Newsom unveils 15 trailers to help house homeless
Up to 70 unsheltered residents will be able to remain until September
OAKLAND » Responding to a statewide crisis he called “this issue of our time,” Gov. Gavin Newsom kicked off his ambitious homelessness agenda Thursday by deploying 15 trailers in Oakland that will house up to 70 unsheltered residents.
The move comes eight days after Newsom promised to pour more than $1 billion into housing the homeless and provide 100 trailers as temporary shelters across California. On Thursday, Newsom revealed that one of the first communities to benefit from that commitment will be Oakland, which is a city particularly hard hit by a staggering increase in its homeless population.
“We own this issue,” Newsom said. “The issue of homelessness is a crisis in the state of Cali
fornia. It’s happened on our watch and we need to meet this moment.”
The governor also addressed the controversial movement that has come to symbolize Oakland’s current struggle with homelessness: Moms 4 Housing. Members of the activist group took over an empty West Oakland house in November and were evicted and arrested Tuesday. Newsom praised the activists and said his staff will be meeting with them shortly. He assured reporters gathered Thursday that “a lot of wonderful things” would come from their movement.
“They’re representing tens of thousands of other mothers, families that are suffering,” Newsom said. “It takes a tremendous amount of courage to do what they’ve done. They deserve an enormous amount of credit.”
As Newsom spoke, 15 trailers — former FEMA trailers now owned by the state — sat in rows in a vacant, city- owned lot next to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Each is equipped with a double bed, a set of bunk beds, a day bed, a small kitchen and bathroom and a TV.
Six of those trailers will go to Oakland-based nonprofit Covenant House to house homeless youth. The rest will stay on the vacant lot and house homeless families, including possibly with their pets. Oakland-based nonprofit Roots
Community Health Center will provide services, including a job clinic, for the residents. The program will be supported by a $1.5 million grant from Taube Philanthropies.
Occupants will live in those trailers at least through September. Each family must have at least one adult willing and able to hold down a job.
As he announced the new initiative, Newsom was flanked by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín, Assemblyman Rob Bonta, DAlameda, Roots Community Health Center CEO Dr. Noha Aboelata and others.
“On a cold and rainy day like today, I think it’s a powerful reminder that the decisions we make collectively, the actions that we take collectively as Californians on behalf of our unsheltered brothers and sisters, can and do have life and death consequences,” Aboelata said.
Oakland’s homeless population grew by 47% between 2017 and 2019, reaching 4,071 people living on the street, in vehicles, in shelters and in other makeshift housing, according to the county’s biennial pointin-time count.
Over the next few weeks, Alameda County also will be receiving $ 38 million to address the homelessness crisis — money from funds approved in last year’s budget, Newsom said. Oakland already has received $19.7 million for an array of homelessness-related measures, including supporting rapid rehousing programs, converting hotels and motels into permanent supportive housing, and paying first and last month’s rent for people struggling to afford housing.
In his 2020-21 budget, proposed last week, Newsom requested another $750 million to create a new fund for homelessness services. On Thursday he said he’s also requesting that the legislature fast-track those dollars so they can be deployed in July or August, much more quickly than last year’s funds.
Newsom’s office is attempting to overhaul the state’s Medi- Cal system to make it more effective at addressing the needs of the homeless. More details will be available in the next few weeks, Newsom said, but the project is expected to take about a year.
Another 42 trailers are being deployed around the Chico Municipal Airport to house the homeless of Butte County whose lives were devastated by the Camp fire in 2018.
Newsom signed an executive order last week requiring state agencies to identify empty lots and unused buildings that could be used to temporarily shelter the homeless. His office will announce the first 100 of those sites in the coming days and weeks, he said.
Newsom’s appearance in Oakland marked the end of a week-long homelessness tour, during which the governor made stops in Grass Valley, Riverside, Los Angeles and Fresno.