I strongly SUPPORT this policy.

I'm a housed D5 resident. I pass tent encampments every week on my way around Oakland, and I've come across inhabited vehicles too. The people who live there are my neighbors, and they deserve the same things that tenant law guarantees for me: warmth, shelter, respect for personal possessions. They, like me, deserve a city that values their safety, comfort, and stability—not a city that destroys their possessions, expels them from their neighborhoods, and takes away the only shelter they have. They, like me, deserve a city that supports them—not a city that "abates" them.

I live in district 2, and vehemently oppose the EAP and Oakland's current policies, which directly contribute to destabilizing our most vulnerable populations. Oakland can be a leader with a compassionate and creative, and consensual approach to this crisis. Sweeps break up communities, remove people from resources, and destroy their essential belongings, documents, medical supplies, and mobility aids. Instead of criminalizing and terrorizing unhoused people, redirect funds to encampment upgrades and services that meet people where they're at. Build and support permanent housing projects that emphasize agency and resident leadership, and have accountability measures built in to ensure that management partners aren't breaking their agreements, as has occurred at Mandela House and elsewhere. A big reason unhoused people don't want to leave their camps or accept services is that the services aren't reliable or don't solve their most pressing issues - improving services will mean more folks can trust them, and trust the city. Listen to unhoused and formerly unhoused people's expertise about what they need, and collaborate with advocates. Support use of vacant land for dynamic projects like Wood Street Commons New Horizons Community. Provide tenant protections that prevent people from entering homelessness. Let's stop funding sweeps and pouring money into poorly managed temporary housing, and start actually supporting people.

I am a proud IFPTE Local 21 member and City of Oakland, District 2 resident. I work in the Transportation Department and have served in the City for 6.5 years. I am also a co-chair on OakDOT's Race and Equity Team. Housing is human right, and folks should be offered shelter and alternative options should any type of sweeps occur. We know that sweeps have not been proven to be effective, given that less beds exist than how many of our unhoused neighbors are on the streets. Encampment sweeps displace people and only temporarily hide the problem while harming lives. At a time when federal funding is weaponized to take away public services and projects to prevent homelessness, the proposed EAP still does not address what community members raised last time: that this policy as written can jeopardize important state and county grant funding to support homelessness prevention. Oakland already has cut back on public services because of past budget deficits and thin staffing. We shouldn’t let money slip away that can support our community.
Lastly, this policy is confusing when we have a new Office of Homelessness Solutions. Policies relating to homelessness solutions should work in tandem with the city’s department, not independently.
I urge Councilmembers to take these points to consideration, and develop a policy that will help Oakland keep and continue to get grant funding while improving racial justice, rather than degrade it.

I urge the council to once again reject the authoritarian Encampment Abatement Policy proposal. This policy will backfire because it’s not a real solution to the problem of homelessness. The Encampment Abatement Policy does nothing to house people.

5,000 homeless Oaklanders are not going to magically disappear if this legislation passes. If you take away vehicles that people are living in without providing shelter, it will only push more folks onto the street and worsen conditions. This proposal is doubling down on a policy that has already failed Oakland because it doesn’t deal with the reality that people need somewhere to lay their heads at night.

Ken Houston is paid for by Philip Dreyfuss, hedge fund manager from Piedmont who helped fund the right-wing recall effort against DA Pamela Price, and the attempt to repeal Ranked Choice Voting in Oakland, which is understood to make voting more equitable, and generally more progressive. This is who is behind the EAP.

It's by design that the EAP will push current conditions further into crisis. Gentrifiers are scapegoating communities of color, disabled people, queer people, and poor people through criminalization as homelessness becomes more and more visible and inevitable. Once the jails are filled with people who had no other options, then the gentrifiers can make good on their investment, and politicians like Ken Houston get their pay day. Stop this policy now. Vote no on the EAP and focus on community based solutions.

Allowing public parks to be overrun with encampments is a utter disservice to the general public. Parks are extremely limited communal resources. Why should a couple of dozen people prevent the use by the general public. Cleanups are virtually useless unless there is follow on enforcement of the closure status as we have seen at Union Point Park, it will be immediately reoccupied. This is the absolute definition of insanity. It was a resident of the homeless encampment at Union Point Park that burned down the historic Cryer Boatyard building on the Oakland Embarcadero. Aside from squalor and an explosion of the rat population, the homeless encampment at Union Point Park resulted in a severe increase in crime along the Embarcadero. In 2020 there were five murders and more since then. The public deserves...demands...that parks be protected.

We want our Union Point Park back!

Strongly oppose the EAP. It punishes the extremely poor for being extremely poor and caters to anti-homeless prejudice among the wealthy. This is not a step in the right direction.

I'm writing in support of the 2025 Encampment Abatement Policy—not because I'm indifferent to concerns about shelter capacity, but because what's happening at Jack London Aquatic Center in D1 shows why we need tools to address criminal activity harming both housed and unhoused neighbors.

I understand the opposition. Sweeps without alternatives are cruel. Oakland needs more shelter beds and housing. I agree. But this policy allows targeted enforcement against urgent safety conditions while still requiring shelter offers and notice.

At JLAC, a community facility serving Oakland youth and seniors, we're not dealing with people who need support. We're dealing with organized crime exploiting vulnerable people: an active chop shop, drug dealing, prostitution, and 18 illegally anchored vessels tied to trafficking and environmental violations. Youth athletes navigate this daily.

The current policy leaves City staff paralyzed—unable to distinguish between someone sheltering and a criminal enterprise, unable to enforce basic park rules. This policy provides that clarity: targeted enforcement against criminal conduct while maintaining compassion for people who need help.

I'm not asking to sweep people with nowhere to go. I'm asking for authority to shut down chop shops, enforce marine safety laws, and protect public access. Those things can coexist with expanding services.

Oakland needs both: more housing AND safe public spaces. This policy enables that balance.

I am a long-time Oakland resident and raised my (now adult) children in Oakland. I support this measure as we need a common sense approach to helping unhoused people and the means of protecting them from criminal exploitation.

I have been a slipholder at the Union Point Marina for 6 years, and the problem of illegal inhabitation of the parking lot the marina shares with the park,and of the park itself, has been continuous. Only rarely have I seen the park being used as a park by Oakland residents. What is needed, in my opinion, is swift and consistent enforcement of regulations forbidding encampments and inhabited vehicles. This amendment seems like a step in the right direction.

As a formerly unhoused, disabled Oakland resident living in District 1, I call on the City Council to vote no on the Encampment Abatement Policy.

This cruel and wasteful policy criminalizes homelessness by subjecting unhoused Oaklanders to arrest if they return to the site of a swept encampment. We know that criminalization does not end homelessness and costs much more than housing.

Furthermore, under the EAP, homelessness will only increase, as it authorizes OPD to tow live-in vehicles with no notice or offer of shelter, displacing people and causing them to lose contact with their service providers.

The EAP also threatens Oakland’s access to needed county resources. The county will not let the city make referrals to hundreds of new shelter and treatment beds if it continues reckless sweeps, in violation of the state grantee requirements.

The EAP diverts funding from essential city services. With no additional funding for enforcement, funding and hours will have to be diverted from street repairs, towing abandoned cars, trash pickup, and other essential city services.

Destroying people's homes, property, pets, and their community in sweeps causes terrible harm and does not help them access housing.

We need are real solutions like deeply affordable housing, safe parking, sanctuary communities and an eviction moratorium. Many of us already face displacement. The EAP will push more people onto the street. The future of our city is at stake. Please vote no!

I'm a D1 resident with long time connections to homeless community in D3. The EAP represents a continuation of Oakland’s failed approach to homelessness, one that prioritizes displacement over housing, punishment over support, and political posturing over genuine care. The amendments are political platitudes; the language leaves so much open to interpretation that they are meaningless. Requiring “every reasonable offer of shelter” when it’s widely understood there isn’t enough shelter to offer is just empty wording meant to push through the rest of this draconian agenda. Forced relocation/displacement strip people of the few sources of safety they have, all in the name of making poverty less visible to those who equate proximity to poor people with being unsafe.

The City’s reliance on towing, its failure to identify land for safe parking or interim housing BEFORE destabilizing people, and its willingness to push forward a policy already rejected in committee all reflect a troubling disregard for due process, public health, and moral responsibility. There are community-led solutions on the table, why are they being ignored and this being pushed forward? True solutions require investment in housing, sanitation, and community-led interventions, not accelerated sweeps and environmental hazards created by tow contractors operating unlawfully. Reject this bad faith policy and commit to humane, evidence-based strategies that lift people up rather than push them further into crisis.

I support the change I'm reading in this policy and urge others to support.

Those opposing don't have the squalor in front of their house or during their travel to and from, but their visiting family and friends do.

D3 has become a magnet of encampments and RV using the right of way for stuff blocking pedestrians and the mobility challenged to use the sidewalks.

The city has to stop supporting this behavior, and treat those who need it and deter those from that don't, whether they are true Oakland citizens or not.

Marcus Johnson
D3 Resident

I am a D2 resident and I strongly oppose this ordinance. This is an inhumane policy that will only serve to increase the homelessness crisis in Oakland and destabilize the lives of thousands of Oakland residents. We need to focus on providing long-term services to support homeless neighbors.

In support of this policy

I’m writing to express my strong support for the Encampment Abatement Policy being considered on December 2.

Oakland needs a balanced, practical approach to unmanaged encampments, and this policy provides exactly that. Our current system isn’t working — public spaces remain blocked, unsafe, and unsanitary for residents, businesses, and housed and unhoused neighbors alike. The new policy finally gives the City the ability to intervene consistently, clean up longstanding problem areas, and address vehicular encampments that have grown far beyond what our streets can handle.

At the same time, the policy still includes reasonable efforts to offer shelter when available, notice requirements, and the option to establish stability zones. It is firm without being inhumane, and it restores the expectation that public spaces must remain safe and usable for everyone.

The status quo has failed. Residents have been patient for years, and many neighborhoods are now at a breaking point. This policy is a necessary step toward restoring order, accessibility, and livability while the City continues working on long-term housing solutions.

I urge you to adopt the Encampment Abatement Policy.

Thank you.
Deepak Jagannath
D3 - West Oakland

I am writing in support of adopting the 2025 Encampment Abatement Policy. Oakland’s current encampment policy is not working — it doesn’t define what constitutes an encampment, fails to address the rapid rise of vehicle-based encampments, and does not align with the California Vehicle Code. This ambiguity has left City staff without the clarity or authority they need to respond effectively or consistently.

The updated policy provides a clearer framework, establishes a definition that distinguishes tents from vehicles, and allows enforcement to follow state and local vehicle laws. Just as importantly, it strengthens notice requirements, prioritizes health and safety, and ensures people are offered shelter whenever available. These changes give Oakland a more compassionate and practical path forward: one that helps City staff intervene earlier, reduce unsafe conditions, and connect unhoused residents with services and housing options.

For years, Oaklanders have asked for a more effective, humane, and accountable system. This policy is a necessary step toward restoring safe public spaces while treating those living outdoors with dignity and care.

I oppose the Encampment Abatement Policy. I largely oppose the way Oakland has handled the homeless issue. Rather than provide housing, they would rather forcibly relocate people in an endless cycle. Oakland is short 4,000 shelter beds. The offer of shelter is meaningless when there is not enough beds to house people.

During a sweep, Oakland doesn't tell people where they can go and doesn't provide any transportation so people without resources have to rely on the community to figure out where to go to and move. These people, many of whom are elderly and/or disabled, have enough stuff for a small moving crew and are forced to constantly abandon their possessions.

Our funding for the homelessness is going towards stripping them of their resources rather than investing public infrastructure to support them. They need housing, transportation, sanitation, and food. We give them no shelter, forced displacement, dirty streets, and crumbs. If we want to address homelessness, we have to give people the resources to thrive.

I also oppose this policy procedurally. This bill was voted down in the Public Safety Council. It should not be placed in front of council. With the amendments it is still not ready and missing key analysis. Houston has also been in violation of the Brown Act, meeting with other councilmembers to try and force this bill through.

I strongly oppose this policy for human rights, public health, and environmental justice reasons. Criminalizing our neighbors for living outside in conditions that the city created and continues to ignore without providing any alternative place to exist is violent and unacceptable. Sweeping people, throwing away personal belongings, important documents, and medical supplies AND disconnecting folks from community care networks leaves everyone in a worse position and further away from getting into permanent supportive housing. The EAP would dramatically increase the number of people living outside on the street, stealing their vehicles and forcing them into increased vulnerability, until they are inevitably arrested for being unhoused and disappeared into the incarceration system.

I question where all the vehicles that would be towed as an outcome of this policy will go. Currently AutoPlus Towing is the sole company contracted by the City/OPD to tow vehicles. AutoPlus has been operating illegally on the lot at 7825 San Leandro St and creating a major environmental justice issue. After the Planning Dept wrongly issued AutoPlus a zoning clearance to operate on the site which has now been revoked, AutoPlus continues to tow vehicles onto the lot even though they told the City/County they are moving off the lot as of July 2025 www.oaklandside.org/2025/08/21/abi-toxic-finally-left-city-allowed-new-polluter-east-oakland/

NO to human rights violations and EJ issues. No on the EAP!