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Agenda Item
3 24-0094 Subject: Report On City Managed Homeless Interventions
From: Councilmember Fife
Recommendation: Receive An Informational Report From The City Administrator On All City Managed Homelessness Interventions, Including (1) A List Of All Interventions And Which District Each Intervention Is Located In; (2) The Service Provider And Specific Amenities And Services Provided At Each Location; (3) The Managing City Staff For Each Intervention; And (4) If And How The City Ensures All Of The Necessary Facilities And Services For Residents Are In Place And Fully Functional
I strongly urge the city to prioritize funding for safe and sanitary shelter and housing solutions for our unhoused communities. I am concerned about the significant resources still being allocated to encampment sweeps. These sweeps often displace individuals without providing a viable long-term solution, exacerbating the challenges faced by our most vulnerable residents.
Furthermore, I would like to draw attention to the new shelter at Jack London Inn. It appears that this facility is not prioritizing the local homeless population of the Jack London district. This oversight not only fails to address the specific needs of this community but also undermines the safety and well-being of the district as a whole. We need a comprehensive plan that ensures the Jack London unhoused residents are given priority and that their needs are met effectively.
I urge the council to reassess the approach to homelessness by redirecting funds from encampment sweeps towards sustainable housing solutions and by ensuring that new facilities like the Jack London Inn shelter truly serve the local populations they were intended to help.
As the crisis continues, "interventions" have sadly fallen far short of supportive housing navigation. In a court of law, if the types of conditions that residents are subjected to were to be on trial, it would be nothing less than criminal. Sweeps escalate cycles of harm. We need to stop the sweeps and re-evaluate the entire contractor/provider system that is in place; truly investigating the public health crises that these so call cabin communities have created. Many residents at the Wood Street Cabins I have spoken with have detailed the appalling unsanitary conditions, abuse from management and some workers (though not all, some low level workers are doing their best). These sites do not provide substantive housing navigation or wrap around services of care and trauma-informed recovery; instead they force people to choose between a carceral environment or the relative familiarity, yet dangers of living on the streets. Many encampments face direct abuse and threat of safety from illegal dumping and inhumane practices of vigilante stylized groups, masquerading as wannabe politicians. The Wood Street Commons has petitioned the City of Oakland, the County of Alameda, and the State of California for at least 4 years now with various integrative solutions to these issues, mostly growing from one foundational truth: Community is what creates safety. Stop the sweeps, change the programs, listen to the unhoused. I am a D3 Laborer and resident, Thank you.
Emergency interventions and services for the homeless are inadequate and mismanaged. Residents of the BOSS Wood St Community Cabins report unsanitary conditions, with out-of-order restrooms, lack of 24-hour access to drinking water, inconsistent toilet paper supply, and ignored disability accommodation requests. A resident had to repair the washing machine after it was left broken for six months. The kitchen lacks hot water, and the stove has been non-functional since the site opened.
Residents also face an unsafe environment and unfair treatment, with no keys to their cabins, leading to theft, intrusion, and violence. There is no fair grievance process, causing fear of retaliation for complaints. The cabins lack comprehensive services such as healthcare, employment development, case management, educational programs, and internet access, making them merely “a storage area for homeless people.”
More residents from the Wood Street Community have died than have been housed by the BOSS Community Cabins in a year.
We demand transparency and accountability, including an independent audit of service providers and the establishment of a resident oversight board. An effective grievance procedure is essential to hold providers accountable and ensure residents' concerns are addressed. The 2022 Homeless Services Audit revealed $70 million spent over three years without tracking outcomes, highlighting the need for better oversight and resource utilization.
A year ago when Oakland's Police and Public Works Departments forcibly displaced unhoused residents from 1707 Wood St., I advocated for eight displaced residents who were disabled and, having nowhere else to go, reluctantly accepted cabins at the Wood St. Cabins program operated by BOSS. Each reported routinely inaccessible and unsanitary bathroom, kitchen and laundry facilities, often in disrepair, lack of basic supplies such as toilet paper, drinking water and beddings, a failure by staff to link them with housing or services, and harassment and abuse by staff. Three of these participants, women who spoke up about these issues' adverse impacts on their lives, were rebuffed by staff and forced to leave the program in retaliation for speaking up. Of the few participants in the program whom I know from the Wood St. community who did eventually move into permanent housing, none were linked to the housing by BOSS housing navigators. Complaints about these inhumane living conditions and the lack of services at the program have been widespread among participants. This program is not housing by any stretch of the imagination; nor is it a step toward permanent housing, job training, advocacy or services. The "cabins" are unsafe for participants, who are essentially being warehoused there and often mistreated by staff, and this has inflicted further trauma on unhoused Oaklander, who have ensured repeated displacement from housing and later by the city from their unhoused communities.
We are writing on behalf of East Bay Community Law Center's Homeless Subunit. We provide legal advocacy on behalf of unhoused individuals and communities.
Extant shelter options are generally inaccessible to disabled individuals, contribute to trauma, and fail to fully provide services contracted for.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of the ways City-Managed interventions fail to deliver and meet the needs of the unhoused community:
1. Shelter options and programs fail to meet the disability related needs of disabled individuals.
2. Service providers are receiving millions of dollars to provide shelter, yet basic services are not being provided. We have either heard or observed everything from a lack of toilet paper in the bathrooms to residents at various sites reporting a failure to provide housing navigation services as promised.
3. Most program sites have restrictions on what property can be brought onto the sites and fail to provide storage options in a meaningful way.
4. We’ve heard from numerous clients that there is no safe and accessible way to file a grievance, especially in cases of sexual harassment. In some cases, individuals were told their only option to report a grievance was to report to the individual that aggrieved them. There is no neutral way for a shelter or program participant to file a grievance.
Any report or action by the Council or City should consider these inadequacies in adopt recommendations that attempt to remedy them.
In the encampment resolution funding, the administration claims it will close encampments at Mosswood, east 12th st and MLK and put the people in the jack London inn. But everyone at the lake Merritt lodge will also be moved there. There are not enough rooms for all those people. This contradiction is creating confusion. The intervention sites have all sorts of problems, with residents saying they’re unsafe and unsanitary, they lose their housing paperwork, etc. So the city cannot be closing encampments when there’s no adequate transitional shelter available, and especially when there’s no housing to transition people into.
We need independent oversight and auditing of the intervention programs. We have heard horror stories about abusive and corrupt management. They don’t have the access to healthcare, case management, workforce development, or education that will help people stabilize improve their chances of a successful transition. A resident said the cabins were merely a ‘storage area for homeless people.’ When there’s no housing to transition people into, you shouldn’t be warehousing people in these shelters.
I strongly urge the city to prioritize funding for safe and sanitary shelter and housing solutions for our unhoused communities. I am concerned about the significant resources still being allocated to encampment sweeps. These sweeps often displace individuals without providing a viable long-term solution, exacerbating the challenges faced by our most vulnerable residents.
Furthermore, I would like to draw attention to the new shelter at Jack London Inn. It appears that this facility is not prioritizing the local homeless population of the Jack London district. This oversight not only fails to address the specific needs of this community but also undermines the safety and well-being of the district as a whole. We need a comprehensive plan that ensures the Jack London unhoused residents are given priority and that their needs are met effectively.
I urge the council to reassess the approach to homelessness by redirecting funds from encampment sweeps towards sustainable housing solutions and by ensuring that new facilities like the Jack London Inn shelter truly serve the local populations they were intended to help.
As the crisis continues, "interventions" have sadly fallen far short of supportive housing navigation. In a court of law, if the types of conditions that residents are subjected to were to be on trial, it would be nothing less than criminal. Sweeps escalate cycles of harm. We need to stop the sweeps and re-evaluate the entire contractor/provider system that is in place; truly investigating the public health crises that these so call cabin communities have created. Many residents at the Wood Street Cabins I have spoken with have detailed the appalling unsanitary conditions, abuse from management and some workers (though not all, some low level workers are doing their best). These sites do not provide substantive housing navigation or wrap around services of care and trauma-informed recovery; instead they force people to choose between a carceral environment or the relative familiarity, yet dangers of living on the streets. Many encampments face direct abuse and threat of safety from illegal dumping and inhumane practices of vigilante stylized groups, masquerading as wannabe politicians. The Wood Street Commons has petitioned the City of Oakland, the County of Alameda, and the State of California for at least 4 years now with various integrative solutions to these issues, mostly growing from one foundational truth: Community is what creates safety. Stop the sweeps, change the programs, listen to the unhoused. I am a D3 Laborer and resident, Thank you.
Emergency interventions and services for the homeless are inadequate and mismanaged. Residents of the BOSS Wood St Community Cabins report unsanitary conditions, with out-of-order restrooms, lack of 24-hour access to drinking water, inconsistent toilet paper supply, and ignored disability accommodation requests. A resident had to repair the washing machine after it was left broken for six months. The kitchen lacks hot water, and the stove has been non-functional since the site opened.
Residents also face an unsafe environment and unfair treatment, with no keys to their cabins, leading to theft, intrusion, and violence. There is no fair grievance process, causing fear of retaliation for complaints. The cabins lack comprehensive services such as healthcare, employment development, case management, educational programs, and internet access, making them merely “a storage area for homeless people.”
More residents from the Wood Street Community have died than have been housed by the BOSS Community Cabins in a year.
We demand transparency and accountability, including an independent audit of service providers and the establishment of a resident oversight board. An effective grievance procedure is essential to hold providers accountable and ensure residents' concerns are addressed. The 2022 Homeless Services Audit revealed $70 million spent over three years without tracking outcomes, highlighting the need for better oversight and resource utilization.
A year ago when Oakland's Police and Public Works Departments forcibly displaced unhoused residents from 1707 Wood St., I advocated for eight displaced residents who were disabled and, having nowhere else to go, reluctantly accepted cabins at the Wood St. Cabins program operated by BOSS. Each reported routinely inaccessible and unsanitary bathroom, kitchen and laundry facilities, often in disrepair, lack of basic supplies such as toilet paper, drinking water and beddings, a failure by staff to link them with housing or services, and harassment and abuse by staff. Three of these participants, women who spoke up about these issues' adverse impacts on their lives, were rebuffed by staff and forced to leave the program in retaliation for speaking up. Of the few participants in the program whom I know from the Wood St. community who did eventually move into permanent housing, none were linked to the housing by BOSS housing navigators. Complaints about these inhumane living conditions and the lack of services at the program have been widespread among participants. This program is not housing by any stretch of the imagination; nor is it a step toward permanent housing, job training, advocacy or services. The "cabins" are unsafe for participants, who are essentially being warehoused there and often mistreated by staff, and this has inflicted further trauma on unhoused Oaklander, who have ensured repeated displacement from housing and later by the city from their unhoused communities.
We are writing on behalf of East Bay Community Law Center's Homeless Subunit. We provide legal advocacy on behalf of unhoused individuals and communities.
Extant shelter options are generally inaccessible to disabled individuals, contribute to trauma, and fail to fully provide services contracted for.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of the ways City-Managed interventions fail to deliver and meet the needs of the unhoused community:
1. Shelter options and programs fail to meet the disability related needs of disabled individuals.
2. Service providers are receiving millions of dollars to provide shelter, yet basic services are not being provided. We have either heard or observed everything from a lack of toilet paper in the bathrooms to residents at various sites reporting a failure to provide housing navigation services as promised.
3. Most program sites have restrictions on what property can be brought onto the sites and fail to provide storage options in a meaningful way.
4. We’ve heard from numerous clients that there is no safe and accessible way to file a grievance, especially in cases of sexual harassment. In some cases, individuals were told their only option to report a grievance was to report to the individual that aggrieved them. There is no neutral way for a shelter or program participant to file a grievance.
Any report or action by the Council or City should consider these inadequacies in adopt recommendations that attempt to remedy them.
In the encampment resolution funding, the administration claims it will close encampments at Mosswood, east 12th st and MLK and put the people in the jack London inn. But everyone at the lake Merritt lodge will also be moved there. There are not enough rooms for all those people. This contradiction is creating confusion. The intervention sites have all sorts of problems, with residents saying they’re unsafe and unsanitary, they lose their housing paperwork, etc. So the city cannot be closing encampments when there’s no adequate transitional shelter available, and especially when there’s no housing to transition people into.
We need independent oversight and auditing of the intervention programs. We have heard horror stories about abusive and corrupt management. They don’t have the access to healthcare, case management, workforce development, or education that will help people stabilize improve their chances of a successful transition. A resident said the cabins were merely a ‘storage area for homeless people.’ When there’s no housing to transition people into, you shouldn’t be warehousing people in these shelters.