San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Oakland fails on homelessness
When Jared Defigh was evicted in October from Wood Street Commons, a large homeless encampment in West Oakland, the city offered him a spot in one of its newly constructed tiny homes. He had a bed, shelter and two meals a day on weekdays.
But he didn’t stay long. “The rules are basically no visitors at all,” Defigh said. “My own dad couldn’t visit me except at the gate.”
Conditions at the site declined quickly, Defigh said, and his roommate grew violent. When he asked for help from the people running the site, they told him to work it out or leave. So, after a few weeks, he left.
Defigh is just one of the many residents of Wood Street forced out of the longstanding camp located on Caltrans and city land under the MacArthur Maze of freeways. But three months after a mass eviction of part of the site, where more than 200 people were displaced, many have scattered to side streets, finding the resources the city of Oakland offers to be severely lacking. Stories of assaults, curfews, apathetic nonprofit staff and a loss of community prevail among those who’ve entered both the nearby tiny home site and a city-sanctioned RV parking lot a few blocks away.
The remaining 60 people at Wood Street on city-owned land don’t have much interest in what Oakland is offering, but time is running out: This month a second and potentially final sweep is scheduled. What’s left of their cobbledtogether homes could be destroyed, with little on offer for those being displaced.
For years, Oakland has tried to figure out solutions for what residents have dubbed Wood Street Commons, even contemplating turning an old Army base into a shelter. But solutions are coming too late and as conditions decline in the two closest shelter sites, interest in receiving services from the city at all has waned.
It’s a colossal failure at a time when we sorely need success. Spending millions to create spaces where people don’t want to live is bad enough, but a November audit
of the city’s homeless nonprofits shows a glaring lack of cohesive planning or success in getting people indoors. In the meantime, Oakland’s homeless population has skyrocketed, increasing 24% over the last three years. As of early 2022, more than 3,300 people were sleeping on the streets.
Defigh’s plight is part of this, but he’s doing OK. He is now back at Wood Street. On Tuesday, the day before a giant storm walloped California, he was hard at work. His red T-shirt was wet with sweat as he pushed a full wheelbarrow of wood chips down the street to cover the muddy ground in his camp.
“I’m so happy to be back here,” he told me, smiling. “The community is the best part. There’s a kind of openness, it’s hard to put into words.”
When I talked to unhoused people at and around Wood Street, “safety” and “freedom” were common words used to describe the site. John Janosko, a resident and organizer in
stopping the evictions, said their definition of safety is different from the city’s. “To me, it doesn’t mean like a fence around a place with a security guard,” he said. “I think safety means respect that people give you.”
Somehow, they’ve been successful. Unlike the tiny home site, where a resident was fatally shot in December, Wood Street has seen no such violence. Janosko said no one has died or been seriously assaulted. “All of us have our trauma and dysfunctions and stuff that comes out sometimes, but I think we’ve learned how to deal with it,” he said.
Freedom is another factor people said they lose in accepting city services. Clutch, who didn’t provide his last name, lives on a noisy street a fiveminute walk from Wood Street Commons. Like Defigh, he lost his spot at the encampment during the October sweep. But unlike many of his neighbors living in their vehicles, he was told he wasn’t eligible for the
RV site. The reason: He has a van, not an RV.
But in the end, he thinks he lucked out by not being allowed in.
“I know people over there and there’s no electricity, there’s no food, there’s nothing,” he said. “I’ll just stay out here. I’m fine.”
When asked if he’d accept a tiny home placement, he said that wasn’t up his alley, either. “I don’t need a prison box,” he said. “Curfews? No visitors? No way. You can’t cook your own food. They say it’s a place for you to come home, but can only bring like, one shopping bag worth of clothing.”
For a while, Clutch hoped he’d get offered actual housing. On the day his section of the Wood Street encampment was cleared in October he was told he would receive housing in 30 days, a mystifyingly late proposition, as the eviction had been in the works for months.
Nobody called. Three months later he’s still in his van.
Clutch still relies on Wood Street for community and says he visits regularly to get food and clothes. But he’s frustrated by the lack of support available to him. He’s tried the Department of Veterans Affairs for support but was told that because he doesn’t have posttraumatic stress disorder, any serious mental health issues or drug addiction, it has nothing to offer him.
And Oakland is not stepping up to the plate either. As unhoused people are ignored, evicted from communities they’ve built and offered lackluster services, it’s no wonder trust in the system disintegrates.
“It feels like we’re just a small voice and no one even cares,” Clutch said. “No one hears us. Especially as a veteran, I’m ashamed of my country. I’m ashamed.”