Homeless

Lack of Shelter After Mosswood Eviction Causes Tension in North Oakland

Published

4 years ago

July 9, 2020

The city of Oakland evicted a large community of unhoused people from Mosswood Park on Feb. 24 and announced plans to help the evicted residents secure shelter through the non-profit Operation Dignity.

.@kpthrive looms over everything happening today. pic.twitter.com/OYACd0WPtW

— Indybay (@Indybay) February 4, 2020

While the city did secure shelter for some, others did not receive help, remained homeless, and moved to nearby areas where. In at least one case, tensions have escalated with housed residents.

“It’s a mess—dangerous and unhealthy for everyone. I live on Shafter and now I steer clear of that block,” wrote Valentina Gnup in an online petition that a group called Mosswood Neighbors created in mid-June.

The petition asks that people living in tents, vehicles, and self-made homes along Manila Avenue and between 38th and 40th Streets be moved to a new location and that the city institute regulations that would prevent overnight parking in the area.

It is titled “City of Oakland: Relocate and House the Manila Avenue Encampment” and has over 140 signatures.

Jacob Alexander* currently lives in the encampment on Manila Avenue, which sits less than a quarter-mile north of Mosswood Park, where he had lived for about four-and-a-half years in a tent until the February eviction. Since the eviction, his living situation has not improved. He still lives in a tent, but now on the street, much closer to where housed residents live.

“There was nowhere else to go,” Alexander said.

Alexander said that after the eviction he wasn’t able to move his possessions a long distance and was worried about joining a new encampment. So he and seven other people who had lived within the park moved to their current location. He wanted to move into a hotel or permanent housing but was not offered to do so.

Just before the February eviction, ABC and KTVU reported that Kaiser Permanente, whose Oakland Medical Center sits across the street from Mosswood Park, was giving Oakland $1 million to help house residents who would be moved from the park.

At the time, a section of Kaiser’s webpage said that they were collaborating with The City of Oakland and Operation Dignity to “provide interim housing and support services to 50 residents of a homeless camp at Mosswood Park.”

“So many of us were left behind or fell through the cracks,” said.

He said the first roadblock came when he did not have identification, but Operation Dignity did not then offer him a card or a way to follow up later.

He noticed that some people who received shelter through Operation Dignity’s aid had shown up to the park days before the eviction. He says some people he knew ended up in hotel rooms, others in the city-sanctioned Tuff Shed programs, but others, like him, were denied any aid.

Many who went to the Tuff Sheds found the situation a little different from living on the street and ended up leaving. Some who lived in hotel rooms were able to transition into permanent housing.

Alexander said he did not know why he did not get a hotel room or alternative shelter. “I still would really like to know. I don’t have an answer for that.”

The Mosswood Neighbor’s petition complains that they hear screaming, experience petty theft, and witness drug trafficking and piles of accumulating garbage.

Alexander is sympathetic. He admits to doing drugs and said he feels he needs them to deal with mental health issues. He said since the encampment has grown recently he is a victim of petty theft himself.

Since the city provides no organized place for him and other unhoused residents to put his trash and needles, they accumulate in an unorganized and messy manner.

Some nearby neighbors are sympathetic to Alexander and other unhoused resident’s plight.

“If you’re homeless, God bless you,” said Daryl who lives next to the encampment and chose not to give his last name. “I’m one paycheck away from being homeless myself. My garbage can has been stolen three times, but that’s possibly because the city isn’t providing them with anything to put their trash in.”

Amber Rockwood, who lives nearby, was upset by the petition because she felt it vilified the homeless and called for their displacement. She thinks there are better ways to approach the situation.

“I’ve been trying to introduce myself to the people [experiencing homelessness] to find out what would make conditions better for them and address things that are worries for the neighbors,” she said.

She helped organize a meeting on June 28 attended by six of her housed neighbors, Alexander, Alameda County Supervisor Richard Valle, and housing advocate of the United Front Against Displacement Dayton Andrews.

A few days after the meeting two portable toilets showed up for the encampment. While it is unclear how word got through to the city, Oakland’s Manager of Homeless Services, Lara Tannenbaum, said in a meeting with concerned housed neighbors on July 7, that the city had decided to provide and maintain the toilets.

Oakland resident David Forsyth wrote on the petition, “I have recently seen drug deals go down. This [encampment] needs to be dismantled.”

Many neighbors have echoed Forsyth’s sentiment. Yet many others that live in the area share a concern for the unhoused residents’ well being and safety, want improved services and/or housing for those that live in the area.

Rockwood said she wants the city to provide housing, but if it doesn’t she said, “they should be allowed to stay and we should continue the dialogue to figure out what’s causing the problems and how we can help.”

“This is a problem that’s going to be with us…especially with the cost of real estate here,” said Daryl. “I think they should at least get services so they can choose to keep the area clean.”

“The things people are complaining about are definitely valid,” said Alexander. “The thing is, I don’t know what would help or stop it from happening unless we get housing.”

Oakland’s Homeless Policy directors Richard Valle and Peter Radu were asked for comment. Valle did not respond. Radu passed our inquiry on to four other members of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s staff, including Lara Tannenbaum, but none of them responded.

*Jacob Alexander is a pseudonym. The person speaking with that name asked that the Oakland Post not use his real name because he is seeking employment.

Zack Haber

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of December 18 – 24, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 18 – 24, 2024

Published

2 days ago

December 20, 2024

Oakland Post

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A Student-Run Group Provides Critical Support Services to Underserved Residents

Those visiting The Suitcase Clinic can get legal advice, sign up for food assistance, receive housing resources, get medical help, or enjoy a hot, fresh meal. They can also get haircuts and foot washes from the student volunteers. Nilo Golchini, executive director of the clinic, said one of the goals for most of the students working there is helping bridge the gap of trust that exists between many unhoused people and the healthcare and social welfare systems.

Published

4 days ago

December 18, 2024

Oakland Post

UC Berkeley Law Students help a clinic visitor with legal advice at their Tuesday night services. The Clinic offers a variety of resources, including medical, to those in the community who have little access to these services. Photo by Magaly Muñoz

Part One

By Magaly Muñoz

Every Tuesday evening, the dining hall of First Presbyterian Church fills up with dozens of people eating, laughing and moving from table to table, receiving much-needed services from UC Berkeley students – just a few blocks away from the university’s campus.

Individuals seeking support services can be found in this multi-stationed room on the south end of the church talking to law students, student case managers, or receiving medical attention in a corner by healthcare professionals.

This weekly event is hosted by Cal students through a volunteer-run program called The Suitcase Clinic.

The clinic, founded in 1989, was intended to offer free resources to underserved communities in Berkeley and surrounding cities. The majority of the clinic’s clientele are unhoused or low-income people looking for extra support.

Those visiting the clinic can get legal advice, sign up for food assistance, receive housing resources, get medical help, or enjoy a hot, fresh meal. They can also get haircuts and foot washes from the student volunteers.

Nilo Golchini, executive director of the clinic, said one of the goals for most of the students working there is helping bridge the gap of trust that exists between many unhoused people and the healthcare and social welfare systems.

During their tenure in the program, many of the students say they become strong advocates for homelessness rights.

Visitors of the Suitcase Clinic can receive haircuts and foot washing by student volunteers every Tuesday evening. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

“We’re also standing in solidarity with them. So, it’s not saying, ‘I’m going to help you, but I’m also going to stand with you,’” Golchini said.

Student volunteers get extensive training prior to working directly with clients. Those interested have to take a semester-long class to become versed in areas such as outreach, intersectionality, how to interact with unhoused people, how to sign people up for social services. and more.

Volunteers then get to pick from three different clinics: General, Women’s, or Youth and LGBTQ+.

The General Clinic is the most popular among visiting residents, while Women’s and Youth/LQBTQ+ have more specialized services for attendees.

The Women’s Clinic has many of the similar services to General, but also includes nail painting, childcare, and massages.

The Youth and LGBTQ+ Clinic offers a safe space for young people navigating living on the streets, with services that include housing referrals, wellness and recreation classes and employment resources.

Golchini explained that it’s important for them to keep these clinics separate because the different demographics experience poverty and homelessness differently than those who visit the General Clinic.

Suitcase Clinic student workers posing for a photo with a frequent clinic attendee. The Clinic is open to Berkeley unhoused and low-income residents who need medical or legal service, or a hot meal. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

“We’re able to provide spaces where people can come in and feel safe and not feel like they’re constantly worried that something’s going to happen to them,” she said.

An outreach team also visits encampments every other Saturday in the Berkeley area to provide hygiene kits and encourage people to visit the in-person clinic, if possible.

However, Golchini said engagement has been low for some time now due to a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that allows cities to ban and cite people for sleeping on the streets.

She said a lot of their clientele got displaced to other cities over time, making it difficult to stay in contact with the services the Clinic was providing for them.

But that hasn’t slowed down the students at the Clinic, if anything, it has pushed them to do more for the community they serve.

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Post News Group Hosts Second Virtual Town Hall on Racism

“While our society tends to rebrand over the decades, we find hate as the new word, broadening its arch of issues in society,” said show host and Post News Group Global Features Journalist Carla Thomas. “However, the very first form of hate, which is racism, built this country.”

Published

1 week ago

December 14, 2024

Oakland Post

Photo courtesy of Post News Group

By Post News Group

Post News Group Global Features Journalist Carla Thomas recently hosted a second Virtual Town Hall on Racism, with guests including community builders Trevor Parham of Oakstop and Chien Nguyen of Oakland Trybe.

Thomas opened the town hall by paying homage to the ancestral losses of the African diaspora and to the Indigenous tribes, the enslaved, the freed, and the trailblazers of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter Movement, and those more recently victimized by police brutality.

After thanking Bay Area non-profits for their work, Thomas led a thoughtful discussion on the importance of acknowledging racism as the first form of hate that built America.

“While our society tends to rebrand over the decades, we find hate as the new word, broadening its arch of issues in society,” she said. “However, the very first form of hate, which is racism, built this country,” she said.

“That act of othering, creating a narrative that made African people, indigenous people, and ultimately melanated people, labeled as less than human justified the colonizers act of subjugating our ancestors to inhumane, incomprehensible treatment for over 400 years,” said Thomas.

Parham of Oakstop, located at 1721 Broadway, explained that Nazi Germany patterned its mistreatment and extinction of Jews in the Holocaust after chattel slavery in America and the Jim Crow apartheid system that followed it.

“Nazi Germany found America’s treatment of Blacks so inhumane and denigrating that they (decided) it would actually be the perfect ingredient to undermine another group of people,” said Parham. “So, they essentially borrowed from what Americans did to Black people.”

Thomas pivoted the discussion to the limitations placed on Black America’s generational wealth through policies of red-lining, redevelopment, and title deeds to this day, based on the idea that no Black or indigenous person is allowed to purchase property or land.

“For this reason, there continue to be impoverished Black communities throughout the nation,” she said.

“The structures of racism from red-lining to lack of access to capital continue to restrict Black (people) in America; this structural racism kind of finishes you before you even start,” added Parham. “The lack of generational wealth has left our communities at a disadvantage because with generational wealth we’d have the resources to police our own communities and build further.”

Nguyen, Clinton Park site director for Oakland Trybe, spoke about his parents’ journey as immigrants from Vietnam, the challenges of being teased in school, and how his troubled brother was murdered.

Nguyen has turned his personal tragedies into triumph, pivoting from a career as an eight-year business owner in the Little Saigon community of East Oakland, to now a non-profit leader transforming and reclaiming the community’s Clinton Park at International Boulevard and Sixth Street..

“A park represents community, and between the pandemic, illegal activities, and homelessness, the park needed to be re-established, and we now offer programming for the youth and extended community,” he said.

“Between Oakstop’s business model of purchasing commercial properties and transforming them into beautiful spaces for community ownership, business space, and special event hubs, and Oakland Trybe’s ability to transform public spaces central to a community and empower our communities, we have solutions,” Thomas said.

Throughout the conversation, Parham referred to a press conference hosted at Oakstop in August where NBA icons Jason Kidd and Jaylen Brown pledged to raise $5 billion for Black businesses in the nation.

“Inspired by Black Wall Street, Jaylen began with Boston and created the Boston Xchange because he became aware of a statistic noting that white households in Boston average $250,000 and Black households averaged a mere $8 in wealth,” Parham said.

In Oakland, he established the Oakland Xchange to expand the movement right at Oakstop, he said.

Thomas encouraged viewers to connect with her guests and tap into the dozens of organizations making a change. “I encourage you to join your chambers of commerce, your community-based organizations, non-profits, and churches to uplift and rebuild the community,” she said.

Thomas also suggested that the NAACP as a great start. “The Oakland chapter’s resolution developed around racism was adopted by the national NAACP, and at the Afrotech Conference, national NAACP leader Derrick Johnson announced a $200 million fund to support Black funders.”

Thomas informed viewers of the California vs. Hate, initiative, a non-emergency hate incident and hate-crime reporting system to support individuals and communities targeted for hate.

“Your reports inform the state of where to designate resources and extra support,” said Thomas.

For more information, visit PostNewsGroup.com, CAvsHATE.ORG or call 1-833-8-NO-HATE.