We need a clear policy but do not approve it today; this needs work and should return to LE committee and staff. 1. Identify where people can go, not just what's prohibited. Do not criminalize unsheltered people. 2. Address legal issues (see Legal Aid letter) 3. Do equity analysis BEFORE voting for a policy. 4. Provide areas for safe RV parking and for encampments, such as using public land. 5. Provide hygiene, sanitation, and trash at all extant encampments, immediately. (Currently serving fewer than 40%, and some not maintained.) 6. Avoid further polarizing Oaklanders! Include unsheltered people as well as nearby residents in coming up with policy that will be effective. 7. The survey questions were prejudiced, not statistically valid, and should not be considered authoritative. Thank you for council and staff efforts.

I am a District 2 resident and I strongly urge you to vote NO on this policy. This offers no solutions and only criminalizes homelessness. A sensible policy would focus on pathways to housing and center the ideas of the homeless community in its design.

this proposed policy is unconscionable. it would seek to remove options from people who already have none, in the worst housing crisis in living memory, in the middle of a deadly pandemic. whether through police brutality or through exposure to the novel coronavirus, this policy very likely would lead to the deaths of many unhoused people. it would be classist, racist, ableist, and shameful to do this.

I am a D6 resident who strongly opposes this policy. We need to support our vulnerable unhoused neighbors, not disrupt and criminalize them, especially during these times of economic recession, low employment, and health pandemic.

I am a 12-year-old youth skola and d3 resident also a student of decolonized academy I am opposed to the Encampment mgt policy. hopefulness provides housing ad self help hungry program and other many groups so I feel that there is reason to wonder about housing for homeless people.

I am youth poverty scholar by the age of 17 and I oppose this policy against homelessness. This encampment ban from what I've heard from encampment on Wood Street lot. They believe this policy is a form of redlining and criminalizing the people living in these tents. I've seen the displacement organization DPW did to homeless folks and Im in fear that these people are jeopardy of physical and legal punishment.

I strongly ask Council Members to vote NO on the encampment management policy. It is not only racist and ableist, it does not provide any meaningful pathways for un-housed folks to find stable housing. Listen to unhoused folks - often encampments are more safe, affirming and preferable to shared shelters (not to mention the dearth of suitable temporary housing options for unhoused and housing insecure community members). STOP criminalizing homelessness.

I am a 17 year old youth student of Deecolonize Academy.I live in D5 at Fruitvale and have dealt with evictions and poverty my whole life. I oppose this policy cause it focuses on the wrong issues. Homelessness is an issue but instead of attacking homeless people themselves we should focus on making housing more affordable. Most people here haven't witness Encampment sweeps, most people here haven't been homeless and don't understand the struggle. Homelessness solutions are already around, some great examples are Home fullness and Self help hunger programs. These Programs need more support and coverage to show that these solutions exist.

The EMP as currently proposed seems clearly intended to boost property values for a specific population of Oakland residents. It both directly harms the unhoused community by putting more funding towards police than it does outreach services, as well as doing long-term harm to renters by basing the majority of the policy on polling homeowners, while renters make up 57% of Oakland’s housed population. I would strongly urge that this policy not pass in its current state until it can be reworked to provide concrete support for the unhoused population of Oakland.

I'm a tenant living in District 1. I read the EMP. While there are some thoughtful ideas in the document, the basic philosophy of the document is still that homeless people are a problem that need to be "managed", for the benefit of the housed; this proposed plan centers the comfort of wealthy people, like me, and frames homeless encampments as fundamentally unruly and unhealthy, rather than a positive survival strategy for poor folks trying to pursue life, liberty, and happiness during our outrageous housing crisis. Particularly degrading is the insistence that encampments must be 50 feet from houses, when houses are allowed to be built much closer to each other. It seems to me that the EMP is pandering to wealthy people's dehumanizing fear of folks in tents.

At the least, the EMP should be put ON HOLD until it can be reviewed by the Homeless Commission later this year. However, the document would be better served with revisions suggested by HAWG and other homeless leaders and campers.

I confidently oppose the passage of the EMP, particularly on this date.

-Thomas Nelson

As a formerly houseless youth, I oppose the Encampment Management Policy. I have seen first hand what displacement does to houseless encampments, destroying property and leaving people who at least had a tent or an R.V with nothing. Displacement without a solution is not a resolution, it is only abuse and needless violence to people who are already backed into a corner by society. This policy only encourages the sweeps of houseless encampments, and the banning of them in public areas, where they are already continually harassed and the victims of police terror. As a youth that has experienced the terror of eviction many times in my life, knowing that if we left the house we would face the cold streets, fear filled my body. I can only imagine the fear that fills the hungry, tired bodies of houseless people after they have been evicted or kicked out of their house and the city is coming to kick them out of the streets. If the houseless population was being consulted in this policy, I feel like it would be much better and more effective. Homefulness is a solution to housing that not only consults houseless people, it is run and founded by houseless and formerly houseless scholars and educators who are creating and have created housing units in East Oakland for houseless and low-income families.

I am a D2 Resident and I would like to express my opposition to the Encampment Management Policy proposal and my support of the points submitted by the Homeless Advocacy Working Group. The disingenuous "quality of life" argument from (majority white) homeowners in the city fails to take into account that unhoused Oakland residents are still, in fact, Oakland residents, and their quality of life matters too. This proposed policy would severely decrease quality of life for unhoused Oakland residents, further criminalizing their already precarious existence. It's an "out of sight, out of mind" answer to the homelessness crisis, in which it doesn't matter what happens to unhoused Oakland residents as long as no one else actually has to see it. The policy would make it much more difficult for people to access services, which seems thoroughly counterproductive if the apparent long-term goal is to help people get off the streets and into housing. I urge the council to realize that, far from providing any kind of solution, the Encampment Management Policy will exacerbate the homelessness crisis in Oakland by cutting off access to necessary services and larger community. Enacting this incredibly misguided policy, carrying out large-scale encampment evictions in the middle of a pandemic, would be definitive proof that any claim to 'progressivism' by this city rings utterly hollow.

I strongly support the encampment management policy. I'm a 20 year resident of D3 where we have 70% of Oakland's unhoused population. Many who oppose this policy oppose any sort of rules or structure for the unhoused, live away form the problem in other districts or are part of the non profits feeding off of the problem. I was once unhoused and pulled myself out of it. What I needed was more structure and rules, not less. Addiction is hard to overcome but it can be done. Tough love is the best form.

As a D3 constituent, I strongly oppose this proposal. During this pandemic & economic depression, when a wave of evictions is already pushing people to the streets, the policy is genocidal. This policy explicitly violates CDC guidance that advises a halt to all encampment evictions at a time when #COVID19 is still spreading rapidly. Unhoused #Oakland residents need to be allowed to shelter in place to survive this pandemic. If Oakland’s City Council approves this “Encampment Management Policy” they will continue the legacy of underfunding the community services and housing resources necessary to meet the basic needs of poor people, and instead sending police to criminalize unhoused people for the ways they survive.

I am a D1 resident and have been living in Oakland since 1976. I agree with recommendations sent to Council from the Homeless Advocacy Working Group stressing the need for additional community engagement with includes voices of our unhoused community members. In addition, any proposed encampment policy must have an Equity Analysis by the Dept of Race & Equity prior to submission to Council. The City must take action to provide more services to address the inhumane conditions that unhoused community members are forced to live in - and not vote to support the removal of residents and closure of encampments without real defined alternatives for safe and secure housing - especially during this pandemic. I urge you to vote no and send this back to the LEC.

I am a District 7 homeowner.

Rules and guidelines for encampments are long overdue, but the current proposed encampment management policy (EMP) must not be passed in its current form, it is lacking due process and revisions need to be made to have a policy truly considerate of Oakland’s most vulnerable communities-- making a better Oakland for us all. The EMP must not be passed and instead the necessary time taken to analyze, engage and draft an improved and humane policy. The EMP process needs more inclusion of unhoused voices, inclusion of impacted neighbors and neighborhoods of color, inclusion of health and mental health professionals. Send the proposed EMP back to the LEC drawing board for revision.

A humane policy should include solutions for immediate shelter (moving folks from encampments to tiny home and tent villages, protected land, safe RV spaces instead of solely limited shelter beds); full wraparound services (especially addressing trauma mental health, addiction); pathways to permanent housing; enforcement of trash pickup and cleanup of illegal dumping; sanitation applied to all sites (trash pickup, rodent control, dumpsters, portable toilets, hand washing stations); rules and guidelines on trash/hoarding, space, blocking walkways, etc.

The proposed policy is based on a survey taken by 850 people, majority White homeowners-- not reflective of the diversity and vast lived experiences of Oaklanders.

Community stakeholders, namely those w/lived experience of homelessness were excluded from the policy’s formation. As a lawyer serving disabled unhoused Oaklanders,I've seen firsthand how displacement causes deep harm in myriad ways.One client had a memory album destroyed during encampment displacement which he had spent decades compiling. Photos, news clips,obituaries & other priceless‘scraps’of his East Oakland neighborhood’s history were lost.The loss was profound &unquantifiable for him,his family & neighborhood.This policy greenlights displacement & contradicts many of the city’s own July 2020 recs & is harmful from socioeconomic, environmental equity lens as it impacts certain districts over others,concentrating encampments in poorer non-White areas,w/poor air quality. It will have disparate impact on BIPOC & disabled communities based on city’s own data from OHAPD, OHA & OPD.High/low sensitivity zone distinction will push people to isolated,industrial places where it's hard or impossible to maintain connections to life sustaining resources/services.Many unhoused people lack phones & only way to obtain services is often in person, which is impossible when pushed far away from home-base of said resource. It also flies in face of CDC recommendations that unsheltered residents be allowed to stay put,as clearing encampments forces dispersion severing connections to services &boosting potential disease spread.This policy threatens public health &our city’s very integrity.

I am an Oakland resident and I am writing in strong opposition to this proposal. It is clear that it will only increase the dire needs of our community, and further criminalize unhoused people for being refugees of a system that will only continue to fail more people. A policy formed to address homelessness should be written by a majority of unhoused voices, as those are the experts here on their needs and innovative solutions. Forming policy prioritizing homeowners does not make sense. Enacting this policy during a pandemic does not make sense. We need more space for all of our community to be safe, not less. We have the utility to make encampments cleaner and safer - providing water, sanitation, health services, garbage pickup, and power to these communities is more aligned with improving our city than criminalizing people for not having access to housing.

It also is important to note that 42% of the homeless people in Alameda county are disabled, so when we are discussing the disabled community's access to sidewalks, that is not separate from the unhoused population.

I am a D2 resident and I oppose this proposal. The proposed policy offers a detailed plan for how to regulate and remove encampments but little in the way of how to actually support the people it impacts and displaces. The criminalization of unhoused residents is not a sustainable or humane way to address homelessness in our community.

Until liberated Ohlone/Lisjan land is granted to the thousands of oakland residents who have lost their homes to gentrification, land grabs,evictions and other settler colonial lies that ensure poor people end up on the street while other hoard and steal evict and remove there can’t b bans of humans from public land -No encampment ban until land is granted so we can build our own homeless and poor peoples solutions to homelessness like Homefulness