Oakland campers tapped to be in pilot homelessness program.
Union Point Park campers tapped to be in pilot homelessness program
When the city tried to remove a longstanding homeless encampment from Union Point Park, residents put up barricades, stood their ground and refused to leave.
Now Oakland officials are inviting those who resisted the eviction to take part in a new experiment.
If all goes according to plan, the Union Point residents could become Oakland’s first co-governed encampment — a buzzword that refers to an encampment sanctioned by the city and run jointly by residents and a local nonprofit. That means they will have a stable place to put their tents or tiny homes and a say in the camp’s rules and leadership.
It’s a model that has worked in places including Washington, Oregon and Colorado but has yet to be adopted in the Bay Area.
“The main distinction is the residents are in control of the rules of the road,” said tiny home expert Adam GarrettClark, whose company Tiny Logic is working with the city on a plan for the new camp — which won’t be at Union Point.
The city and homeless residents long have been at odds over Union Point Park, and tensions came to a head last month when workers showed up to remove the last of residents’ tents and makeshift houses — some of which had been there for years.
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development
Commission, which has jurisdiction over the park, had ordered Oakland to clear the encampment, claiming it interfered with the public’s use of the scenic area along the Brooklyn Basin waterfront. If Oakland failed to do so, it faced potential fines of $6,000 per day.
But Union Point residents decided to put up a fight. Backed by activists from the anti-gentrification group United Front Against Displacement, they piled trash, furniture and other items into barricades at the park’s entrances, preventing city vehicles from getting through. Matt Long, whom residents call the camp president, sat on a barricade and refused to move, while protesters lined up behind him.
The effort worked, and city workers left without clearing the camp.
The conservation and development commission granted Oakland an extension, and Oakland officials continued negotiating with Union Point residents. About a dozen were left — down from about 50 months before.
The city floated an offer that has campers feeling cautiously optimistic: City staffers will help them move to a new location and set up a co-governed encampment. In the meantime, while staffers work on finding a site and figuring out the logistics of the new camp, the city has offered to put park residents up in hotel rooms.
Oakland has been trying for some time to set up a co-governed encampment as tent and RV cities continue to grow over sidewalks and parks and along highways, and officials, without enough housing or shelter beds, struggle to manage the camps and keep them clean.
In 2019, the City Council set aside $600,000 to test co-governed encampments. In August, the city commissioned a lengthy report by UC Berkeley’s School of Public Policy that laid out how Oakland could implement the model. When Oakland passed an encampment management policy making certain areas off-limits to camping, the City Council set a goal of setting up its first co-governed encampment by Feb. 20.
Officials did not meet the goal, but they are considering “a number of potential parcels” for the camp, spokeswoman Karen Boyd wrote in an email.
Time is of the essence. The city must clear the Union Point camp by Friday or begin facing fines. But some residents still are wary.
Though the city made verbal offers, it hadn’t provided residents with details in writing. Residents worried that after a month or so in a hotel, funding will run out and they’ll end up on the street without their former community. On Wednesday, they were working on getting a signed contract with the city.
“I’m still going to resist until that’s in order,” said 49-yearold Deanna Riley, who has lived in an RV at Union Point for the past two years. “I’m not going nowhere without it.”
City workers were at Union Point on Wednesday, clearing away trash. A storage container the city provided last week for residents to store their belongings while in the hotel sat mostly empty. A few people, including Long, had checked into cityfunded hotel rooms.
It’s not clear how long it will take to set up a co-governed camp, said Garrett-Clark, who recently submitted his proposal to the city. The model is ideal because it gives residents the freedom to keep pets, stay with their friends and families, and come and go as they please for work — unlike other Oakland housing programs, including the Community Cabins, which some occupants have claimed are too restrictive.
And the fact that Union Point already has leaders in place — Long takes charge as president, and as governor, Riley helps anyone who needs her — makes it a good candidate for the model, Garrett-Clark said.
But not everyone is excited. LaRoy Styles, 40, has been at Union Point for almost two years, and it’s where he feels safe. Styles, who can’t read and therefore has limited job prospects, lives in a tent in the park with his three Chihuahuas.
“I’m not goin’ nowhere,” he said.