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Agenda Item
4 21-0097 Subject: Encampment Management Policy Update
From: Life Enrichment Committee
Recommendation: Receive A Report On The Implementation On The Update Of The 2020 Encampment Management Policy
I volunteer doing community clean ups in D3 and am disappointed to see Ms. Hauser’s request for an EMT intervention that could result in removal after the unhoused community has taken direct action to facilitate community building and waste removal. I have personally emailed Ms. Hauser and asked she co-sign a letter requesting services from the city and county in the form of regular waste removal and toilet services for our unhoused community. As the better resourced community, I would hope the Business Improvement District of Jack London would be willing to advocate for services and community building with at least as much effort as our unboised community has.
I am a D3 resident, laborer and volunteer. The EMP has been used outside of the bounds of civil liberties, exercised at the discretion of city administration with a seeming vendetta against unhoused people. The sweeps are violent, period. They increase cycles of harm and dislocation from the continuum of care that people need access to. Solutions are simple: Don't evict people if there is no where adequate for them to go! On the pathway to housing and wrap around services, we need to stop the sweeps, provide regular clean up services, dumpsters, actual outreach (not the false outreach lip service that current "service providers" applaud themselves over). We need an independent oversight committee made up of unhoused, city workers; whose safety we highly value, and administrators and legislators who are willing to listen to their constituents. An independent audit and redrafting of the EMP itself is eminently called for. Thank you.
My name is Lorcan and I am a homeowner in District 4. I’m commenting as an Oakland taxpayer who understands that the solution to homelessness is housing, not encampment evictions.
I urge the city to immediately redirect funds away from encampment evictions and towards the development of permanent supportive housing on the North Gateway parcel and other vacant public land as advocated for by Council Member Carol Fife.
It’s been more than 2 years since CM Fife’s resolution to provide more stable housing at the North Gateway parcel was passed, and instead of focusing on implementing that plan, the city has been spending valuable resources to evict vulnerable Oakland residents all over this city, and primarily in district 3.
Providing a safe and stable environment is an essential first step toward ending homelessness, and evictions are extremely destabilizing. Please stop evicting people from the communities they have built in the absence of city resources. Redirect funding from encampment evictions to permanent supportive housing in district 3.
The Jack London Improvement District urges enforcement of the City's Encampment Management Policy for its encampments directly impacting and affecting both neighboring residents, workers, visitors and those dwelling within the encampments. Within our District we have multiple encampments that are in areas that are impacting and immediately adjacent to critical infrastructure such as sensitive power generation facilities or heavily used transportation corridors such as Broadway. It would be wise to consider these high sensitivity zones due to risk to the public and our infrastructure, but these are currently considered lower sensitivity. Nevertheless, these encampments warrant intervention since they are blocking sidewalks and street faces on both sides of the street, have demonstrated fire risk, and bring human biohazards into the public right-of-way. We understand the staggering challenge that Oakland faces in solving our encampment crisis, and are concerned that action has been inadequate and non-responsive to the severity of need. We urge enforcement and action to prevent further risk and harm.
The city’s encampment management policies are ineffective and harmful. The closure of the Lake Merritt Lodge due to issues with its service provider reveals a contradiction and as the city intends to evict 210 people from various encampments and house all people at the Jack London Inn, with only 110 rooms, while also moving 89 residents from the Lake Merritt Lodge, highlighting a significant discrepancy. Despite receiving over $7 million for encampment resolution, there are insufficient housing options for those displaced.
Evictions do not reduce homelessness but displace individuals further, complicating their efforts to rebuild their lives. The money spent on Evictions, estimated at $1,400 per hour, could be better used to create permanent supportive housing, the only proven solution for reducing homelessness. Evictions are inhumane, causing trauma, disrupting healthcare, and increasing health risks, sometimes leading to death. After the Wood St eviction, more people died than were housed, showing the policy's failure.
The city should provide essential services, stop criminalizing homelessness, and work with the unhoused community to develop supportive services and permanent housing. Funds should be redirected from sweeps to creating permanent supportive housing, using vacant parcels for public good. Providing services directly to encampments and including homeless individuals in decision-making processes are essential for community stability.
"WHEREAS this encampment management policy is related to the second prong of the City's 3-prong approach to addressing our homelessness crisis, which includes: (1) prevention incorporating our Keep Oakland House programs, (2) crisis management and response, and (3) long-term housing for our unhoused residents"
The city states it takes a three prong approach to addressing the homelessness crisis. Instead, it wastes millions of dollars pushing people around from one block to another to no ones benefit, discouraging them from existing, denying people services that would be cheaper to provide than to deal with the repercussions of not providing them (for example: expensive cleanups instead of say regular trash service, one 2021 city estimate ~$1400 per hr, $12,000 per day). I have news for you that doesn't make the city safer for anyone. In lieu of any substantial action, the administrations *Key Observations* in the 4/19 report are all about crime, largely non violent drug crimes, in encampments. What is the city trying to highlight here? That the poor are the most criminalized? That people who are housed can do crimes without it showing up in a pie chart as easily because they aren't being actively surveilled by teams that are supposed to be helping them in times of crisis? That the same unhoused communities the city scapegoats are actually the ones most affected by violence, drugs, sex trafficking and poverty, and the greater crimes of capitalism and class exploitation? 🤔
I simply cannot understand why after receiving accolades from the Governors Office, from obtaining grants and funding towards in State Encampment Resolution Funding ($15 million), from establishing Policies that are effective, and making progress that LaTonda Simmons is being replaced on The Homeless Encampment Engagement Projects. No one person can resolve all issues surrounding Homelessness, but ONE PERSON has certainly advanced our efforts. It’s apparent that this Administration’s and Body of Elected Officials are governing based on personal bias as opposed to critical thinking. Stop this nonsense.
From its inception four years ago to the present day, Oakland's present Encampment Management Policy has been a cudgel used to torment, displace and dispossess unhoused Oakland residents — especially those who are Black, Indigenous, people of color and disabled, who are also highly disproportionate in Oakland's unhoused population. This callous, cruel policy gives license to police and public works to profile and persecute people whose only "crime" is trying to survive while poor. Under this policy, the City has repeatedly, aggressively forced unhoused people to move, destroying homes, irreplaceable momentos, essential documents, and entrepreneurial tools and equipment, shattering and scattering close-knit communities, denying disabled residents the reasonable accommodations to which they are entitled under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and destroying their property, in some cases killing their pets and nearly killing human residents who remain in their dwellings and vehicles when work crews attempt to demolish or tow them. I have witnessed this brutality firsthand on numerous occasions. Unhoused people who survive state violence bear long-term wounds of trauma and grief. Many do not survive. In the year following the city's eviction of the Wood St. Commons at 1707 Wood to make way for what ended up being the future Ballers parking lot, at least 13 displaced residents died; only half-a-dozen moved into permanent housing. Unhoused residents need support, not sweeps.
We are writing on behalf of East Bay Community Law Center's Homeless Subunit. We provide legal advocacy on behalf of unhoused individuals and communities.
The current policy of dismantling encampments and displacing unhoused residents does nothing to resolve the underlying issues contributing to homelessness and disproportionately impacts BIPOC residents.
Any report or action by the Council or City should adopt recommendations that call for an end to sweeps until the below concerns are addressed:
1. The EMP fails to center the dignity, health, safety, and needs of unhoused residents. The City should engage members of the unhoused community to revise the EMP. By including unhoused residents as partners in planning solutions that impact them, those with lived experiences will truly be centered, with trauma informed solutions, instead of the current trauma inducing solutions.
2. The implementation of the EMP is inaccessible to unhoused residents with disabilities and exposes the City to liability under the American With Disabilities Act. Namely, the City has repeatedly failed to respond to reasonable accommodation requests or identify the needs of residents with disabilities during encampment closures and cleaning.
3. Despite the settlement procedures governing the storage of unhoused residents’ property in Miralle v. City of Oakland, Oakland has engaged in a policy and practice of evicting unhoused residents and, in the process, destroying their belongings.
Sweeps kill. After the echo park encampment eviction in LA, and after the Wood St eviction, more former resident died than received housing. Sweeps separate people from their support networks and their social workers, may cause them to lose work tools and critical documents. Deliver services directly to people without displacing them. There is not enough permanent housing, so pushing people from block to block serves no purpose but to traumatize people and destabilize them. And people often do not have much incentive to enter temporary shelters. They have to give up their property, their RV, and their freedom to enter a program when housing is not guaranteed on the other side. Some ways the city’s approach to encampments can be brought more into line with international human rights standards: 1. strengthen security of tenure for informal settlements: don’t displace people without providing housing or alternative land to continue their community. 2. Prioritize in-situ solutions: provided water, sanitation, and social services directly to people where they are, and upgrade the conditions and life-support infrastructure in informal settlements. 3. Acknowledge the leadership of people with lived experience: the people in encampments have valuable insights into what they need, incorporate their voices into strategic planning. 4. Assess vacant/surplus land for use by unhoused communities. 5. Combat speculation and underutilization of land and housing.
I volunteer doing community clean ups in D3 and am disappointed to see Ms. Hauser’s request for an EMT intervention that could result in removal after the unhoused community has taken direct action to facilitate community building and waste removal. I have personally emailed Ms. Hauser and asked she co-sign a letter requesting services from the city and county in the form of regular waste removal and toilet services for our unhoused community. As the better resourced community, I would hope the Business Improvement District of Jack London would be willing to advocate for services and community building with at least as much effort as our unboised community has.
I am a D3 resident, laborer and volunteer. The EMP has been used outside of the bounds of civil liberties, exercised at the discretion of city administration with a seeming vendetta against unhoused people. The sweeps are violent, period. They increase cycles of harm and dislocation from the continuum of care that people need access to. Solutions are simple: Don't evict people if there is no where adequate for them to go! On the pathway to housing and wrap around services, we need to stop the sweeps, provide regular clean up services, dumpsters, actual outreach (not the false outreach lip service that current "service providers" applaud themselves over). We need an independent oversight committee made up of unhoused, city workers; whose safety we highly value, and administrators and legislators who are willing to listen to their constituents. An independent audit and redrafting of the EMP itself is eminently called for. Thank you.
My name is Lorcan and I am a homeowner in District 4. I’m commenting as an Oakland taxpayer who understands that the solution to homelessness is housing, not encampment evictions.
I urge the city to immediately redirect funds away from encampment evictions and towards the development of permanent supportive housing on the North Gateway parcel and other vacant public land as advocated for by Council Member Carol Fife.
It’s been more than 2 years since CM Fife’s resolution to provide more stable housing at the North Gateway parcel was passed, and instead of focusing on implementing that plan, the city has been spending valuable resources to evict vulnerable Oakland residents all over this city, and primarily in district 3.
Providing a safe and stable environment is an essential first step toward ending homelessness, and evictions are extremely destabilizing. Please stop evicting people from the communities they have built in the absence of city resources. Redirect funding from encampment evictions to permanent supportive housing in district 3.
The Jack London Improvement District urges enforcement of the City's Encampment Management Policy for its encampments directly impacting and affecting both neighboring residents, workers, visitors and those dwelling within the encampments. Within our District we have multiple encampments that are in areas that are impacting and immediately adjacent to critical infrastructure such as sensitive power generation facilities or heavily used transportation corridors such as Broadway. It would be wise to consider these high sensitivity zones due to risk to the public and our infrastructure, but these are currently considered lower sensitivity. Nevertheless, these encampments warrant intervention since they are blocking sidewalks and street faces on both sides of the street, have demonstrated fire risk, and bring human biohazards into the public right-of-way. We understand the staggering challenge that Oakland faces in solving our encampment crisis, and are concerned that action has been inadequate and non-responsive to the severity of need. We urge enforcement and action to prevent further risk and harm.
The city’s encampment management policies are ineffective and harmful. The closure of the Lake Merritt Lodge due to issues with its service provider reveals a contradiction and as the city intends to evict 210 people from various encampments and house all people at the Jack London Inn, with only 110 rooms, while also moving 89 residents from the Lake Merritt Lodge, highlighting a significant discrepancy. Despite receiving over $7 million for encampment resolution, there are insufficient housing options for those displaced.
Evictions do not reduce homelessness but displace individuals further, complicating their efforts to rebuild their lives. The money spent on Evictions, estimated at $1,400 per hour, could be better used to create permanent supportive housing, the only proven solution for reducing homelessness. Evictions are inhumane, causing trauma, disrupting healthcare, and increasing health risks, sometimes leading to death. After the Wood St eviction, more people died than were housed, showing the policy's failure.
The city should provide essential services, stop criminalizing homelessness, and work with the unhoused community to develop supportive services and permanent housing. Funds should be redirected from sweeps to creating permanent supportive housing, using vacant parcels for public good. Providing services directly to encampments and including homeless individuals in decision-making processes are essential for community stability.
"WHEREAS this encampment management policy is related to the second prong of the City's 3-prong approach to addressing our homelessness crisis, which includes: (1) prevention incorporating our Keep Oakland House programs, (2) crisis management and response, and (3) long-term housing for our unhoused residents"
The city states it takes a three prong approach to addressing the homelessness crisis. Instead, it wastes millions of dollars pushing people around from one block to another to no ones benefit, discouraging them from existing, denying people services that would be cheaper to provide than to deal with the repercussions of not providing them (for example: expensive cleanups instead of say regular trash service, one 2021 city estimate ~$1400 per hr, $12,000 per day). I have news for you that doesn't make the city safer for anyone. In lieu of any substantial action, the administrations *Key Observations* in the 4/19 report are all about crime, largely non violent drug crimes, in encampments. What is the city trying to highlight here? That the poor are the most criminalized? That people who are housed can do crimes without it showing up in a pie chart as easily because they aren't being actively surveilled by teams that are supposed to be helping them in times of crisis? That the same unhoused communities the city scapegoats are actually the ones most affected by violence, drugs, sex trafficking and poverty, and the greater crimes of capitalism and class exploitation? 🤔
I simply cannot understand why after receiving accolades from the Governors Office, from obtaining grants and funding towards in State Encampment Resolution Funding ($15 million), from establishing Policies that are effective, and making progress that LaTonda Simmons is being replaced on The Homeless Encampment Engagement Projects. No one person can resolve all issues surrounding Homelessness, but ONE PERSON has certainly advanced our efforts. It’s apparent that this Administration’s and Body of Elected Officials are governing based on personal bias as opposed to critical thinking. Stop this nonsense.
From its inception four years ago to the present day, Oakland's present Encampment Management Policy has been a cudgel used to torment, displace and dispossess unhoused Oakland residents — especially those who are Black, Indigenous, people of color and disabled, who are also highly disproportionate in Oakland's unhoused population. This callous, cruel policy gives license to police and public works to profile and persecute people whose only "crime" is trying to survive while poor. Under this policy, the City has repeatedly, aggressively forced unhoused people to move, destroying homes, irreplaceable momentos, essential documents, and entrepreneurial tools and equipment, shattering and scattering close-knit communities, denying disabled residents the reasonable accommodations to which they are entitled under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and destroying their property, in some cases killing their pets and nearly killing human residents who remain in their dwellings and vehicles when work crews attempt to demolish or tow them. I have witnessed this brutality firsthand on numerous occasions. Unhoused people who survive state violence bear long-term wounds of trauma and grief. Many do not survive. In the year following the city's eviction of the Wood St. Commons at 1707 Wood to make way for what ended up being the future Ballers parking lot, at least 13 displaced residents died; only half-a-dozen moved into permanent housing. Unhoused residents need support, not sweeps.
We are writing on behalf of East Bay Community Law Center's Homeless Subunit. We provide legal advocacy on behalf of unhoused individuals and communities.
The current policy of dismantling encampments and displacing unhoused residents does nothing to resolve the underlying issues contributing to homelessness and disproportionately impacts BIPOC residents.
Any report or action by the Council or City should adopt recommendations that call for an end to sweeps until the below concerns are addressed:
1. The EMP fails to center the dignity, health, safety, and needs of unhoused residents. The City should engage members of the unhoused community to revise the EMP. By including unhoused residents as partners in planning solutions that impact them, those with lived experiences will truly be centered, with trauma informed solutions, instead of the current trauma inducing solutions.
2. The implementation of the EMP is inaccessible to unhoused residents with disabilities and exposes the City to liability under the American With Disabilities Act. Namely, the City has repeatedly failed to respond to reasonable accommodation requests or identify the needs of residents with disabilities during encampment closures and cleaning.
3. Despite the settlement procedures governing the storage of unhoused residents’ property in Miralle v. City of Oakland, Oakland has engaged in a policy and practice of evicting unhoused residents and, in the process, destroying their belongings.
Sweeps kill. After the echo park encampment eviction in LA, and after the Wood St eviction, more former resident died than received housing. Sweeps separate people from their support networks and their social workers, may cause them to lose work tools and critical documents. Deliver services directly to people without displacing them. There is not enough permanent housing, so pushing people from block to block serves no purpose but to traumatize people and destabilize them. And people often do not have much incentive to enter temporary shelters. They have to give up their property, their RV, and their freedom to enter a program when housing is not guaranteed on the other side. Some ways the city’s approach to encampments can be brought more into line with international human rights standards: 1. strengthen security of tenure for informal settlements: don’t displace people without providing housing or alternative land to continue their community. 2. Prioritize in-situ solutions: provided water, sanitation, and social services directly to people where they are, and upgrade the conditions and life-support infrastructure in informal settlements. 3. Acknowledge the leadership of people with lived experience: the people in encampments have valuable insights into what they need, incorporate their voices into strategic planning. 4. Assess vacant/surplus land for use by unhoused communities. 5. Combat speculation and underutilization of land and housing.