The Answer to Homelessness is Affordable Homes, Not Harassment
We are disappointed, but not shocked by Mayor Sheng Thao’s new executive order ramping up encampment sweeps throughout Oakland. She joins San Francisco Mayor London Breed, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and many other East Bay City Councils and officials in further criminalizing our unhoused neighbors for being poor and having no place to go.
Emboldened by the recent Johnson v. Grants Pass Supreme Court decision, the Mayor of Oakland issued an Executive Order on September 23rd which criminalizes homelessness by directing police and other City departments to remove unhoused people from encampments and cite them for violations of Oakland municipal code – even though the City itself acknowledges that there may not be any shelter options available to them.
At EBHO, we clearly see that directives like this will not help unhoused community members find shelter, nor will they bring additional safety to the unhoused or any other Oakland residents. Instead, they will force our unhoused neighbors out of the most visible areas of our city into other neighborhoods or more precarious living situations. This will allow Oakland’s securely housed residents and workforce to avoid the discomfort and shame of walking by and ignoring the harsh reality experienced daily by our most vulnerable community members. But a policy based on “out of sight, out of mind” is neither compassionate nor effective.
We know that choosing to move our unhoused neighbors from one site to another, or chasing them out of our city altogether, is not a real or long-term solution. In fact, it can often make situations worse by separating people from their belongings (including IDs, medical records, and other important documents,) resources, and/or support networks they depend on.
The solution to the crisis of homelessness is more safe, stable, affordable homes. Until deeply affordable housing with supportive services is available to all who need it, homelessness will persist. Absent that, service providers and those in community with unhoused populations must do a much better job of offering resources, health care, and other support. This will only be effective when people experiencing homelessness are not living under constant fear of arrest, harassment, and forced relocation.
Responses to homelessness that rely on criminalization do not exist in a vacuum. This particular executive order is part of a longstanding history in our country and in our state of relying on policing to address problems created by our government’s failure to provide adequate resources to our underserved communities. Once again, it is poor people, seniors, disabled folks, and people of color–specifically Black people–who will bear the brunt of this criminalization. We know this to be true in a city where Black people make up 23% of the total population but over 60% of our unhoused population.
We believe that housing is a human right. While we understand and work within the constraints of our current economic system, we believe that human well-being should always come before property rights or investor concerns and that our policies should evolve to reflect those priorities.
Mayor Thao’s executive order runs counter to EBHO’s mission, vision, and principles of a racially and economically just East Bay where everyone has a safe, stable, and affordable home. We join the chorus of affordable housing, homelessness, and social justice advocacy organizations in decrying this recent action and any actions that would harm our unhoused neighbors and neglect long-term solutions like permanent supportive housing.
As we work to increase the resources needed to meet all of our community’s housing needs, we must work to remove barriers that make this work more difficult. Toward that end, we urge you to vote yes on Proposition 5, a statewide initiative eliminating the ability of a small minority of just one-third of the voters to block affordable housing and infrastructure funding measures even when supported by an overwhelming majority.
Join us, and consider supporting other local, regional, and national organizations working on permanent solutions to end homelessness, like EveryOne Home, Bay Area Community Services, All Home, National Homelessness Law Center, and National Alliance to End Homelessness.
We will continue to fight for housing justice for all.
— The East Bay Housing Organizations Team