testing

I strongly support the proposed legislation. As a 20-year resident of District 3, I’ve witnessed firsthand the damage caused by the city’s failed homeless policies. Our neighborhood has been routinely trashed, and crime tied to nearby encampments has become part of daily life. One neighbor had his gas tank drilled for fuel; another was threatened with a knife; I’ve personally seen fights break out and heard yelling that wakes families at night. Dogs are left barking for hours without care, and calls to animal control are met with indifference. Encampment fires regularly fill our homes with smoke and threaten our safety.

When we reach out for help, we’re told there’s nothing the city can do. Police won’t intervene. Public Works claims they can’t clear trash because it “belongs” to the homeless. The encampment team has been unresponsive for years. Meanwhile, residents are left vulnerable, with our safety, health, and peace of mind ignored. Current policies prioritize encampments over the rights of residents, forcing us to live with constant danger and disorder.

“Where will they go?” is no longer an acceptable excuse. District 3 deserves relief, accountability, and a balanced approach that protects residents. This legislation is necessary to restore safety and livability to our community.

I am writing is support of the proposed encampment abatement policy. The public has been calling for more effective and efficient encampment abatement actions for years, The current policy has proven to be costly and results in a never-ending cycle of re-encampments. The escalating threats to public safety, sanitation and environmental health over the past 5 years cannot be understated.
With the recent allocation of Measure W funds by the County to Oakland AND Oakland City’s independent HHAP grant, this is the precise time for Oakland to strengthen and enforce revised encampment management strategies.
I urge the Council to move forward in adopting the revised policy, and consider amendments as needed to address some of the comments submitted to make the policy more effective.

I fully support this proposal—it is long overdue. Oakland residents are asking the council to adopt this much-needed ordinance so that we can once again walk our sidewalks without the constant worry of encountering needles, human waste, or heaps of garbage. As law-abiding taxpayers, we simply want what every community deserves: safe, clean, and accessible streets.

I have lived in Oakland since 1981. I consider Ken Houston's proposal an abhorrent echo of the Trumpian agenda. We need more housing, not more brutal, cruel crackdowns on our fellow Oaklanders who have fallen on hard times.

I live here in west Oakland and we need help! Please implement the changes!

I'm a District 3 renter of 10+ years, and I am dismayed the City is considering a policy that will increase mortality, violate human rights, and worsen the unsheltered crisis!

This policy aligns with Trump's executive order criminalizing homelessness. Oakland should resist the call for callousness and keep in mind the real humans being targeted by this policy--people like my mother, a domestic violence survivor who for a time raised my sister and I out of her car. When you call for towing people's only safe place away, you're creating a homeless problem, not solving it.

This policy also directly contradicts the Office of Homelessness Strategy's PATH Framework, as well as the County's Home Together Plan and Measure W. Quite frankly, "robust housing exits," "racial equity," and "human dignity" are impossible under this proposal.

I ask that the City consult community-based organizations and actual unsheltered people on positive solutions that create a better Oakland for everybody, not just the relatively wealthy and privileged few. The vast majority of people are one bad day away from homelessness. We need policies that mitigate this problem, not exacerbate it.

I see empty lots all over the city. Surely creating safe havens with showers and toilets would be a better use of City funds than expensive and inhumane evictions.

To both my representatives and fellow residents, I implore you to have compassion when the very idea of human empathy itself is under national attack.

Investments in housing and services are effective and must be continued. Towing vehicles and destroying belongings force people further into poverty and raise barriers unnecessarily. Someone sleeping in their car is unlikely to easily afford impound fees so you’ll just be taking away their safety, means of transportation, and chances to maintain or find employment.

Absolutely support this proposal, it's so overdue. We, citizens of Oakland, beg the council to pass this common sense ordinance so we can again walk on our sidewalks without the fear of stepping on needles or feces. So we don't have to wait through piles of garbage on our streets. We are taxpaying law abiding citizens and deserve clean and safe Streets.

I live in west Oakland in district 3.
I support the cleanup and banning of people from living in the streets whether in tents or RVs in the streets of our city. This is a moral responsibility as it has severe damage to the physical and mental health of the residents and the houseless people.
I do not believe west Oakland should solve the city’s problem or be an open shelter. We have seen enough human waste, fires, crazy people, drug use. Enough is enough. The county and the state needs to step up and take responsibility to
providing proper housing, mental and health care for the unhoused. This is not a burden oakland can lift alone, we are strapped on resources. Our infrastructure has been deteriorating, businesses leaving. It is depressing and heart breaking to see the state of our beautiful city. Lack of action is worse than taking the wrong action. I expect Carol Fiffe to speak up for her constituents and invest in the progress of her district.

District 4 Resident here.

This is wrong. Criminalizing poverty is wrong. Taking away a person's only shelter without offering them an alternative is wrong. Arresting someone for not having a permanent or fixed shelter is wrong.

The fact that Supreme Court justices and other cities are heartless and lack compassion is not an excuse.

Please don't support Mr. Houston's proposal. Please work together to find a compassionate and just solution.

I am a renter who has lived in Oakland for 8 years and I oppose the proposed changes to the encampment policies.

1. Mayor Lee has created an Office of Homelessness Strategy; homeless is a serious issue and we need to be coordinated and disciplined in our response. If City Council acts without alignment with the Mayor we are likely to be ineffective and wasteful. The city has finite resources and cannot afford an uncoordinated response.

2. The focus on increased towing is particularly wasteful and counterproductive. 58% of the unsheltered population lives in a vehicle (https://homelessness.acgov.org/homelessness-assets/docs/infographic/Oakland%20PIT%202024%20Infographic.pdf), what change is the city projecting in number of people live in tents or the street? Because it looks to me like this policy risks doubling that number.

3. Sweeps prolong homeless. When people are evicted from where they are living they risk losing identity documents needed to get jobs or social services, additionally the change of address can disrupt their connection with county services. And once someone loses access to a service like Medi-Cal it can take months to get it back. All of this delays a successful exit from homelessness and increases costs to the city.

Has the city projected the impact of this policy change on the number of unsheltered people living in tents and on the streets? Has the city projected the cost associated with those changes?

Dear Council Members,

I fully support this update to our encampment management policy. My family has lived in Oakland for 15 years and I grew up here.

The situation on our streets is dire – encampments block walkways, roadways, make our parks unusable, block pedestrians and bikers' ability to pass safely (including children walking to school), accumulate garbage, and create blight in our neighborhoods and commercial corridors. They make it increasingly difficult to raise a family or grow a business in Oakland.

This is an emergency. This solution may not be perfect, but it is good – we need to prioritize the general public good and that includes clean streets, parks, and public spaces for all. While we of course we would love for shelter and housing to be available for all – and that must be our long-term goal – in the immediate term, we need to set clear rules (and enforce them) on where camping is allowed (in safe sites) and where it isn't (on our streets, in our parks, in commercial and residential areas, and in our public spaces).

All other Bay Area cities are updating their approach to this emergency. Oakland cannot be the Bay Area's landing place for encampments – it will be a disaster for the residents of this city (and already is). Please act in the best interests of the citizens of this city at large.

Zach Blume

Hello Council Members:
I oppose the Crackdown Proposals of Ken Houston, item 25-0922. "Because other Cities do it" is a ridiculous little buy reason to do something cruel and inhumane. I strongly oppose this legislation. ICE and the Federal Government are already arresting and disappearing our homeless neighbors and you Ken, want to abet ICE by squeezing every last drop of hope and basic sustenance from poor people. You want to take away the last refuge some people have, which is their vehicle. And then when that is taken, you want to (continue) to clear people out of their tents, which cannot be located in parks or now, sidewalks. So then what? Oh wait- they can go somewhere else, with all of the nothing you've left them. No possessions, no identification, no roof, no companions (human and animal). What is so difficult about using City property to house our citizens? In a car or not? Is your strategy to take advantage of the Trump chaos and cruelty we are focused on by inserting your own, thinking we won't see? Or do you agree with his war on the poor? I'm very disappointed in you and anyone else on the Council that thinks this is how to treat people. Follow the lead of cities that have successfully improved their economies and residential areas by lifting ALL people up.
Thank you, Iris Starr

This policy only increases the level of criminalization of houseless people without doing anything to improve their conditions. The city does not need to broaden the conditions that will allow further harassment and punishment of people who live in vehicles or on the streets. This city does not provide adequate housing OR shelter when performing sweeps. Instead of paying police to chase people all around the city while degrading them and destroying their belongings, this city needs to invest in real services for people. The myth of unhoused people being "service resistant" is obvious to anyone who has been present at a sweep. There is NEVER housing offered and limited shelter options that have so many conditions and rules without actually protecting anyone that people feel violated and traumatized. Nobody chooses to sleep on the street unless they feel like there are no other options. You can't punish people who have no other choice, it is a violation of their rights and it doesn't lead to any different outcome. All it does is attempt to disappear human beings. New people will continue to be forced to live on the streets if housing solutions for everyone are not made a priority.

It's easy to support criminalizing homelessness when you own a home or are a landlord. You have comfort, and your concern is to maintain it. Housing is a commodity that can be leveraged to build equity and support retirement.

Not only do we need to address the over 5,000 homeless population we have, but this policy does not address the impact of nearly 700,000 job cuts in the first five months of 2025. AI is coming for tech workers, sales, nurses, and lawyers. Too many are one paycheck away from being homeless and don't even know it.

In times when we have a president chomping at the bit to come to Oakland to denaturalize the "enemies within," and we have RFK, the health secretary, who has said he wants to place homeless people and drug addicts in "healing farms".

The homeless problem is not a problem; it is a fixture. It was created on by design.
The narrative from political and business leaders has been to fear the poor in the streets around us as the criminals who do drugs and commit crimes; homeless people are looked down on, shamed, and feared. It is a great diversionary tactic to prevent us all from paying attention to the systemic corruption and immoral greed systemically ruling basic need industries.

So many people in Oakland have been falling for this propaganda for years. Does anyone think for themselves anymore? Do they have a backbone? Are wealthy people any less dangerous to the public when they use drugs and commit crimes? Fairness? Or is it hypocrisy?

I am a homeowner in the Redwood Heights and support these changes.

Oakland is plagued by homelessness and it will only get worse as other countries crack down. They will inevitably move to Oakland.

I drive to Fruitvale BART on a regular basis and often have to pass down the decrepit and unsafe RVs that people are living in. It is not fair for the inhabitants because that is no way to live and neither is it fair for the general public who has to concede the public space.

The inhabitants of these vehicles are often mentally unwell and need treatment, it is not fair to leave them as they are.

Towing the vehicles away is a first step in improving the situation but I don’t think it should stop there. Instead the homeless should be rehabilitated into society, taking away their vehicles will do nothing except cause them to move along to the next public space.

I am in support of the change because Oakland has to do more to solve this crises, it’s not the perfect solution but it is a start.

Dear City Council Members,

My name is Bryan Culbertson and I am a homeowner in District 3 living next to both sanctioned and unsanctioned encampments.

Please oppose these policy changes. I am glad that Oakland has found safe places for unhoused people to live off of the streets, and I hope for a future where everyone has a safe home. Do not take away my neighbor's only shelter, their access to bathrooms and their access to showers!

Criminalizing poverty is cruel and inhumane. OPD must never cite or arrest someone just for being homeless, and Oakland must provide a safe place to go before evicting someone from their shelter of last resort.

I am writing to you today for you to please:
1. Reject the proposed Encampment Abatement Policy
2. Adopt an evidence-based public health and human rights approach that treats unhoused residents as equal partners through participatory, community-engaged practices.
3. Open safe, sanctioned communities with safe parking, sanitation, healthcare, housing navigation, and case management so our unhoused relatives don’t have to live on streets and sidewalks.
4. Unite housed and unhoused Oakland residents for community beautification through cleanups and continued garbage disposal services.
5. Center people with lived experience in shelter and housing program design and oversight, and compensate them for their time and expertise.

Thank you,
Bryan Culbertson

I unequivocally support these changes, with the following suggested alterations:

1) City Council must prioritize ALL of Oakland's neighborhoods as "high priority", otherwise, so-called "low-priority" areas will experience a flood of unhoused persons including RVs, vans and makeshift shelters, etc.
My neighbors and I fear that Industrial areas of West Oakland will be considered "low priority". leading to large unhoused concentrations; massive dysfunction and public safety issues - as these areas are already FAR beyond their carrying capacity of unhoused persons. Please keep in mind that West Oakland's "industrial areas" do contain residential and small business communities. No part of West Oakland should be considered "low priority".

2) Following closure, re-encampments must be forbidden in the SAME GENERAL NEIGHBORHOOD, and NOT "just on the same block". Otherwise, permitting re-encampments just one or a few blocks away will encourage a return of homeless camps. We have seen this over and over again after camps have been closed in the past.

3)OAKDOT and OPD MUST BE REQUIRED to coordinate with the EAT to address inhabited vehicles when tents or makeshift structures surround such vehicles. Failing to require OAKDOT and OPD to intervene in closures will lead to homeless camps purposely surrounding vehicles in ways that inhibit EAT from removing said vehicles. No group - unhoused or housed - should have license to frustrate the actions of public officials.