Call to shut street used as Oakland RV camp
Crime could drive Home Depot out, councilman warns
An Oakland City Council member is proposing to temporarily close a street near Home Depot in the Fruitvale neighborhood where people are living in recreational vehicles, to deal with what city and store officials say is a wave of crime because of the rising homeless population.
For months, Councilman Noel Gallo has said safety at the Home Depot at 4000 Alameda Ave. has declined so dramatically that the hardware store may shutter unless the city clears the tents and RVs from the area. Home Depot has said it doesn’t have any plans to close but is paying for two Oakland Police Department squad cars, staffed by offduty officers at $100 an hour each, to patrol the site.
Gallo has called for immediate action, but response from the city hasn’t come quickly enough, so he said he’s taking matters into his own hands. A resolution he is drafting would close down the street behind the store from the 600 block to the 700 block of 37th Avenue.
The closure would last at least 18 months.
“They’re going to fence it all,” Gallo said. “It is moving in the right direction.”
The City Council will discuss the resolution at its July 9 meeting. Gallo said he hopes the council approves the resolution before it goes on recess in August.
“We’ve been trying to work with Home Depot for a number of months, make sure their property is safe,” Gallo told council members at a committee meeting in June. “This is a real serious issue, and I think you already have enough businesses that have left Oakland.”
The area being considered for a closure looks forgotten — a deadend street that intersects East Eighth Avenue, with at least three RVs parked near the middle of the street. Between the RVs, large pieces of cardboard are set up in a makeshift home with piles of plastic storage boxes, bicycles and trash. Graffiti marks the sides of the building across the street.
On a recent evening, a pit bull was roaming among piles of trash. No one was outside, and a knock on the door of an RV went unanswered.
City officials say they don’t know how many homeless people are living on the block.
Home Depot’s loading dock is at the southern border of the street. On the north side is a manufacturing site for the OwensIllinois Glass Co. and one residence, according to the Oakland Police Department. The street will be closed by fencing but will still be accessible for Home Depot deliveries, the Fire Department and one resident who lives at the end of the street, Gallo said.
The company plans to replace a fence between its property and the street, said Margaret Smith, a spokeswoman for the hardware chain. Joe DeVries, an assistant to the city administrator, said he met with Home Depot representatives and was told that the activities at 37th Avenue are becoming an increasing concern for the store.
“They were really clear that it was a huge safety concern for their employees, more so than what was going on at the encampment at the front of the store,” he said.
The street is rarely used by traffic and pedestrians because it’s a dead end, police said. Most of the traffic is for “nefarious activity.” In 2018, authorities responded seven times to calls, including for stolen vehicles, assault and burglary. So far this year, authorities have responded to eight reports of crime, including three incidents of theft and four incidents of stolen vehicles, according to a Police Department report.
On May 6, a person brandished a firearm at two Home Depot employees, police said. After the incident, Francisco J. Uribe, Home Depot’s government relations coordinator, sent an email to Gallo expressing an “urgent need” to restrict access to 37th Avenue.
The Oakland Department of Public Works responded to at least 18 complaints of illegal dumping on the street in the past year.
“I believe the 600 to 700 block of 37th Ave. has a serious and continual crime and dumping issue that will go on unfettered if the City of Oakland does not act to close this area,” police Lt. Mark Rhoden said in a report to the City Council.
The closure would displace the existing RV dwellers. The city doesn’t usually close an encampment unless it can place residents in alternative housing options like the RV park that recently opened in East Oakland, a community cabin site or a shelter.
Because there isn’t a large, organized encampment on the street, the city doesn’t have any plans to relocate the RV dwellers when it shuts down the block, DeVries said.
“It’s not an encampment closure as much as it is securing the deadend streets to make it safer,” he said.
The city’s response to encampments has drawn criticism from advocates for the homeless in the past. Many are pushing for an end to closing encampments and banning curbside communities from areas unless the homeless can be offered adequate housing, Candice Elder, executive director of East Oakland Collective, told The Chronicle last month.
A citysanctioned RV park opened less than 4 miles away from the Home Depot in June. But the RVs parked along 37th Avenue are not eligible for the program because they aren’t in an invitation zone. RV dwellers from certain zones were invited to park at the site, which will eventually offer up to 50 spaces for vehicles. The services offered at the site — sanitation, toilets and water — are a step in the right direction, Elder said.
“It’s more in alignment with what unhoused residents need and what activists have been fighting for on their behalf for — 24/7 safety, stability and support,” she said.
DeVries said the city is working with the Oakland Department of Human Services to identify a longerterm solution and funding sources for the growing homeless encampment at the front of Home Depot.
Last year, the City Council approved $8.6 million from the state’s Homeless Emergency Aid Program to enter into lease agreements with Caltrans to use its properties to operate community cabin sites and RV parking areas, as well as other locations throughout the city.
“We’ve got a really solid framework,” DeVries said.