After the sweep of a long-standing encampment, residents were left without shelter and their belongings destroyed, as key local policies on transparency and safety were ignored.
On the afternoon of September 19, Jerry Thanars sat slumped in a wooden chair with his belongings against the wall of the Second Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, drained and weary. Surrounding him were all his personal and household items that he salvaged from his tent—furniture, a mattress, bags of clothes, and a bike to name a few—all hastily emptied out after Oakland Public Works cleared his campsite earlier that day. Too tired to set up a sleeping area, he hoped that what little he had left would be safe overnight.
Thanars had left his campsite under the Interstate 980 freeway, believing his belongings would be spared. But the next morning, he woke up to the rumble of a garbage truck and the voice of city administrator, Ivan Satterfield, giving him 30 minutes to move from the corner of 24th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way or risk losing his possessions.
Advocates tried to help, but police surrounded the area with caution tape, declaring it a “safe work zone.” Satterfield hand-picked some items—a tent, a bike, an air pump, three empty suitcases—and directed his staff to load them onto a pickup truck.
The rest of Thanars’ belongings were crushed and discarded by the scooper. As he tried to save what remained, Satterfield returned, telling him he had 30 minutes to move the last of his things from where he had just moved to, or they would also be taken.
Thanars turned to Satterfield, exasperated. “How far do I have to move all this stuff, so I don’t have to deal with you anymore? How far?” he asked. “I’ve moved it four or five times, and you keep coming back. Next time, we’re going to be fighting, and I really don’t want to do that. I can’t go to Santa Rita, bro.”
Satterfield replied, “Just not right here.”
The recent closure of the long-standing Martin Luther King Jr. Way (MLK) encampment in Oakland during the week of September 16 was marked by troubling scenes of destruction and use of force, with several city policies appearing to be disregarded.
Records and video documentation reveal that many people living in the camp were left without shelter, and their belongings were seized and destroyed. Camp residents and advocates watched as Oakland Public Works staff discarded personal property—often the only possessions residents had—without following the required “bag and tag” storage procedures intended to safeguard these items.
Thanars is one of the few unhoused residents whose belongings were stored by city staff, though most of his possessions were lost in the process. Between 2021 and 2023, Oakland Public Works documented only two instances of storing property from encampment clearings, despite more than 537 encampment closures during that same period. In 2024, the city recorded 10 instances during more than 100 encampment closures this year alone.
The city’s lack of records indicates significant lapses in adhering to its storage policy during encampment sweeps. No records exist before 2021. City staff attributed it to records either lost in the cyberattack in February 2023 or never created. Asked about the city’s compliance with the storage policy during encampment cleanups, the public information officer did not respond by the time of publication.
Journalists and advocates who were on the scene to document the encampment closure were met with hostility, as police used force to remove people attempting to help residents or report on the event. A total of four people attempting to document the encampment closure received criminal citations—myself included. One of them—an advocate—spent the night in Santa Rita Jail.
The city closed the encampment without offering shelter to all of its residents. While 16 individuals were able to secure a spot in the cabin program, many others received no offer at all. Additionally, several of those who initially moved into the cabins left after the first week, citing concerns for their personal safety inside the shelter facilities.
On September 23, after the week-long sweep that displaced Thanars and dozens of people, Mayor Sheng Thao issued an executive order ramping up the frequency of encampment clearings across Oakland. The new directive, framed as a measure to improve public safety and cleanliness, has raised concerns about the growing impact of forced displacement. The order leaves thousands of unhoused residents vulnerable to losing their belongings and their only means of shelter, whether tents or vehicles, further intensifying the human toll of these operations.
Lives and homes in the path of Oakland’s cleanup
At the start of the week, Thanars anxiously gathered his belongings, watching in disbelief as scoopers dismantled the lives of his neighbors. Their possessions were thrown into garbage trucks, and Thanars worried that his own home—a tent he shared with his wife who had limited mobility and couldn’t walk—would meet the same fate. The couple relied on their tent and neighbors for stability, residing there for three years.
“Oakland’s priorities are backward. They pick the most minute problem when they have bigger fish to fry. They can’t stop a sideshow. They can’t stop nobody being followed home from an ATM,” said Thanars in an interview. “I see more police here right now [at the sweep] than I’ve seen at a sideshow. That’s crazy!”
Advocates estimate that over 100 people were living at the MLK encampment, but the city reported a much lower figure of approximately 40 people residing there, though the numbers fluctuated from day to day, according to the city’s public information officer.
In Oakland’s Encampment Resolution Fund (ERF) grant application filed earlier this year, the city acknowledged that a large proportion of MLK encampment residents faced significant health and accessibility challenges. From July 2023 to January 2024, the city found 68 people living at the site, and outreach teams engaged with 44 of them. The majority—39 out of 44—identified as Black, with smaller numbers identifying as White, Latino/Hispanic, or American Indian. Most residents were between 25 and 59 years old, while six were 60 or older. The group was also fairly evenly split between genders.
The 2024 Point-in-Time count provided even more insight: out of 22 people surveyed at the encampment, 19 reported struggles with substance use and mental health disorders, and 16 had medical disabilities. These numbers highlight the extreme vulnerabilities within this community, emphasizing the complex needs of its residents.
Despite these challenges, the city justified the closure of the encampment citing elevated crime levels. In a statement, the city said, “aggravated assaults, burglaries, robberies, shootings, and a double homicide at the encampment on September 2” accelerated the need to take action. Additionally, “the residents of this encampment have been among the victims of this violence and crime.”
In April 2024, Oakland received $7.2 million in ERF grant funding to transition MLK camp residents into housing, but the city has not opened any shelters using those funds. In May, the funding was redirected to secure the Jack London Inn as a shelter for residents displaced from the Lake Merritt Lodge, which closed this summer, but efforts were stalled after increased pressure from neighboring businesses. The city’s public information officer said they would provide updates as the information became available, but as of this writing, no details on the use of the funds have been shared.
“They told us we had a place to stay. But when it comes to the bottom line, we are on our own,” said Raymond Lindsay through a fence as Public Works cleared his campsite. “All the money that they got, they need to take it out of their pockets, so it helps people who are homeless.”
City fails to follow protocol
The city’s actions raise important questions about Oakland’s adherence to its policies and the treatment of its unhoused residents.
Under Oakland’s Encampment Management Policy (EMP), the city is required to make an offer of shelter to unhoused residents before any encampment is cleared to prevent displacement without support. This policy was still in effect during the MLK encampment clearance, but Mayor Sheng Thao’s recent executive order overwrites the EMP’s mandate to provide social services to unhoused people before clearing operations. City staff is instructed to proceed with encampment closures even if shelter beds are unavailable. Non-congregate shelter options will be offered to families and people with disabilities when possible, but it’s not guaranteed.
The EMP also notes Oakland Public Works is required to store up to one square yard of personal property per person for up to 90 days. The department must follow its standard procedures but has the discretion to establish additional ones if needed. This policy is intended to protect residents’ belongings during sweeps, ensuring only trash is discarded. But in practice, advocates and unhoused residents report that compliance has been rare, and when measures are implemented, they are applied inconsistently.
At the sweep, the city also violated key aspects of its Safe Work Zone ordinance, which allows Oakland Public Works employees, contractors, and utility workers to create “safe work zones” on public property to protect themselves and others while performing duties related to infrastructure. These zones can be marked by caution tape, barriers, or signs, and are intended to keep the public at a safe distance without obstructing their right to observe. It also requires them to make specific findings that the size and scope of the safe work zone are necessary and reasonable for the task at hand.
A key aspect of this ordinance is that once a safe work zone is established, anyone who refuses to leave the area after being asked by a police officer can be charged with a misdemeanor. The ordinance also makes clear that First Amendment rights, such as freedom of the press and peaceful assembly, are not restricted by these zones.
Another requirement of the ordinance is that members of the public, including the press, must be allowed to observe from a reasonable distance. Instead, the police imposed excessive restrictions, using chain-link fencing that extended an entire city block beyond the encampment area, making it difficult to witness or record the events.
While taking photos of residents moving out with their belongings, police suddenly asked me to leave. When I inquired why I couldn’t continue documenting the scene from the sidewalk, I received no explanation. After repeatedly asking for clarification and attempting to leave the zone, the sergeant ordered his officers to arrest me. “It’s too late,” one officer said. “You are under arrest for violating the safe work ordinance.”
After sitting in a police car for 40 minutes, I was cited and charged with a misdemeanor for trespassing, though no court date has been set. In the following days, I was repeatedly threatened with arrest for reporting on the scene, and other journalists faced similar restrictions. The fencing and caution tape appeared more as a barrier to transparency than a tool for public safety, separating advocates, residents, and the press.
As Oakland continues its encampment sweeps, the city’s disregard for its policies leaves unhoused residents vulnerable to increasingly dire and unpredictable situations, setting a dangerous precedent and offering no clear path forward for those left behind.
This lack of follow-through has left many, like Donald Sims Jr., in precarious positions. Despite his disability and requesting shelter, Sims received no follow-up offer.
“They said they would have some kind of resources for us and I’ve been waiting since yesterday,” said Sims sitting among his scattered personal belongings on the sidewalk, uncertainty weighing on him. “I have nowhere to stay out here.”
Yesica Prado is an independent investigative journalist, artist, and community organizer. She is co-founder of the Berkeley Homeless Union and serves on the board of directors for the legal aid and homeless advocacy nonprofit Where Do We Go?