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Wood Street encampment resident King David Mesfin and a neighbor Juliet move his belongings during the encampment closure on Monday.
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
Oakland began removing the last 60 residents from what was once the largest encampment in Northern California on Monday, a month after a federal judge approved the long-awaited clearance.
The city has long struggled with how to handle the homeless encampment near the Nimitz Freeway. At one point, the site spanned nearly 25 city blocks and had around 300 residents who parked RVs or built makeshift shelters on land owned by the city, state, railroad companies and other agencies. The eviction is expected to take two weeks.
Oakland has argued that the camp became the scene of rodent infestations, unsanitary conditions, and other health and safety hazards. In the span of one year from 2021 to 2022,90 fires occurredthere. But the city’s attempts to clear the land for a proposed affordable housing development ran into repeated legal challenges.
The Wood Street homeless encampment in Oakland near Raimondi Park was once was once the largest in Northern California, spanning nearly 25 city blocks with around 300 residents.
Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle 2021其他财产所有者在该地区已经瑞典文pt their parcels. Caltrans spent months last fall removing about 200 residents living on land owned by the state agency, leaving just 60 still living in areas owned by Oakland.
After the clearing from Caltrans last summer, some residents were moved into temporary shelter programs while others moved to parts of the Wood Street encampment that weren’t shut down. Some residents living in RVs and other vehicles parked along Wood Street.
The Wood Street encampment being cleaned up on Monday in Oakland. The city wants the land cleared for a proposed affordable housing development.
Paul Kuroda/Special to The ChronicleIn early February, federal Judge William H. Orrickblocked a planned eviction, agreeing with residents and homeless advocates that Oakland had not provided sufficient shelter options to all of the people it planned to remove. But he reversed himself last month after the city proved that a site nearby featuring modestly appointed “tiny cabins” would be ready for occupancy.
On Monday, the city started clearing out debris from the site as residents watched. Crews towed away 12 vehicles.
Residents held a press conference at Wood Street criticizing the city’s shelter options. Some residents had agreed to relocate to the cabin site, but some had not — and said they didn’t know where to go next. Residents and advocates chanted as city workers cleared debris, but the unhoused didn’t try to block the city from clearing the site.
Wood Street encampment resident John Janosko embraces a woman named Freeway during a news conference at the Wood Street encampment site in Oakland.
Gabrielle Lurie/The ChronicleLaMonte Ford, a resident at Wood Street for nearly 10 years, said he works two jobs and can’t afford rent. He said he wasn’t planning to leave.
“This has been my home for a very long time,” Ford said. “We need better alternatives than what (the city) is currently offering.”
Behind him, city workers began carting away debris from the street and dumping piles of trash. Police officers set up a fence around the workers to separate them from the residents and supporters. Ford later walked up to the fence and chanted, “Fight, fight, fight, housing is a human right.”
He later yelled at city staff, who had gathered in the enclosed space, “What you’ve given us is nothing.”
The residents of Wood Street have long argued that together they had built a safe and sufficient community on the site. They wrote alist of demands to Oaklandfor the new tiny-cabin area, including a recreation room, kitchen, a better visitor policy, and job and training programs. Homeless advocates said many of the demands were not met and that residents still don’t have keys to their own tiny cabins. Instead they have to rely on a security guard to let them in and out.
The city said it has worked with residents to secure them alternative shelter options, per its policy. The tiny-home site, called the Wood Street Community Cabins, allows people a space for up to six months. During that time, housing navigators will help residents find more permanent housing options, either through family, friends, shared housing, affordable housing or emergency shelter.
The city used up to $8 million in state funds to build the site for 100 people. It will offer plumbed bathrooms, showers, laundry, storage for personal belongings, two meals a day, a community space and the ability to cook food — based on what some residents asked for. The city said four people living at the encampment agreed Monday to relocate to the new tiny-home site.
In addition to the tiny-home site, the city said it is also offering space at a new RV parking site on 66th Avenue.
It’s unclear how many residents total have agreed to move into one of the city programs. LaTonda Simmons, the city’s acting homeless administrator, said in a statement that the city is eager to break ground on the affordable housing site and that it has taken into account the needs of the Wood Street residents when developing the new tiny-home site.
“Every Oakland resident has a right to housing, safety, and dignity,” Simmons said. “That’s why our teams are working so hard to transition residents off the street and into shelter programs that enable them to eventually secure permanent housing.”
The cabin site also has a list of rules for the residents, including no overnight visitors and no guests allowed in units. Visitors must be approved by the site manager and can stay for only three hours and not after 8 p.m. Minors are also prohibited.
While pets are permitted, they must be leashed at all times while outside units. Residents are limited to two animals per unit.
The Wood Street cabins for former encampment residents are likely to look similar to the Oakland Lakeview Village tiny-home community.
Noah Berger/Special to The Chronicle 2021Some residents said they’ve struggled to secure a spot at the Wood Street Community Cabins. One, who goes by the name Clutch, said he has lived on Wood Street for close to four years and wants to move into a cabin, but hasn’t been able to reach the site’s operator to sign up.
“And now (the city has) posted up signs that everyone must go,” Clutch said. “But where can I go? Anywhere but here?”
The city has been pushing to close the encampment so that it can build affordable homes on its portion of the land. The developers — Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley and MidPen Housing — are in exclusive negotiations with Oakland for a project that would have 85 rental units and 85 for sale.
The organizations say the project will meet the definition of affordable housing, but say they can’t determine what the income requirements will be to live there until they can fully access the site and survey its condition.
Oakland officials had previously expressed urgency over the clearance because the city risked losing state funding for the project if construction was delayed. Oakland remains eligible for the funds because the state moved its deadline to later in the year.
On Monday, residents were emotional as the city started the process of closing the settlement down.
Clutch previously lived on a portion of Wood Street owned by Caltrans and has already been moved twice in the past year.
“Everything that we know is being taken away, being removed,” he said. “I’m just being forcefully evicted with no end in sight.
Reach Sarah Ravani: sravani@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @SarRavani
