Residents of the long-standing encampment at Second and Cedar streets meet with members of the Berkeley City Manager’s office, January 14, 2025. Photo by Alastair Boone

The city will use new state funding to offer transitional housing and RV buyback incentive.

On January 14, members of the Berkeley City Manager’s office held a community meeting at the Second and Cedar encampment in West Berkeley to discuss its upcoming closure, as well as state-funded resources the city says it will provide to the encampment’s displaced residents.

“ The point of the meeting today is to talk about a couple of resources that we want to make available to people living in this environment, that I know you have some questions about,” Peter Radu, assistant to the city manager, told the residents. “Specifically an RV buyback program, as well as a new motel shelter program.”

The new motel shelter and RV buyback programs, designed exclusively for the residents of Second and Cedar, will be paid for through California’s Encampment Resolution Funding (ERF) program, a $1 billion reserve of state funds that supports jurisdictional efforts to “resolve the homelessness of people living in encampments.” During the application process, California jurisdictions and Continuums of Care are encouraged to submit proposals that outline the metrics, characteristics, and planned outcomes for residents of prioritized encampment sites.

Last October, Berkeley received nearly $5.4 million in ERF funds to close the encampment at Second and Cedar. Radu says the directive to target this group in particular came from the Berkeley City Council, who voted to close the camp during a council meeting on September 10, 2024. The newly awarded ERF funds will power the city’s interventions. 

According to Berkeley’s ERF application, roughly $5 million will cover the cost of the first two years of a new transitional housing motel on University Avenue, operated by local nonprofit service provider Dorothy Day House. $150,000 will be used to pilot the city’s RV buyback program, providing cash incentives to RV residents who move into the motel or find a housing placement on their own. 

“ I’ll just be frank with you all. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,” Radu said at the meeting. “The easy way is everything we’ve just described. The hard way is… enforcement interventions, which we don’t want, and we know you don’t want.”

City staff say they have not yet scheduled a date for the encampment closure because they want to work flexibly with its residents and encourage them to take advantage of the ERF-funded programs. But the city will close the encampment at Second and Cedar whether or not residents utilize these resources. 

“ Our goal is to not have any enforcement date. Our goal is to work with you all,” Radu said.

This is a break from Berkeley’s typical encampment closure strategy, which tends to orient around a designated closure date. Still, not all residents feel these new resources represent “the easy way.” 

“It’s really not beneficial for me because they’re taking away my familiarity,” said Fanny Hall, who has lived in the encampment for six years. “Some of us are out here trying to actually get permanent housing [on our own], but then there’s barriers that keep us from going in, whether it’s income, whether it’s our credit, whether it’s a job…some of us are actually trying to work [through] those barriers. But in the meantime, we’re being hit with this [sweep]. It’s stressful for me.”

Hall said she has been working with a case manager from Berkeley’s Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center to find a placement, as well as looking for housing on her own. She says that moving into the transitional housing motel comes with risks: She might not get placed into permanent housing during her stay there and end up back outside with less than she started with, or it just might not be a good fit for her.

“ You know, my neighbors know me… we’re all looking out for each other. And, you know, I can go away from my house—and I call it a house—and I can come back and know that it’s secure.”

Hall said that while she does not want to move into the motel, she’s interested in utilizing the RV buyback program. She currently lives in an RV and would be willing to sell it to the city if she could find her own housing placement. 

“I would be able to get compensated for it, and [that could] be used towards my permanent housing,” Hall said. The money appeals to her because it could offer a fresh start once she moves inside, and cover the cost of moving expenses.

The new RV buyback program offers  $175 per linear foot of a person’s RV, from bumper to bumper: That’s $7,000–8,000 for a 40-foot RV. The city says they have a list of RVs in the Second and Cedar corridor that will qualify if their owners want to participate, but they’re not offering this program to encampment residents in other parts of Berkeley.

Advocates from the Berkeley Homeless Union shared concerns that even with the ERF funds, the city might not have enough resources for everyone in the encampment. For example, while there are 27 beds at the new transitional motel, there are more than 27 residents currently living at Second and Cedar. The advocates said that this could create a situation where some residents are left behind.

While some people, like Hall, were not interested in accepting the shelter offer, others were eager to take advantage of the new resources. One of these residents was Drew Green, who has lived at Second and Cedar for three years.

“ I mean, it sounded good, promising more than we’ve heard before,” he said of the community meeting. “Before, they weren’t offering anything to get us off the street, they were just saying, okay, you got to do this, do that, or move,” said Green, noting that the past offers have been for large, congregate shelters where residents share a bunk room with many people. 

Now, “they’re offering a place to live.”

Green said he’s interested in both the transitional housing motel and the RV buyback program. He had a major stroke in 2001, and has had several heart attacks since moving outdoors three years ago. He says he’s ready to get inside and hopes that his neighbor at the encampment—who acts as his caregiver—will be able to work with Dorothy Day House to file the necessary paperwork and become his formal In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) worker. This would also allow her to visit him at the motel even if she does not move in herself. 

The transitional housing program will be located at the recently converted Howard Johnson motel at 1512 University Avenue. According to Roshone Atkins, director of programs at Dorothy Day House who spoke at the community meeting, residents of the motel will not be allowed to have visitors except for holidays, when family members over the age of 18 will be permitted. Residents are also not permitted to hang out in each other’s rooms, and will instead be encouraged to make use of the motel’s community room for socializing. Unlike many similar transitional housing programs, there will be no curfew and new residents are allowed to move in with their pets. The program also provides three prepared meals a day and each room is equipped with a refrigerator and microwave. Residents cannot cook in their own rooms due to potential fire hazards.

Atkins also said that her team would work with residents of the motel to get in the queue for permanent housing through Alameda County’s Coordinated Entry System.  She says this process can take anywhere from six months to a year once residents turn in all the necessary documents.

“Before I would have said 18 months, but we recently are seeing people matched to housing at six months,” she said. Once people move into permanent housing or otherwise leave the motel, available rooms will open up to other residents of Second and Cedar.

Drew Green is hopeful that he will be able to leverage his stay at the motel into a permanent housing placement.

“Now that I’ve taken ill with my heart and all that,” he said, “I think it’s good to get us off the street, or get us away where we can be safer.”

Alastair Boone is the Director of Street Spirit.