Proposal to cite homeless met with harsh criticism

OAKLAND >> An unofficial proposal floated by the city administrator’s office to allow police to cite homeless people living on sidewalks, parks and plazas has sparked outrage from homeless advocates.

The idea was included in a Nov. 24 report on how the city manages homeless encampments. In the report, Assistant to the City Administrator Joe DeVries proposed issuing citations as a way to stop people from setting up encampments in areas where a previous encampment had been cleared. Opponents, however, said such policies criminalize the homeless, who are already forced to live on the fringes of society.

DeVries was supposed to present his report at a committee meeting of the Oakland City Council on Wednesday. Dozens of homeless advocates showed up at the meeting and lambasted DeVries and the city’s administration. Needa Bee, organizer of The Village encampment and one of 22 people arrested Nov. 22 during a protest against encampment closures, screamed at Devries, “You are a murderer,” and accused him of not caring about homeless people. She said five people died after the city tore down their pallet structures and towed the vehicles they were living in.

DeVries then tried to walk out and was accosted by activists. DeVries pulled away and left the City Hall chambers.

DeVries, on Monday, said he was on leave and did not want to comment on the ordeal. Assistant City Administrator Maraskeshia Smith, at the meeting, scolded City Council members for not stopping the activists from berating DeVries.

“I am extremely appalled and disappointed about what happened in this chamber today,” Smith said. “When no one on this dais speaks up for a member of our staff, it is unacceptable.”

City Council President Rebecca Kaplan said DeVries’ proposal should not have been in the report to begin with. It was merely a suggestion, she said, and had not been vetted by the city attorney’s office.

“Having these proposals put out I think scared a lot of people, created a lot of tension for no reason and should have never been produced,” Kaplan said at the meeting.

Homeless advocate Talya Husbands-Hankin called the proposal “cruel and ineffective.”

“People aren’t going to be able to pay these citations; people have no money,” Husbands-Hankin said. “It’s literally pointless. We are literally criminalizing people and pushing them into the prison system.”

Homeless advocates had a similar critique to an ordinance approved in Berkeley last year, which allowed police to cite people for using more than nine square feet of sidewalk for their personal belongings or obstructing BART entrances.

However, at the Oakland meeting, Antonio Taylor spoke in support of the pilot enforcement program.

“We need enforcement. People are scared to go to their parks that we pay for with our taxpayer money. People are scared to take walks around in their own neighborhoods,” Taylor said.