City Government
Op-Ed:Oakland’s Decades of Failure to Halt Evictions and Tenant Displacement
By James Vann
Part II
Oakland’s present catastrophic rental and affordable housing crisis, which monthly disrupts 1,000 long-established households through evictions, displacement, foreclosures, and destruction of neighborhoods, is not new.
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The City has been in continuing crises since the late 1970s. At that time, rental properties were being flipped two to three times a year, each time with huge increases in rent.
Lacking any regulations, a quarter of apartment buildings surrounding Lake Merritt had been converted to condominiums; and “no-cause” tenant evictions were rampaging at 7,000 to 8,000 displacements a year.
By early 1980, broad public outcry prompted tenant activists to develop and circulate an initiative petition to place “rent control” on the ballot.
Fearing the initiative’s possible success, city leaders and the realty industry joined together to counter the tenant measure with a pro-landlord ordinance — not for rent control, but for “residential rent arbitration.”
The City-landlord alternative was rushed onto the ballot by unanimous vote of the City Council. Aided by massive spending, government-landlord collusion, deceptive billboards throughout Oakland, and letters on City letterhead signed by Mayor Lionel Wilson to each Oakland voter, the citizen initiative was closely defeated 53 percent to 47 percent.
Although renters have consistently complained to city leaders about the many inequities of Oakland’s one-of-a-kind-landlord-written law, the program has continued for 35 years to oppress and abuse the 60 percent of Oakland residents who are renters. Yet, there have been no changes of real significance from the City Council.
Following the landlord’s rental victory, a developer-driven condominium conversion ordinance was drawn up and adopted in1981. The ill-conceived no-fee ordinance profited converters by providing free access, without constraints, to 25 percent of Oakland’s rental inventory.
The new condo law further enriched developers by creating a lucrative new commodity called “conversion rights,” a valuable entitlement that can be sold and traded among housing developers for additional windfall profits, but no return to the City. To date, the city’s regressive condominium ordinance has resulted in the removal of approximately 3,500 badly needed rental units from the inventory and which, despite its obvious defects, has remained unchanged for 34 years.
Since 1980, there have been at least 16 concrete occasions where the City Council ignored or failed to take positive action on proposals and requests to counter the ever-present crisis in rental and affordable housing (for details of the Council’s failed opportunities, see the popular blog <DrakeTalkOakland>).
Fast-forward to the conditions Oaklanders are facing today. The City’s recently adopted — but not implemented – “Housing Equity Roadmap” documents that between 2000 and 2010, Oakland lost 33,502 Black residents and almost 17 per of families with school age children. The hemorrhaging and the crisis continue unabated.
Early in Mayor Libby Schaaf’s administration, she announced that halting evictions and displacement of long-term Oakland residents would be among the highest priorities of her administration.
Starting her second year in office, so far neither Mayor Schaaf nor the City Council has advanced any positive actions or concrete initiatives to achieve justice and equity for renters and affordable housing.
The inaction of Oakland leaders stands in naked contrast to “declarations,” “states of emergency,” or “moratoriums” on “no-cause” evictions and exorbitant rent increases that have been quickly enacted by several Bay Area cities in response to the region’s unrelenting crisis,
Despite the weakness or absence of leadership by our elected officials, renters can and must take positive steps to achieve housing justice. Tenants cannot match either landlord/developer dollars or their slick highly paid lobbyists who daily comb City Hall.
What tenants do have is the “power of the ballot.” This November, tenants, who make up 60 percent of the city’s population, can seize the opportunity, take charge of their own destiny, and enact the needed positive changes that our moribund city leaders, seemingly, have been too afraid to take.
James Vann is co-founder of the Oakland Tenant Union. In next week’s installment, he will discuss critical and needed state laws that hamper the ability of cities to protect tenants from runaway rents, evictions, and displacement.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of September 4 – 10, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 4 – 10, 2024
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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of August 28 – September 4, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of August 28 – September 4, 2024
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Activism
A New Coalition Says: ‘Respect Our Vote – No Recalls!’
Opposing the recalls of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and labeling the efforts as a new form of voter suppression, the coalition, “Respect Our Vote – No Recalls!” kicked off its organizing efforts last Saturday, Aug. 17, with a mass, public meeting, attended by over 100 people in East Oakland at At Thy Word Ministries Church, 8915 International Blvd. in East Oakland.
![Jess Inson, Rev. B.K. Woodson, Sr., Stewart Chen, and Mariano Contreras answer questions at the kickoff meeting of “Respect Our Vote – No Recalls!,” Saturday, Aug. 17, at At Thy Word Ministries Church, 8915 International Blvd. in East Oakland. Photo by Ken Epstein.](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/respect-our-vote-featured-web-1.jpg)
By Ken Epstein
A broad, diverse coalition has come together to mobilize local communities to vote against the recalls of two East Bay reform-minded leaders, who could potentially be thrown out of office in November after serving less than two years in office.
The recall effort is a result of multi-million-dollar campaigns that the coalition says are fueled by fearmongering with funding from a Piedmont financier and promoted by a public relations campaign in the corporate media.
Opposing the recalls of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and labeling the efforts as a new form of voter suppression, the coalition, “Respect Our Vote – No Recalls!” kicked off its organizing efforts last Saturday, Aug. 17, with a mass, public meeting, attended by over 100 people in East Oakland at At Thy Word Ministries Church, 8915 International Blvd. in East Oakland.
Servant B.K. Woodson, Sr., pastor of the Bay Area Christian Connection in Oakland and chair of the coalition, links the surging national movement to reject the fearmongering and hateful agenda advocated by Donald Trump and the rightwing authoritarian proposals of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 to their own battle against the efforts to unseat progressive leaders in Oakland and Alameda County.
“This is a powerful moment, (and) across the nation you can feel it,” he said. “There’s joy, there’s hope, there’s expectation. We Oaklanders are at the center of the universe right now because the joy that’s bubbling up against the antipathy and the anger and the mindlessness, the battle for hope is being waged right here (against those) who profit by our poverty.”
“This is the inaugural event of ‘Respect Our Vote – No Recalls!’ because we want all people’s votes to be respected,” Pastor Woodson continued. “We are a diverse coalition, and we are open to more.”
The coalition already has the participation of the Wellstone and John George Democratic clubs, the Latino Task Force, and the Asian Americans for a Progressive Alameda, as well as active involvement of African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, whites, and others, he said.
“(Together), we want to expose what’s happening,” Woodson said. “The vehicle of recall (was intended to be) a people’s device against entrenched power (but) has been co-opted by billionaires,” who have funded these campaigns.
Those attending the meeting raised concerns about Foundational Oakland Unites, a political action committee that received $605,000 from Piedmont financier Philip Dreyfuss, which contributed $480,000 to back the Sheng Thao recall.
Dreyfuss also contributed to recall Price. A political action committee, Supporters of Recall Pamela Price, which Dreyfuss helped create, received about $400,000 to pay for signature-gathering, as well as a $200,000 loan.
Other speakers at the rally included Stewart Chen, president of the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council; Carmen Peng of Asian Americans for Progressive Alameda; Jess Inson, lead organizing fellow for Oakland Rising Action; Chaney Turner, chair of the City of Oakland’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission; and Mariano Contreras, member of the Latino Task Force and co-chair of the African American Latino Action Alliance.
Contreras said in past decades, voter suppression was mostly designed to keep African Americans, immigrants, and poor people from being able to vote.
“(But) now we’re seeing a new type of voter suppression, the denial of our vote after we cast it,” he said.
“The recall process was (originally) designed to ensure that elected officials would represent the interests of their constituents. But the recall process has been hijacked by shadowy, conservative money that finds defeated candidates (and others) who are willing to deny you and me our vote as we originally cast it,” he said.
“This is a new, dangerous voter suppression that exists right here in our city,” he said, adding that: “We are seeing the use of fear and misinformation to attract spokespeople to promote attacks and charges that are nothing more than smokescreens to roll back progressive alliances that have been built in our local government.”
Chen said that there has been a “false narrative” about rampant crime, which is a “bunch of baloney.”
There have long been problems with crime in Oakland, and the recalls against Price and Thao began shortly after they were elected and before they had a chance to do much, he said. “Unequivocally, the people who lost wanted their candidates to win. These are sour grapes.”
“This is undemocratic. We have to stand together, unite together,” Chen said. “That’s why I’m here.”
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