Are you just gonna sit there and watch our people suffer and die?
There is a housing crisis in Oakland, California, that is contributing to our unhoused population being on the streets. According to the City of Oakland, homelessness has doubled in the last ten years. In 2022, Oakland counted 5,055 unhoused, and in 2024, 5,490 unhoused were counted, which reflects a 9 percent increase in unhoused communities in just two years. Oakland has 1,200 emergency shelters and beds, 280 safe RV parking spaces, and about 600 permanent housing units for the unhoused. While this can help some of our unhoused residents, we don’t have the resources to cover even half of what’s needed.
Oakland has been trying to deal with the problem of homelessness but is only finding temporary solutions. One of the ways Oakland has been trying to “help” is by clearing encampments and offering shelters for our unhoused. However, emergency shelters and beds only temporarily shelter the unhoused. After only a couple nights, they’re back on the streets. Often, people decline shelters because they may not feel safe and can’t take their belongings with them. Clearing encampments is causing residents to lose essential and sentimental belongings. Natalie Orenstein from Oaklandside interviewed a woman who lost her belongings due to an encampment clearing: “Blumberg said she lost both financially and sentimentally valuable belongings in that closure, including a boat and her grandmother’s jewelry.”
An article by Yale Law states, “By using personal-property law to examine the context of items, instead of looking to their location, courts would honor the constitutional commitment to protecting individuals from government interferences with the objects he or she holds dear. ” Using the personal property law to examine items of our unhoused communities can stop the city from just throwing away everything when they clear encampments, therefore allowing those sacred items to be kept. Clearing encampments might make the city look better, but it is dehumanizing, and our unhoused continue to suffer greatly. The woman Orenstein interviewed shared, “They want us out of sight and out of mind…It would be nice if they worked collaboratively with us, like we’ve been asking for years.”
Over the years, rent has increased all over the Bay Area, making it harder for families to keep stable housing. The housing shortage the Bay Area is currently facing is also a huge problem and is another reason why our unhoused relatives are being pushed out into the streets. According to the City of San Francisco, “The City’s housing shortage drives out families, forces workers into long commutes, puts seniors at risk, and is a significant contributor to the top challenges we need to tackle, including homelessness, climate change, and our economic recovery.” Housing shortages not only affect the unhoused but also those families barely surviving.
In October 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom allocated $28 million to address homelessness in Oakland. The money will be used to build permanent housing and provide rent and moving costs assistance, case management services, and more. But what gets done with the money we receive for our unhoused? In 2020, a UC Berkeley student mapped Oakland and discovered over 4,000 vacant lots. We can reuse these spaces and get our people off the streets and into warm homes. It is also important that these homes are deeply affordable, near job centers, and close to transportation. Some may need rent assistance. The local government should and needs to prioritize elders who can’t work. The City could work with non-profit organizations like Homies Empowerment, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, and others to offer services like food distribution, clothing distribution, medical services, education programs, and other necessities to survive and struggle less.
Our unhoused are speaking out about what they need but aren’t being heard. According to KQED, “ About 100 homeless advocates and residents rallied in front of Oakland City Hall Tuesday, imploring the city to improve living conditions in homeless encampments instead of trying to tear them down and evict people living there.”
We need to take a step back and help push up the voices of the unhoused and make their voices heard. Every day, countless lives are taken from us too soon because of homelessness. As long as a community sticks together and amplifies and ignites these voices, we can make a huge difference in our society.
It will take much more than the City of Oakland to help change the housing crisis. It will take people from all over the Bay Area to come together and help one another resolve this issue.
So, are you just gonna sit there and watch your people suffer and die?