Activism

Tentative Plans to Relocate Unhoused Union Point Residents Up in Air After Oakland’s Homeless Liaison Steps Down

“We’re trying to figure out solutions to make it better for any and everybody that comes into situations like this,” said Deanna Riley, who has lived at Union Point Park for two years.

Published

4 years ago

March 4, 2021

Mia Lane

Unhoused residents (left to right) Matt Long, Deanna Riley, and Edward Hanson stand behind a barricade at Union Point Park. Photo by Zack Haber on February 28

As the City of Oakland has stated intentions to relocate unhoused residents living in Union Point Park in East Oakland, some residents say they will refuse to move unless they can receive a new place to live where they can have independence and services for survival.

“We’re trying to figure out solutions to make it better for any and everybody that comes into situations like this,” said Deanna Riley, who has lived at Union Point Park for two years.

Riley said she became homeless when her husband passed away shortly after listing himself as head of the household of their section 8 housing and she got evicted. She lives in an RV at Union Point, where she and other residents in similar situations have access to bathrooms and water. Currently, about 15 people live there.

But their stay at Union Point Park is tenuous. The park borders the waters of the Brooklyn Basin and is under the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). On Dec. 2, 2019, BCDC sent the City of Oakland a violation report accusing Oakland of failing to “make the area accessible for public purposes such as walking…fishing, and picnicking.” On Oct. 15, 2020, BCDC sent a cease and desist order to the City ordering them to clear residents living at the park by February 12.

On February 5, the City posted notices saying they intended to clear the park on February 9-11. On the eviction days, some residents living at the park decided not to leave. Protestors, some of whom were members of the grassroots anti-gentrification organization The United Front Against Displacement (UFAD), supported them. Residents and activists built a barricade of debris and unwanted materials to slow the eviction effort, held signs, and chanted.

“The City of Oakland was unable to fully implement the closure of the park using the methods and resources that Oakland Public Works, Oakland Human Services, and the Oakland Police Dept. regularly use to complete such a closure due to ongoing demonstrations,” Karen Boyd, Oakland’s citywide communications director, told The Oakland Post in an e-mail about the attempted eviction. She added that the City is now “working with the individuals present to achieve a productive resolution,” and that BCDC had extended their deadline for the City to evict residents until March 12.

The Oakland Post spoke with eight residents in the park who said they would only leave if the City provided them with six-core demands: new land to move to that they can use long term and independently, trash services, water hookups, electricity, room to store their possessions and bathrooms.

“We want a solution that is not just a stop-gap measure,” said Matt Long, who lives in a self-made home in the park. “We want something that will allow us to set up our community and dig in some roots and feel comfortable.”

The City has recently successfully relocated one family who used to live at Union Point into a hotel room. But other residents living at the park said such options have not been made available to them. Instead, the City has offered stays in Oakland’s “Tuff Shed” programs which are operated by non-profits. The City refers to the collections of 10-by-12 foot structures as “community cabins.” Residents feel the “community cabin” land is not theirs to fully use at those programs as residents of the program cannot cook food, have visitors in their unit, have enough space to store their possessions, or come and go when they want or need to. Riley said she used to live in the program but had to leave when she took a night job because the program did not recognize her as living in her unit when she did not sleep inside it at night.

On February 9 to 11, Oakland Homelessness Administrator Daryel Dunston met with Union Point residents and some of their supporters in the UFAD to look at different plots of nearby land that residents could possibly relocate to. On February 11, Adam Garrett-Clark, who runs an LLC called Tiny Logic which specializes in organizing tiny communities, said that Dunston contacted him about collaborating with the City and residents to possibly create a “co-governed encampment.” Garrett-Clark has researched co-governed models for five years, including staying for three days in Opportunity Village, a city-sanctioned co-governed tiny home community in Eugene, Ore.

Garrett-Clark said “the key distinction” between co-governed models and how cities generally operate shelter programs “is removing the paternalistic impulse that usually comes when governments give people housing resources.” He thinks co-governed models place more dignity and trust in the individuals they serve and calls them a “response to the shelter system” where residents can have more power to control the day-to-day operations of the spaces they live in. Residents say they discussed moving to a co-governed encampment model with Dunston, who was supportive and encouraging of the idea.

Although the model has not yet been tried in Oakland, Garret-Clark said Dunston had expressed interest in it repeatedly, stretching back to the summer of 2019, when they discussed collaborating to apply the model to a community of unhoused people who lived near Wood Street in West Oakland.

Part of Garrett-Clark’s desire to get involved comes from the hope of gaining legitimacy and stability to a West Oakland tiny home community he currently operates where his 62-year-old mother lives with five other people. The community has existed for over five years. He said the City is asking for $9,000 in fines due to the tiny homes not being sanctioned on the land where the community sits, even though he rents the land the homes sit on from a landlord.

Garrett-Clark met with a few residents at Union Point after Dunston reached out to him, leaving them optimistic about a possible collaboration with Tiny Logic. On February 11, residents and Dunston identified a small plot of nearby public land, measuring about 12,000 square feet, near the corner of 23rd Avenue and East 11th street, that they were discussing as a possible site to move to. Then on February 26, Oakland’s City Administrator Ed Reiskin, announced in an e-mail that Dunston will leave his job with the City on March 8.

Dunston has not responded to The Oakland Post’s repeated requests for comment on this story. The announcement of his departure from the City has left residents unsure of what will become of their discussions to start a co-governed encampment, as neither Dunston, residents or Garrett-Clark agreed to any formal contracts for a relocation or services related to it.

Despite Dunston’s absence and no formal agreement, communications director Boyd said the City plans to pursue a co-governed model with residents. In an e-mail to The Oakland Post, Boyd claimed the City is working to “identify partners” and that “there are a number of parcels [of public land] that are being considered…to implement a co-governed encampment pilot.” But she also did not respond to direct questions about collaborating with Tiny Logic or utilizing the public land near 23rd avenue and East11th street.

“[Dunston] talked a big game of what the City could do for people, but he said a lot of things he couldn’t follow up on,” said Adam Wurtz, of the UFAD. Wurtz has organized with residents at Union Point since last October to help support them in securing demands in the event of an eviction.

Both he and resident Matt Long claim that Dunston discussed securing $200,000 in City funding for relocating and re-establishing the Union Point community. But he has not been in contact with residents or activists since his announced plans for departure. City Administrator LaTonda Simmons is set to take on Dunston’s role until the City finds a permanent replacement, but activists and residents say she has not been in contact with them either.

Residents say they no longer see clear indications that the City will pursue a co-governed model. Some residents are planning to resist until their demands are met. The UFAD and residents have been meeting weekly since the start of this year to organize around such a resistance. Wurtz says he has been “excited and inspired by how residents have believed in their ability to fight.” He and the residents both claim that if they secure demands from the city in this situation, it will be easier for others to do so in the future.

“We’re not just trying to address the homeless situation for ourselves,” said Edward Hanson, who has lived at Union Point for over 10 years, “but the homelessness situation period.”

Although the city has not formally announced an eviction day, BCDC’s order states that it would be possible for them to find the City $6,000 per day if residents remain on site. Due to the threat of fines, and the fact that BCDC has only extended its deadline to the City until March 12, residents think the City will attempt to evict them soon.

In a meeting with BCDC on February 24, Dunston told BCDC officials that residents would voluntarily leave by February 26 and the City would clear remaining debris starting on March 3. But residents still remain onsite and debris, much of which has again been organized in a barricade at the park’s entrance, has not been collected.

Unless the City gives into residents core demands of new land to move to that they can use long term and independently, trash services, water hookups, electricity, room to store their possessions, and bathrooms some residents plan to refuse to leave.

“I’m going to resist,” said Deanna Riley. “I’m not going nowhere. When [the eviction] goes down they’re gonna have a fight.”

Mia Lane

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Oakland Post: Week of March 28 – April 1, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 28 – April 1, 2025

Published

19 hours ago

March 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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Oakland’s Most Vulnerable Neighborhoods Are Struggling to Eat and Stay Healthy

For this story, we focused on eight of the 12 ZIP codes in Oakland, those pertaining to East and West Oakland. The ZIP codes include 94601, 94603, 94505, 94606, 94607, 94612, 94619, and 94621. We chose to concentrate on these specific areas, known as the Oakland Flatlands, due to its longstanding history of extremely low-income households and racial inequalities compared to ZIP codes in the Oakland Hills.

Published

3 days ago

March 26, 2025

Oakland Post

Volunteer at Alameda County Food Bank sorting food to distribute to the hundreds of community organizations across the county. Cities like Oakland are experiencing large numbers of food insecure households that use food banks to supplement their weekly meals instead of buying expensive groceries from their local markets. Photo by Magaly Muñoz.

These Are the Contributing Factors

By Magaly Muñoz

On a recent trip to the grocery store in West Oakland, single mom Neemaka Tucker contemplated what’s more important to her family’s needs – expensive fresh produce or cheap instant ramen noodles.

“I’m trying to teach my kids to eat healthy, but then my pocket is like, ‘I’m broke’. Getting the processed foods is going to fill you up faster, even though it’s not good for your body,” Tucker said.

Bay Area residents are spending over $100 more a month on groceries than they were pre-pandemic. Those higher costs are straining wallets and forcing families to choose cheap over healthy, possibly contributing to more health problems. These problems are disproportionately affecting people in East and West Oakland, in neighborhoods primarily of low-income families of color.

Oakland residents are experiencing more health problems linked to poor diets, like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease than before the pandemic, particularly in neighborhoods of East and West Oakland, data shows.

“We see a direct relationship between what we eat and medical problems. What we eat affects our weight, our blood pressure and all those things circle back and have an effect on your diseased state,” said Dr. Walter Acuña, a family physician at Oakland Kaiser Medical.

According to data by UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, about 1 in 10 adults in East Oakland neighborhoods experience food insecurity. That’s twice as many people than in most other parts of the city.

Oakland residents’ health concerns are growing

According to UCLA research, about one out of every five adults under 65 in these areas of East Oakland reported poor or fair health. But these problems weren’t isolated to East Oakland. About one in six adults under 65 reported poor or fair health in areas of West Oakland, like the 94607 ZIP codes.

A handful of ZIP codes (94601, 94603, 94605, 94621) in East Oakland also have the poorest health outcomes of any area in the city. Residents there experience the highest rates of obesity and adult diabetes.

UCLA data shows that there has been a two percent increase in the number of adults diagnosed with diabetes in West Oakland (ZIP code 94607) since 2017- 2018. An estimated 11.8% of adults in 94607 in 2021-22 said they had diabetes, whereas 9.8% reported it several years before.

But the problem is more significant, only a few miles away.

In the 94621 neighborhood in East Oakland, an estimated 16.6% of adult residents reported having diabetes in 2021-2022, and the neighboring ZIPs averaged about 15%, according to UCLA data. 2017-2018 data show that only 11% reported a diabetes diagnosis in the 94621, a 5.6% change from recent numbers. The ZIP code estimates are higher than the states’, county’s, and city estimates—11%, 12.4%, and 12.3%, respectively.

Doctors working with Oakland and the larger Alameda County area are seeing an increase in the number of people coming to their offices with chronic health issues in the last few years.

Acuña said he’s frequently treating more and more adults with diabetes and hypertension.

Patients often tell him that it’s easier to afford unhealthy, cheap food than it is to afford the things that are going to make them feel better and stay healthy, he said

Dr. Steven Chen, Chief Medical Officer of Alameda County’s Recipe4Health, said that he’s seeing more kids across the region suffering from obesity, or adults on the brink of developing chronic illnesses, than in previous years.

“Chronic disease is a big epidemic. What’s the root of it? I think food is a big component,” Chen said.

He has seen evidence of improved health when people have access to better food. People with Type 2 diabetes experience a boost in metabolic and sugar management to healthy levels, and those with high blood pressures experience normal numbers.

Recipe4Health is a county-wide program that uses food-based interventions to treat and prevent chronic conditions, address food insecurity, and improve health and racial equity. The program provides up to 12 weeks of groceries for people who are at risk or are experiencing food insecurity.

It’s important for public sectors to have these kinds of investments locally because the results are tangible, he said.

“If our values are that no one gets left behind and that everyone should have an equal opportunity to health and health equity, then we need always to ensure that we are serving those communities that often are left behind,” Chen said.

Experiencing food insecurity in Oakland

Unfortunately, healthy food is becoming increasingly difficult for Oakland residents to access. Over the last five months, The Oakland Post heard from over 50 residents about their struggles finding and affording healthy food. We visited food banks, talked with people at markets and food distribution events, and distributed an online survey.

We learned that residents are travelling to other nearby cities to get cheaper groceries, financial assistance programs like CalFresh are challenging to navigate, wages are low, and food is getting more expensive while the quality appears to be dropping.

Andres, who asked us not to use his last name due to his undocumented status, said he often relies on food distribution from organizations like the Street Level Health Project for his weekly groceries. He wouldn’t be able to eat complete meals otherwise, due to the lack of consistent employment at his car washing job during the winter months.

With eight people living under one roof and only three adults contributing to the household income, he said things are tight.

“During these months, we’re always backed up on paying our bills, including rent, and we’re trying to do more with what little that we have, which is not much,” Andres said.

Andres’ biggest complaint about grocery shopping is the lack of fresh and healthy food that is affordable and good quality. He’s been to food banks and grocery stores where the produce rots within a day or two of receiving it, forcing him to buy fast food in order to feed his family.

Down the street at the Unity Council’s weekly grocery distribution, Mayra Segovia, a single woman in her 50s, said she visits this location almost every week to get food. Her fixed income on Social Security makes it difficult to afford her basic necessities.

Segovia said she receives CalFresh funding to pay for her groceries, but the almost $300 assistance is not enough to get her through the month, so she gets creative. She often does favors for local vendors in exchange for meals. Even with the Social Security checks of a little over $1,000 a month and other resources like subsidized housing, the cost of living is going up. She’s blaming the government for their contribution to the problem.

“We’re not all rich like Donald Trump and all those corrupt politicians, we don’t have that much money like that,” Segovia said.

Social service assistance is falling short

Several people we spoke with said financial food assistance like CalFresh isn’t supplementing the gaps in their budgets.

Neemaka Tucker, mom of two elementary-aged kids, said she receives $123 a month from CalFresh, yet she’s spending almost $600 on groceries at the store. She feels like she should be getting more assistance, especially considering her lower, single income. “I’m appreciative [of the CalFresh funds] that I get anything because every little bit helps, but it’s still not enough for my family,” Tucker said.

A lack of grocery store options in West Oakland has also made it even harder to get food on the table, Tucker said.

There are more convenience stores than grocery stores within walking distance to her home on the northeast side of West Oakland, and the prices seem to be exacerbated because of their limited food stock, Tucker said. A gallon of milk at the store could run her up to $3.80, but at the local convenience market, it’s nearly $6.

“I just find that the majority of the money that I’m spending is on the travel to get the food, then on the food itself,” Tucker said.

Healthy groceries are a necessity to manage Tucker’s health. She is diabetic and has high blood pressure, so eating and buying fresh produce is important because keeping her symptoms at bay is a must for her health. It’s been difficult to get what she needs for her body to maintain her chronic health problems because she often battles with lack of affordability of what she’s buying, she said.

“I find myself trying to figure out what’s healthy for each person and then have enough of it so we all can [eat well],” Tucker said. “Back in the day, bread and potatoes used to be staples to get your kids full, but food like that makes me sick because that’s too much [carbohydrates] since I have diabetes.”

Both her kids are athletes who also need healthy food. She’s finding that even though her kids don’t eat meat, which tends to be expensive, she’s still spending more than she’d like to on fruit and vegetables.

In Oakland, the local investment is low

In the last year, the city has cut grants to nonprofits like Meals on Wheels, which serves 3,000 hungry seniors, and Street Level Health Project, which provides groceries and meals to undocumented day laborers. Tax measures, like the Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax, were intended to help decrease the food and health crisis but are also not being managed in the way Oakland residents voted for, according to community leaders and advisory board members. The majority of the tax money is going towards funding city agencies.

The Oakland Post contacted city and county officials several times for comment but did not get a response.

Across the Bay Area, San Francisco is investing millions to address food insecurity through a pilot program that establishes free grocery stores in food desert districts. Shoppers of the pilot market said they have seen a positive change to the way they feed their families and how much they’re able to save every month.

Oakland resident PC, who chose to use an abbreviated version of his name to protect his privacy, said he’d be interested in seeing a market like the one in San Francisco because it would alleviate the tight budget he has for himself.

PC said he’s had some unpleasant experiences with food distribution workers being rude to residents waiting for grocery bags. “The line is already long as it is and can sometimes feel shameful when you’re going through hard times,” PC said, so an option to get free food in a setting that resembles a market would be ideal.

The garden lead for West Oakland’s People’s Programs, ab banks, helps deliver fresh produce from a local garden to households in the projects, because the need for healthier options has been particularly high in recent years, they said.

People’s Program serves around 170 people in the 94607 area with groceries, along with a mobile health clinic and free breakfast program. Their goal is to serve a community that already deals with its own set of disadvantages, and looks to show people that not everything needs to contribute to a bigger gain and people have the right to use the local land to grow the food they need.

Banks said they see firsthand what the lack of investment in West Oakland has done to folks: homelessness, priced out living situations, environmental racism, and lack of food access.

They explained that although they feel a duty and a calling to the work at People’s Program to help an underserved neighborhood, they questioned how the city is pouring millions of dollars towards finding solutions to Oakland’s biggest problems but no significant change has happened yet. banks said there are basic necessities that should be birthrights and not restricted to what the government thinks people need.

“[The investment] is not enough. There’s no access to fair housing, not enough access to food, not enough access to healthcare. But that’s just not specific to Oakland, that’s a United States problem,” banks said.

Reporter Magaly Muñoz produced this story as part of a series as a 2024 USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Data Fellow and Engagement Grantee.

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Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas Honors California Women in Construction with State Proclamation, Policy Ideas

“Women play an important role in building our communities, yet they remain vastly underrepresented in the construction industry,” Smallwood-Cuevas stated. “This resolution not only recognizes their incredible contributions but also the need to break barriers — like gender discrimination.

Published

5 days ago

March 24, 2025

Oakland Post

Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), center, is shown with other guest speakers at the Sacramento Chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction brunch held at the State Capitol on March 6, 2025. On the left is Jennifer Todd, LMS General Contractors Founder and President. To Todd’s right is Dr. Giovanna Brasfield, from Los Angeles-based Brasfield and Associates. CBM photo by Antonio Ray Harvey.

By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌, California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

To honor Women in Construction Week, Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), a member of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC), introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 30 in the State Legislature on March 6. This resolution pays tribute to women and highlights their contributions to the building industry.

The measure designates March 2, 2025, to March 8, 2025, as Women in Construction Week in California. It passed 34-0 on the Senate floor.

Authored by Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-San Leandro), another bill, Assembly Concurrent Resolution (ACR) 28, also recognized women in the construction industry.

The resolution advanced out of the Assembly Committee on Rules with a 10-0 vote.

The weeklong event coincides with the National Association of Women In Construction (NAWIC) celebration that started in 1998 and has grown and expanded every year since.

The same week in front of the State Capitol, Smallwood, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Assemblymember Josh Hoover (R-Folsom), and Assemblymember Maggie Krell (D-Sacramento), attended a brunch organized by a local chapter of NAWIC.

Two of the guest speakers were Dr. Giovanna Brasfield, CEO of Los Angeles-based Brasfield and Associates, and Jennifer Todd, President and Founder of LMS General Contractors.

Todd is the youngest Black woman to receive a California’s Contractors State License Board (A) General Engineering license. An advocate for women of different backgrounds, Todd she said she has been a woman in construction for the last 16 years despite going through some trying times.

A graduate of Arizona State University’s’ Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, in 2009 Todd created an apprenticeship training program, A Greener Tomorrow, designed toward the advancement of unemployed and underemployed people of color.

“I always say, ‘I love an industry that doesn’t love me back,’” Todd said. “Being young, female and minority, I am often in spaces where people don’t look like me, they don’t reflect my values, they don’t reflect my experiences, and I so persevere in spite of it all.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 11.2% of the construction workforce across the country are female. Overall, 87.3% of the female construction workers are White, 35.1% are Latinas, 2.1% are Asians, and 6.5% are Black women, the report reveals.

The National Association of Home Builders reported that as of 2022, the states with the largest number of women working in construction were Texas (137,000), California (135,000) and Florida (119,000). The three states alone represent 30% of all women employed in the industry.

Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park) and the California Legislative Women’s Caucus supported Smallwood-Cuevas’ SCR 30 and requested that more energy be poured into bringing awareness to the severe gender gap in the construction field.

“The construction trade are a proven path to a solid career. and we have an ongoing shortage, and this is a time for us to do better breaking down the barriers to help the people get into this sector,” Rubio said.