Life after Wood Street: LaMonte Ford

LaMonte (Monte) Ford was a resident of the Wood Street encampments for 10 years, first moving there alongside a group of unhoused strangers in 2013. Oakland police had told the original residents that they would be allowed to occupy the undesirable plot of land and left alone, free from the threat of sweeps.

Over a decade, the community grew to span several blocks of Wood Street and then further onto Caltrans property underneath the adjacent highways. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, eviction operations in Oakland were put on a brief hiatus. During that time, an influx of mutual aid projects and local advocates—including members of East Bay Street Stories—began to provide external support to members of the Wood Street community. Advocates erected a small cob village under the highway which served as a place for people to congregate and receive resources. Wood Street folks were already accustomed to taking care of one another and opened their communal spaces to welcome this swell of new energy.

When the City of Oakland adopted its Encampment Management Policy in October 2020, Wood Street soon became a focal point of their operations. Over the next three years, residents endured constant sweeps that eventually enclosed the community inside a creeping sprawl of concrete barricades and chain link fences. But efforts to close the encampment only strengthened the community’s resolve. A number of residents—including Monte—got organized and developed the Wood Street Commons, an advocacy group dedicated to outreach, policy change, and raising awareness for the rights of all unhoused people to exist on public land. 

In April 2023, the city forcibly displaced Monte and the remaining community from the lot on Wood Street to break ground on a “170-unit permanent affordable housing project slated for the city-owned Wood Street parcel.” When we spoke with Monte a year later, the site still lay a heavily-surveilled patch of dirt. The city’s intention to create an affordable housing complex had not materialized, and the land was rented to the Oakland Ballers for a parking lot shortly thereafter.

After the final sweep, some Wood Street residents enrolled in the city-sanctioned “Wood Street cabin program,” a fenced compound of tiny cabins erected just a few blocks north of the eviction site. Folks with RVs were encouraged to go to a “Safe RV parking site” on 66th Avenue in East Oakland. 

But most people, like Monte, chose to relocate themselves to nearby Raimondi Park, parking their RVs around the park’s perimeter or setting up tents along the sidewalks. Consequently, a group of neighbors living in newly built condominiums across from the park quickly and aggressively organized to remove them. In December 2023, the city took action, evicting all residents of Raimondi Park and placing concrete barriers and tree logs around the perimeter to prevent RVs from returning. Raimondi Park has since been transformed into the Oakland Ballers ballpark.

Monte remained unhoused until November 2024, when he finally got housing in Castro Valley with the help of the Homeless Action Center. He and the rest of Wood Street Commons leadership still gather together, committed to each other and to their mission: ‘Homeless helping Homeless.’

The following interview, which was recorded in early 2024, has been edited for length and clarity.

East Bay Street Stories (EBSS): What was it like living in the Wood Street community?

LaMonte Ford (LF): In the beginning it was hell, it really was. [People] were just living there independently at first. I was in my addiction heavily at the time, so it was a place where I could get high without being contested. Nobody bothered. But people came and stayed, [they became] a part of us and we were part of them. It became this net that sustained me. It became family. A sense of togetherness, of belonging, of purpose.

And I was proud to be there. I built a house, I had a nice two bedroom house with real shingles, a real roof. Only thing I didn’t have was running water, but it was my slice of heaven. My mom even came to visit me, which was huge for me. And she accepted me. It was because we had organically turned into [a] community. 

EBSS: What was your experience during this last eviction? What has life been like since?

LF: We went through several. This last one was really heartfelt for me because it was definitive. I got an RV and that was fine. I would move around because the city wouldn’t want me to stay too many places for too long. But I had my own peace, my own space. But that was also a problem—I had no shared space, no sense of community. I still don’t now. 

To this day, when I walk my dogs to the park [on Wood Street], they try to go into the hole in the gate because they know that to be home. So do I. There’s a lot of emotions. It’s been a year since then. And trust me, it’s been very uncomfortable. I’m hungrier now than I’ve ever been because, like, we had people deliver food to us. We had a network and we had a lot of people [who] put a lot of time into us. That’s sadly missed. 

EBSS: How have you been operating on a daily basis without that support network?

LF: Because I’m not rooted anywhere, just grocery shopping is tumultuous because I can’t bulk up. It’s a daunting process. Finding resources is almost to a nil, you have to find where people might set up for the day. You have to go hunting around and sometimes you might not find anything.

I’ve also picked back up my addiction because of it. Not as bad, but yeah. Because I’m out there by myself and it gets lonely, it gets dark and desolate. And I’m by myself. I mean, I have my dogs. But they’re the only thing that I truly know I can wake up to in the morning. Before I had a group of people, I had this family that I could wake up to. I could see them every day, that really meant a lot.

EBSS: How did you end up on the street?

LF: I lost a lot of family members all in the same month and year, and it kind of broke me. My brother was murdered by OPD. My father passed away after seven strokes, both of my grandmothers passed away. I wanted to be numb, I didn’t want to exist. So I quit my job and made the conscious decision to become homeless. I left with six months rent paid. It was a really dark time for me. I wanted to commit suicide. So I went and bought large amounts of drugs. And instead of committing suicide, I became an addict. And it’s taken this long to climb out, only for me to now have backslid. But I’m not wallowing in it. I did backslide, and I’m not choosing to go forward today with drugs in my system, for today. I don’t know about tomorrow, but for today.

EBSS: What’s your biggest difficulty living on the street?

LF: I’ve been targeted, chased out of areas, followed, and photographed. I’ve had the police called on me, and all I’m trying to do is just live. I’m not trying to bother nobody or their stuff. 

The city, businesses, housed residents didn’t want me there. Even though I cleaned up after myself wherever I went. I understand that blight is the number one issue for people in RVs and tent encampments. But some of us, we do try to keep that down to a minimum. I tried my best wherever I went, every day I cleaned up. But, yeah, the state doesn’t really want you there. Neither do the people that are paying $3,000 a month for a studio. 

It’s difficult being out here. There’s no real place for us to be. On Wood Street, we were out of the way. We tried to tell them this would happen if they closed down the spot, that we would go back to the streets. We had no place else to go, and they weren’t prepared to send us anywhere.

Just like when they sent us to Wood Street, were they prepared to have us housed there? They just told us to go there because it wasn’t a desirable area at first. So yeah, I’ve got a lot of hurt and a lot of pain, just trying to live.

EBSS: What would you like to say to your housed neighbors?

LF: I would like to ask people to just think—to feel—what it would be like if it was them. And if it does affect you, take a positive stance toward it, not a negative one. Maybe assist thy neighbor. Just because they’re unhoused doesn’t mean that they’re not your neighbor. Talk to people, find out that they are just like you.

It’s difficult because I’ve been on both sides of the fence. But there’s one side that’s leaning a little more toward humanity. You see I’m already downtrodden, give me a break. I’m doing my best. If I’m not doing good enough, then you are more than welcome to tell me or assist me. Because I’ll try to make it amicable for everyone. But it doesn’t happen that way. Nobody ever comes to talk to us. It’s always behind our backs. Unless they’re cussing us out.

If you’re going to be outraged, be outraged with the city. Go to your city council meetings. City, state, and federal agencies, none of them did a thing for us. Most of the things that we accomplished, we accomplished on our own with volunteers, family, and friends. The city’s current plan is doing nothing to help us at all. Get behind fighting them, if anything. If you want to be upset or angry, you have a right to do that. But deal with it properly.

And for the unhoused, clean up after yourselves. Do what you can to clean up the blight. It’s giving us a bad rap.

EBSS: What do you think the city could do to help people on the street?

LF: I’ve been through it with the city. The city can do a whole lot, starting with providing basic things. Basic necessities like water, food, garbage cans. Garbage is really the biggest thing. But with service. Don’t just drop off a garbage can, let us fill it up, and it stays there. I mean garbage service. 

Talk to the people. See what they can provide for themselves. See what they could afford themselves, because we could have afforded a dumpster. We tried to rent dumpsters from them, and they told us no. 

Also, the city police needs to have more training because they don’t deal with us in a proper manner. They treat us like we were vermin, like we were subhuman. We may look undesirable, but we are human.

EBSS: What is your ideal living situation?

LF: You know, I would just like to be left alone to my friends and my family. Where I was [on Wood Street], was perfectly fine. I had support at that time, I felt really good. My addiction was almost gone while there. I had a reason to live. [The city] took that reason away kind of. So my ideal living situation isn’t to throw me in a box with a window and call it an apartment. It isn’t them giving me a house even, that’s not going to solve the problem either. I’ve got some real, deeply seated issues that housing can’t encapsulate, and so I can’t tell you what housing looks like for me.

EBSS: What’s the future hold for you and Wood Street Commons?

LF: We are working on a major plan, some development that we’re giving the city no choice but to say yes. If they say no, they would look like fools. We’re in talks with architects, with lawyers. We are still a family, even though we are scattered. We still come together.

‘Homeless Helping Homeless’ is what we’re about and so now I get to offer my assistance to someone that is in need. That’s big for me. Even while being homeless, while being addicted, while not having any money, I always wanted to lend myself out to someone else. That’s what community is, it’s assisting where you can. It didn’t seem like work at all. Me helping someone build their home, it was refreshing that they would even have me help them, because asking for help is hard. So when people ask me for help, I feel privileged.