losing employment, evictions once the moratorium ends, losing health care, and then the shelters we do have have less capacity because of the need to distance from others.
The United Nations has deemed this a human rights violation. We have to do better.
I oppose this policy.
Why has the city not provided a map to show where people experiencing homelessness can actually stay at?
The sweeps that this policy will allow to continue are violent and inhumane. Displacement of people who come from the neighbors they live in will only further traumatize people on the streets and exacerbate gentrification.
This policy ain’t it. We need AFFORDABLE housing and it’s a shame that the city continues to try to appease housed folks with their complaints of looking at poverty instead of funding truly equitable and sustainable solutions.
This policy was created with 14% unhoused input when it truly affects 100% of unhoused folks. 14% is not enough. Do better.
I am a D2 resident. In a time and place that ever more critically demands that we choose the community over fear-mongering corporate interests and the sensitivities of the privileged, the EMP instead reflects a choice to further dehumanize, and sacrifice the health and safety of, the thousands of our fellow Oakland residents who have been forced into houselessness--people who have been failed by this city’s government over and over again. The policy is a dereliction of city leadership duty: eliminating the human evidence of your failures is NOT the same as a substantive response to the conditions that have created this crisis. Further broadening OPD's enforcement prerogative is an untenable sanctioning of state violence against Black and Brown bodies. The EMP is cruelty codified. Shame on those who seek its approval.
I strongly oppose this racist and inhumane policy. This policy displaces people and in no way serves public safety. This policy is simply an extension of what has been going on in Oakland now for years, which is using "safety" as a way to justify gentrifiers pushing out the human consequences of the housing crisis that they helped create. Please vote no.
As an attorney with the Ella Baker Center, I believe this policy will be unconstitutional, ineffective, immoral and expensive. I am calling for the vote on this policy to be delayed until after the election.
I do not support the current proposed EMP policy and ask that you first seek policy input from the Homeless Advisory Commission that is currently being formed and scheduled for appointment in November.
The proposed policy has laid good ground work for rules and guidelines around this critical and growing issue in Oakland. The final details would benefit from more input from the community that will be mostly impacted, the unhoused. The smaller details, like square footage of space, are very important to those who are living in a tent. As well as the bigger criteria, like the 50-foot residential buffer that when applied will define over 90% of Oakland as “high sensitive” areas that could subject to encampment closure.
A policy that enables encampment closures in most of Oakland creates fear in every unhoused community member that the city can start the closure process at any time. Policy like this is not recommended by a UN representative, US National guidelines or even our own city staff in their July staff report without adequate paths to housing. We all know we don’t have enough temporary or long-term affordable housing. This policy also lacks racial justice analysis and leaves the inequity concerns to be resolved after policy approval. Several Bay Area legal organizations oppose this policy.
As a West Oakland resident, I support this policy. It is appalling that District 3 has more than twice as many (45) encampments as any other district and little has been done in the more than two years I've lived here. I cannot walk a quarter mile in any direction without running into one. I cannot take my niece to the playground or park because of needles and trash. This policy strikes a middle ground between people experiencing homelessness who need a safe home without harming residents who want to enjoy the neighborhoods our tax dollars pay for.
This is a racist policy that with disproportionately affect Black and Brown communities in service of raising property values for White people. Do not do this.
if you can gentrify the town you can provide housing for its homeless. this is a racist policy that further criminalizes people who lack basic needs.
Please find this note of support from the Wood Street Community Action Group, we are comprised of over 50 homeowners, residents and business owners in the Prescott neighborhood and in the Wood Street corridor from 7th Street to Emeryville.
You’ve heard from us before and we are in full support of the City of Oakland Encampment Management Policy. We look forward to this policy being passed today. This is a long overdue policy and we are pleased to see so many of our concerns and suggestions represented in this policy document.
While passage of this document is a critical step, putting it into action and enforcing this policy is paramount. The Wood Street Corridor has grown exponentially out of control in the months of Covid and many of the forward steps that were in motion have come to a complete stop, resulting in moving the progress we had made and were making backwards. Developers struggle with getting the financial backing they need to build the critically needed housing in this corridor that will ultimately help with the homeless catastrophe. We cannot delay these much needed projects any longer.
Thank you,
Wood Street Community Action Group
I am a D1 resident and strongly oppose this racist measure. This measure is simply an extension of what has been going on in Oakland now for years, which is using "safety" as a way to justify gentrifiers pushing out the human consequences of the housing crisis that they helped create. This isn't about safety for anyone. If it was, the city would use these resources to put direct aid services near these camps to keep people healthy and tested, and instead it is moving them in the middle of pandemic, and unthinkable option, that clearly punishes black communities the hardest. This policy is on it's face racist, a misuse of funds, and not at all address the root problem or keeping people safe.
I am a D3 resident and strongly oppose the EMP. This policy is extremely harmful and created to further criminalize the unhoused and treat them as an eye sore to be hidden away instead of providing much needed housing and services! It would cause extreme unnecessary trauma and dehumanization of our unhoused neighbors. This policy violates CDC covid safety recommendations (evicting folks during a pandemic) putting all at risk. Unsheltered people need housing and services, not constant "enforcement" and displacement. Stop criminalizing and displacing the unhoused!
Realizing each neighborhood/district is different with some not having the exposure or numbers. Our neighborhood has a huge encampment presence that's taking over our parks, streets and sidewalks.
On a daily basis by way of navigating in and out of our community we are exposed to the unhoused (who need housing), mentally and/or physically ill, and criminal opportunists who have taken over some encampments and mandate the street right of way, use of parks or sidewalks.
There was a recent incident where a woman driving down wood street, was prevented from proceeding, shot twice and car-jacked, A person coming to her aid was also shot.
Gunfire and fires are all too often. A recent fire required additional fire units/engines for water supply and need for additional crews on the ground. A water shuttle operation was utilized because there are no hydrants in the area.
Please adopt this policy, that provides clear direction and the needed tools for City Staff & Departments to manage these encampments.
Hello
I am writing to urge the council to reject the proposed Encampment Management Policy. Upgrade, don’t evict. The actual problem is that our cities cannot survive unless we focus on and stop the forces that are creating an ever-growing number of un-housed, evicted, and foreclosed people and secondly the political abdication of responsibility for providing housing at all for tens of thousands people who lack the means to stay housed in this real estate market.
Adoption of this policy will surely result in increased misery, suffering and death of unhoused people. I urge you to provide the pathway to housing you have promised.
Nell Myhand
I am a concerned resident of D3 in strong opposition, writing to urge you to vote NO on Oakland’s proposed “Encampment Management Policy.” This proposed policy is inhumane and is an attempt to legalize the unconstitutional criminalization and displacement of unhoused Oakland residents, while doing nothing to remedy the Oakland homelessness crisis. Repeated displacement and harassment of Oakland’s encampment residents prevents them from accessing resources that they need to obtain housing. When encampment residents are displaced, it causes unnecessary trauma and cuts them off from services in the community. When the property of encampment residents is seized, this includes not only legal identification documents necessary to obtain housing, but also irreplaceable personal items like photographs of loved ones. The proposed policy is unconstitutional and inhumane. It would disproportionately harm people of color and disabled people, as 42% of Oakland’s homeless population is disabled (as of 2019). The proposed policy disregards constitutional due process rights and the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure, as guaranteed by the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. If this policy is passed, the Oakland City Council will be responsible for intentionally violating the constitutional rights of Oakland’s most vulnerable residents. I strongly oppose this policy and emphatically urge the Oakland City Council to vote NO.
Testing e-comments
please take an important first step towards addressing the rights of residents around parks to find reasonable solutions for housing needs.
As a resident of D6 I strongly oppose this policy. I participated in the survey and believed it to be written in a way that promoted fear. There has been ongoing concern of Councilmember Taylor's inability to reach all of his constituents which leads me to believe the data is not a true representation of D6. This topic should be held for the Homeless Commission in November and not rushed. There is more information to be collected and opinions to be heard. This should not be rushed and instead given appropriate time to due our due diligence in creating policy that helps to enrich all of Oaklanders life, not just a privileged group.
I strongly support this proposal. 50 feet is more than reasonable, it’s the width of two buildings. This proposal would force the city to allocate its own resources, its MANY vacant lots and buildings that sit while power players argue over profit. The school district is the largest landowner in Oakland (which means Oakland residents, including the unhoused are the largest landowners). A full 15 sites now sit vacant and people are upset with residents who live near encampments for wanting a safe, clean neighborhood free of needles, trash and vermin? No one should be living in that and no one should have it outside their door. The misplaced priorities are simply bizarre. Please vote in support of this proposal and find another solution besides the status quo. Please!
I am a resident of D1 who is appalled that our city council would even consider a policy that would so drastically negatively impact our unhoused residents at any time, but ESPECIALLY during a global pandemic that is having a drastically more severe impact on our already compromised communities. We should be legalizing emergency housing and financing care for folks on the street, not criminalizing and banning them from seeking safety wherever they can! This racist policy would do untold harm, and I urge our Council members not just to oppose it, but to formulate ways to provide actual support for our houseless neighbors by collaborating directly with them and their advocates.
I strongly oppose the proposed Encampment Management Plan. The plan is designed to push Oakland's unhoused residents to the outskirts of the city where they have less access to help, services, and public transportation in order to appease housed residents who don't want to acknowledge, let alone have to witness and confront the struggles of other human beings.
The "buffer zones" push people out, leaves little or no place to go.
This is not a police issue. This is a social services issue. Oakland has made it clear that we want to defund the police and allocate money toward services that help build the community and all of its members. No one should have a criminal record or even more debt as a result of policing their homelessness.
Covid has us in health and financial crises, exacerbating these issues. Losing employment, evictions once the moratorium ends, losing health care, and then the shelters we do have have less capacity because of the need to distance from others.
The United Nations has deemed this a human rights violation. We have to do better.
I oppose this policy.
Why has the city not provided a map to show where people experiencing homelessness can actually stay at?
The sweeps that this policy will allow to continue are violent and inhumane. Displacement of people who come from the neighbors they live in will only further traumatize people on the streets and exacerbate gentrification.
This policy ain’t it. We need AFFORDABLE housing and it’s a shame that the city continues to try to appease housed folks with their complaints of looking at poverty instead of funding truly equitable and sustainable solutions.
This policy was created with 14% unhoused input when it truly affects 100% of unhoused folks. 14% is not enough. Do better.
I am a D2 resident. In a time and place that ever more critically demands that we choose the community over fear-mongering corporate interests and the sensitivities of the privileged, the EMP instead reflects a choice to further dehumanize, and sacrifice the health and safety of, the thousands of our fellow Oakland residents who have been forced into houselessness--people who have been failed by this city’s government over and over again. The policy is a dereliction of city leadership duty: eliminating the human evidence of your failures is NOT the same as a substantive response to the conditions that have created this crisis. Further broadening OPD's enforcement prerogative is an untenable sanctioning of state violence against Black and Brown bodies. The EMP is cruelty codified. Shame on those who seek its approval.