City Government

As Unhoused Community’s Eviction Approaches, City Council Discusses ‘Alternative Shelter’ Options

Residents claim over 35 people live in the park and that City representatives told them they would be cleared in the first week of February and offered shared space in the City’s Community Cabins, also known as the tuff sheds. For Edward Hansen, 65, who’s lived in the park for over seven years, was born in Oakland, and just got out of the hospital after having a stroke, accepting the space would mean sharing a room with a new person he does not live with. Hansen plans to reject the offer.

Published

4 years ago

January 25, 2021

Kiki

Edward Hansen, who was born in Oakland and has lived in or near Union Point Park for 7 years, holds a painted anchor at the park. Union Point Park's homeless community is set to be evicted before February 12. Photo by Zack Haber on January 17.

At a January 12 meeting, Oakland’s City Council discussed, but did not vote upon, amendments proposed by Councilmembers Rebecca Kaplan and Nikki Fortunato Bas requesting the City offer unhoused residents extended shelter stays and individual shelter units following evictions of unhoused people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Out of concern for possibly spreading the COVID-19 virus, Kaplan said that “people should not be made to share a room with those who they do not already live with.” A resolution, passed unanimously by Council on March 27 of last year, requested the City to only clear unhoused communities if it offered residents “individual housing units or alternative shelter,” but the Council still has not decided what “alternative shelter” means.

The delay will likely soon affect unhoused residents at Union Point Park, as the City plans to clear the park but does not yet have codified guidance from the Council as to what alternative shelter options they should offer unhoused people when they execute the clearance.

Due to a cease-and-desist order that the S.F. Bay Conservation and Development Commission has delivered to the City of Oakland, which the City has not challenged, residents living in Union Point Park must be cleared from the park by February 12.

“If they’re not going to physically push us with police, I’m going to stand my ground,” said Hansen. “From what I understand they have to offer us something a wee bit better than what we have now.”

After Council unanimously passed the Encampment Management Policy during an October 21 meeting, which set strict guidelines for where the City plans to focus unhoused community closures, Oakland’s City Administration proposed a resolution that defines what “alternative shelter” they plan to offer people like Hansen. The resolution allows “congregate” or grouped shelter, like homeless shelters and shared space in the Community Cabins, to be offered. It further stipulated that the shelter must be offered “no less than 72 hours prior to an encampment clearing” and for a stay “of at least two weeks.”

Advocates for homeless people found the resolution unacceptable and encouraged the public to call City Council members to encourage them to accept amendments by Kaplan and Bas’ that request “alternative shelter” be defined instead as offers of individual shelter units for a minimum of 90 day stays with 30 days prior notice.

“Do not let the current proposal of two weeks, potentially in congregate shelter, pass!,” the homeless advocacy group Housing and Dignity Village tweeted on January 11. “While permanent housing is always the goal…we need folks to receive AT LEAST 90 days in COVID safe housing options.”

Councilmember Loren Taylor and Dan Kalb both spoke in support of the extension of stays to at least 90 days with at least 30 days prior notification. But a point of contention arose over whether or not homeless shelters, where individuals would share space with strangers, should be considered “alternative shelter.” Taylor reiterated a claim that Homelessness Administrator Daryel Dunston made that there have thus far been no outbreaks in Oakland homeless shelters and that the shelters were operating at a reduced capacity. Kalb agreed and stated that shelters that do not require residents to leave during the day “maybe should be” used for the purpose of alternative shelter.

Kaplan expressed concerns that a new strain of COVID-19 that is more contagious could more easily spread in grouped shelters. The CDC’s website refers to it as B.1.1.7 and states that it has already been detected in the United States. She also reiterated concerns over how social distancing and mask regulations would be impossible in shelters.

“It’s not six feet or a mask; it’s six feet and a mask,” said Kaplan. “When you’re in an indoor room with other people where you would be needing to sleep and eat and take your mask off. That is not what the 6-foot standard refers to.”

Council did not discuss the Community Cabin Program but Kaplan and Bas’ amendments would still allow them to be used as long as people, excluding those who were already sharing a tent or a dwelling, were no longer forced to share single cabin units.

During the discussion at the meeting over the amendments, which lasted about an hour, Councilmember Noel Gallo suggested that the matter be brought to the newly formed homelessness commission to get their input before Council votes.

Taylor suggested Council address the issue on March 22, when they will consider amendments to the Encampment Management Policy. Council ended their discussion by unanimously agreeing to delay voting on the amendments, meaning that the City currently has no agreed-upon definition with Council as to what “alternative shelter” means for residents who are facing clearance.

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Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 30 – November 5, 2024

Published

21 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Oakland Post

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Evidence Appears to Show Cover-Up of Previous Charges of Discrimination Against Jewish and Black Jurors, D.A. Says

Today, District Attorney Pamela Price announced that attorneys assigned to review the office’s death penalty cases found evidence revealing that instead of investigating claims of prosecutorial misconduct—excluding Jewish and Black residents from juries — a former senior Alameda County District Attorney’s Office prosecutor who is now a sitting judge in Alameda County, Morris Jacobson, and a team of investigators appeared to have taken part in covering it up.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

A handwritten note by an employee under a previous administration appears to show plans for a cover-up of jury discrimination in a death penalty case. Courtesy image.

Special to The Post

During a press conference, Price presented a copy of a handwritten note by a former DA office employee who attended a meeting with employees from the office.

Jacobson, a deputy district attorney at the time, led the meeting in preparation for an evidentiary hearing ordered in the Fred Freeman case.

That hearing was ordered after former capital trial prosecutor Jack Quatman, the prosecutor in People v. Freeman, signed a declaration revealing that he and other capital case prosecutors routinely struck Black women and Jewish jurors in death penalty cases.

Jacobson was assigned by former district attorneys Tom Orloff and Nancy O’Malley to coordinate the ACDAO’s response during the evidentiary hearing.

In that capacity, he and others assigned to the capital case team went to great lengths to distract the courts from the substantive legal allegations by besmirching the whistleblower Quatman’s character and credibility—a strategy that succeeded.

Key sections of the note include, “left it w/ Morris saying he would give us direction. Wants to find dirt on Quatman,” and “How good are your memories? His point was he doesn’t want any documentation of what we do unless it is agreed upon???”

“This note provides the public some of the missing clues regarding who appeared to be involved during previous administrations in covering up prosecutorial misconduct at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office,” said Price. “The note from this meeting in 2004 gives insight into why prosecutors’ notes containing evidence of discrimination against potential Jewish and Black jurors may not have been subjected to a comprehensive review and were not disclosed to the Court in most of the cases until my office was ordered by Honorable Judge Vince Chhabria to review death penalty cases.

“What the public should know is that prosecutors have special duties as ministers of justice to uphold the Constitution, which guarantees the right to a fair trial and to be judged by a jury of one’s peers, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation,” she said.

United States District Court Judge Chhabria determined earlier this year that there was “strong evidence that, in prior decades, prosecutors from the office were … excluding Jewish and African American jurors in death penalty cases.”

He subsequently issued an order directing ACDAO to disclose jury selection files in all Alameda County cases which resulted in a death sentence.

The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office is the source of this story.

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In the City Attorney Race, Ryan Richardson Is Better for Oakland

It’s been two years since negotiations broke down between the City of Oakland and a developer who wants to build a coal terminal here, and the issue has reappeared, quietly, in the upcoming race for Oakland City attorney. Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2024

Oakland Post

Members of Oaklanders Defending Democracy political action committee with Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, center. Courtesy photo.

By Margaret Rossoff

Special to The Post

OPINION

Two candidates are running for the position of Oakland City Attorney in November: current Assistant Chief City Attorney Ryan Richardson and retired judge Brenda Harbin-Forte.

Richardson has worked in the Office of the City Attorney since 2014 and is likely to continue current City Attorney Barbara Parker’s policies managing the department. He has committed not to accept campaign contributions from developers who want to store and handle coal at a proposed marine terminal in Oakland.

Retired Judge Harbin-Forte launched and has played a leading role in the campaign to recall Mayor Sheng Thao, which is also on the November ballot. She has stepped back from the recall campaign to focus on her candidacy. The East Bay Times noted, “Harbin-Forte’s decision to lead the recall campaign against a potential future client is … troubling — and is likely to undermine her ability, if she were to win, to work effectively.”

Harbin-Forte has refused to rule out accepting campaign support from coal terminal interests or their agents. Coal terminal lobbyist Greg McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committee “SOS Oakland” is backing her campaign.

In the 2022 mayor’s race, parties hoping to build a coal terminal made $600,000 in contributions to another of McConnell’s Independent Expenditure Committees.

In a recent interview, Harbin-Forte said she is open to “listening to both sides” and will be “fair.” However, the City Attorney’s job is not to judge fairly between the City and its legal opponents – it is to represent the City against its opponents.

She thought that the 2022 settlement negotiations ended because the City “rejected a ‘no coal’ settlement.” This is lobbyist McConnell’s narrative, in contrast to the report by City Attorney Barbara Parker. Parker has explained that the City continued to negotiate in good faith for a settlement with no “loopholes” that could have allowed coal to ship through Oakland – until would-be coal developer Phil Tagami broke off negotiations.

One of Harbin-Forte’s main priorities, listed on her website, is “reducing reliance on outside law firms,” and instead use the lawyers working in the City Attorney’s office.

However, sometimes this office doesn’t have the extensive expertise available that outside firms can provide in major litigation. In the ongoing, high stakes coal litigation, the City has benefited from collaborating with experienced, specialized attorneys who could take on the nationally prominent firms representing the City’s opponents.

The City will continue to need this expertise as it pursues an appeal of the judge’s decision that restored the developer’s lease and defends against a billion-dollar lawsuit brought by the hedge fund operator who holds the sublease on the property.

Harbin-Forte’s unwillingness to refuse campaign contributions from coal terminal interests, her opposition to using outside resources when needed, as well as her uncritical repetition of coal lobbyist McConnell’s claim that the City sabotaged the settlement talks of 2022 all raise serious concerns about how well she would represent the best interests of Oakland and Oaklanders if she is elected City Attorney.