Oakland commits $14M to buy residential hotel to house homeless
Transitional housing center comes at an important time
OAKLAND >> As private developers snatch up downtown Oakland’s remaining single-room occupancy hotels, the city has decided it wants to preserve one, if not two for transitional housing.
To help house the city’s growing homeless population, the city of Oakland plans to use some of the $500 million in bond money approved by voters in November to purchase at least one of the downtown properties — which have historically provided rooms for the city’s most vulnerable residents.
“We have a crisis today in the growing number of people on the street so we need to look at existing buildings, especially abandoned hotels,” said Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, who pushed for the funding. “We haven’t had services to keep up with rising homeless situation.”
A city-owned center of housing, drug treatment and job placement would come at a pivotal time for Oakland. The homeless population has increased in numbers and visibility, with tents lining downtown streets and fanning out across nearly all neighborhoods of the city. Multiple fires have broken out at encampments this spring.
A recent survey by Every One Home, a communitybased organization to end homelessness, estimated more than 1,900 people live without shelter in Oakland.
Under the city’s plan, $14 million of Measure KK would be used to purchase a hotel. Kaplan estimates the building could serve a few hundred people a year, who would eventually be placed in permanent housing. Money left over from purchasing the building would be put toward renovations, she said.
Downtown Oakland has seen a decline in cheap housing. In 1985, there were 2,003 single-room occupancy units in downtown Oakland, according to a 2015 city report. But that number dropped to 1,403 units by 2015 and has continued to dwindle as developers have purchased buildings including the Hotel Travelers. The SROs have often provided housing of last resort for very low income residents because they allow people to pay daily, weekly or monthly and do not require a security deposit or credit check.
The addition of cityowned rooms, Kaplan said, would alleviate the demand at the Henry J. Robinson Center, which officials have said is at capacity. The hotel can house 137 people at a time. Michele Byrd, director of housing and community development, did not identify a specific property the city could purchase but said her staff is compiling a list of available buildings.
Louis Chicoine, executive director of Abode Services, a nonprofit that specializes in housing homeless residents, said the model of purchasing existing buildings instead of constructing new ones is a more expedient way to serve Oakland’s rising homeless population.
Abode is currently working with the city of San Jose to open a housing center at a city-owned downtown building. The center is scheduled to open in August.
“I think this is a wonderful strategy to add to the pipeline of housing options,” said Chicoine, who added Oakland’s housing and homeless crisis is particularly acute. “It can be done quickly and relatively cheaply.”
The Oakland City Council unanimously approved the $14 million in funding at a June 19 meeting, after Kaplan proposed $15 million and Mayor Libby Schaaf included $10 million in her 2017-19 budget. The mayor boosted the amount of funds for the homeless after receiving some push back in her initial budget proposal, though the $10 million to purchase a hotel was in her original budget.
Schaaf’s budget includes $185 million to fight homelessness, including $25 million for shelters and $1.1 million for a city crew dedicated to cleaning encampments. The funding is also aimed at creating affordable housing and stopping displacement of longtime Oakland residents.
“Homelessness and housing insecurity are the most pressing problems we’re facing today,” Schaaf said in a statement. “Just as the causes of homelessness are complex, the work to tackle it is as well. We need everyone in this community to help.”