Housing activist elected in Oakland
When activist Carroll Fife choreographed homeless mothers and their kids taking over an empty house in West Oakland to spotlight the city’s housing crisis, it drew international coverage.
Now, Fife, the mastermind behind Moms 4 Housing, has unseated twoterm City Council incumbent Lynette Gibson McElhaney in a stunning victory in District Three. The race — one of the most hotly contested among the five seats up for grabs on the council — is for a district that includes West Oakland, Downtown, Uptown, Jack London, Pill Hill, Lake Merritt and the Port of Oakland.
Fife’s win signals a shift to a more progressive electorate in Oakland. Her campaign centered on the idea that “housing is a human right” and that public safety should be reimagined — a nod to Oaklanders’ shifting priorities amid a growing homelessness crisis and a racial reckoning over police brutality.
Fife was one of the lead organizers behind Moms 4 Housing, a collective that began when homeless mothers took over a speculatorowned house on Magnolia Street in West Oakland in November 2019. The incumbent, McElhaney, was the first Black woman to be elected president of the City Council by her colleagues in 2015 and has a background in affordable housing but was seen as generally more moderate than Fife.
McElhaney was endorsed by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. Fife’s win could mean trouble for Schaaf, who has encouraged marketrate as well as affordable development and more police, whereas Fife wants to focus on more affordable housing for lowto noincome residents and a shift from traditional policing.
Fife received nearly 49% of the vote by Sunday, surpassing McElhaney, who received just over 30% of the vote. McElhaney told The Chronicle on Monday that she was conceding.
“It is my honor and my privilege to represent my community as the District Three representative, and I really labored in love to do that work with high integrity and with a sense of urgency around the things that do us harm,” McElhaney said. “I am grateful for the opportunity and thankful for my time.”
“We have left nothing on the table. My team and I put in the elbow grease. We pray that Carroll will be more effective,” she added.
Fife said she received a text message from McElhaney on Monday morning that she was going to concede and prepare for a transition. In a statement Monday, Fife thanked her volunteers for their work.
“This one council seat is just the beginning,” Fife said. “Our campaign is transitioning into a permanent political organization dedicated to passing transformative legislation and building a progressive majority on the Oakland City Council. Join us as we build a better Oakland for all.”
Fife’s win stems from several factors, said Jim Ross, a media consultant in Oakland. Ross worked on an independent expenditure committee on behalf of labor unions in support of Fife.
Liz OrtegaToro, the executive secretary and treasurer of the Alameda Labor Council, which represents 135,000 workers, said that Fife’s activism is what got her labor support.
“She’s walked picket lines with us,” OrtegaToro said. “I fight for workers to have a living wage and also be able to pay their rent and stay in the communities that they serve, and that is definitely where her values align with labor’s values.”
One big factor was a 2016 grand jury report that accused McElhaney of breaking state and city ethics rules by interfering with approvals for five townhouses next door to her West Oakland home. That same year, the city’s public ethics commission sued McElhaney, saying she repeatedly failed to produce records for an investigation into whether she used her office for personal gain.
Other factors include the number of new voters who moved to District Three since McElhaney was last elected, many of whom she hadn’t forged relationships with, and the Alameda County Democratic Party and labor unions endorsing Fife,
Ross said.
“Incumbents can’t take anything for granted. That is the lesson here,” Ross said. “If an incumbent doesn’t do the work, doesn’t represent their district, doesn’t build the relationships with new voters as they move in, they could be at real risk when they’re up for reelection.”
Fife plans to focus on protenant regulations, convert abandoned and dilapidated homes to affordable housing and give renters the first right of refusal to purchase the home where they live if it goes up for sale.
Fife said impact fees, which developers of residential buildings are required to pay if they don’t build a certain amount of affordable housing in marketrate projects, are a “failed process.” Instead, Fife told The Chronicle that she wants to require those developments to have at least 20% of units be affordable.
About policing, Fife campaigned on reassigning traffic stops to civilian staff and having mental health staff respond to nonviolent 911 calls.
McElhaney was on the Oakland Equity Caucus, a group of council members that enhanced the city’s budget with federal stimulus funding, increasing money for small businesses, municipal broadband, efforts to fight home displacement, healthy food for Oakland’s rising population of lowincome and unemployed residents, and a lifeline for artists.
She was known for advocating against gun violence, which shaped her life irreparably in recent years. Her son was shot and killed in 2019 when several men attempted to rob him outside a store near the University of Southern California, where he was a student.
Elected on a platform of enhancing public safety, McElhaney was one of the authors of a 2017 ordinance that established the city’s Department of Violence Prevention. In 2019, Guillermo Cespedes, an expert in violence prevention, was named chief of the department — a move that McElhaney said helps her feel like she’s leaving her work in good hands.
“I can in good confidence move on to my next greatest chapter while that work matures and continue to be a champion for those voices and support them in my private capacity as a mentoring member of the community,” McElhaney said.
“My head is high. My heart is full,” she added.