Update: A version of this story was published on the Street Spirit website on June 4. Soon afterward, the City of Oakland extended the closure date of the Wood Street Community Cabins to July 14. By the time the closure was complete on July 18, the City of Oakland reported that of the remaining residents, 29 people went into shelter programs, 5 RV dwellers self-relocated, 4 people received shelter referrals but had not moved in yet, and 5 people could not be found.
A previous version of this story misstated the year that Wood Street Community Cabins opened.
No staff or security. No food, water, or toilet paper. Rotting meals in the refrigerator. Confidential documents scattered around a ransacked office.
These were the conditions at the Wood Street Community Cabins on Wednesday morning, June 4, when Street Spirit walked through the unlocked gate to take a tour of the shelter site. Street Spirit had received calls from concerned cabin residents, who said they had been left alone there for five days. Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (or “BOSS”)—the nonprofit organization that has operated this site under a contract with the City of Oakland for the last two years—left the site on Friday, May 30.
“ I saw signs on the doors of the cabins that said, ‘24 hour notice. As of now, you are trespassing,’” said Tamara Rosselli, who still lives in the Community Cabins. “They took the kitchen. There have been no food deliveries since last week.”
Rosselli says that 24-hour notices to vacate and “no trespassing” signs were taped to her door on May 30. The next day, BOSS staff did not show up to work at the transitional housing program, which comprises two adjacent sites on Wood Street: the Community Cabins and a “Safe Parking” RV site. Site security left early on the morning of June 1.
“What you have left is a city-run cabin site that is effectively a squat house,” somebody who is familiar with the fallout of the site told Street Spirit. They asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation from their employer for speaking about what they describe as “gross mismanagement” on the part of both BOSS and the city.
“This was a complete failure that started six months ago to properly ramp down the site and support people,” they said. When asked about the confidential client information in the unlocked office, BOSS CEO Donald Frazier said that all participant files had been removed from the site and delivered to the organization’s Quality Assurance Department.
“I have no idea what sensitive information you are referring to, unless it was/is documents held by participants,” Frazier wrote in an email.
There has been much back and forth over the closure date of the Wood Street Community Cabins. Back in March, Frazier announced that Oakland had been months late paying the organization for its services, and said they would close the site by the end of the month. But just a few days later, BOSS and the city negotiated a major increase in the monthly payment amount for the remainder of the contract, to repay the city’s debt. These funds were approved by the Oakland City Council in early May.
However, BOSS says the money never arrived. On Wednesday, BOSS CEO Donald Frazier told Street Spirit that the city has not paid BOSS since December 2024. “We came to an impasse because BOSS could not continue financing a City project,” he wrote in an email.
Oakland Public Information Officer Sean Maher told The Oaklandside that BOSS’s invoices for January and February “have been processed for payment.”
But Frazier says he hasn’t seen any money, noting that BOSS is waiting to be reimbursed for invoices submitted in January, February, and March of 2025. He also says that the City has not released over $200,000 in funds for a separate BOSS contract, which provides housing for people living with AIDS.
In a statement, the City of Oakland said that they have been aware of BOSS’s intent to pull out of their contract early since mid-May. The statement also says that 27 people are still living at the Community Cabins, and 10 in the Safe RV site. It notes that the 24-hour notices these residents received were posted in error, and says it is working on communicating with residents, who will be allowed to stay through June 30.
By contrast, Frazier estimates that there are only 15 people remaining in the community cabins.
Frazier says that over the last six months, BOSS housing navigators worked with both the city and the county to “find appropriate housing for everyone who wanted housing,” and said that there were weekly transition meetings up until Thursday, May 29.
Since BOSS staff left last week, the city says it has moved “swiftly” to work with its partners to identify options for the remaining residents.
Alameda County Healthcare for the Homeless is one of those partners. Its Director, Lucy Kasdin, says the organization has been working with the city to connect cabin residents with housing and resources since before BOSS pulled out of their contract, meeting sometimes more than three times per week.
“We know our partners in Oakland have been working urgently to identify resources to support the gaps since BOSS left the site,” Kasdin says. But this can be a challenge in Oakland, where the unhoused population far outnumbers the amount of available shelter.
“We’re at a time of year when everything tends to be fairly full,” she says. “It’s a lot on a system that’s already at capacity. I think that generally speaking, it would be very challenging to have interim housing offerings for that number of people in a short period of time.”
Housing outcome data provided by BOSS shows that during the two-year contract period, 137 people lived at the Wood Street Community Cabins. Of those individuals, 32 people (or 23 percent) were discharged to permanent housing. Another 32 people went to an emergency shelter. 22 people (16 percent) were discharged to a place not meant for habitation, such as a vehicle or another outdoor setting. The majority of others moved into an emergency shelter, or another transitional housing program.
The placement of the remaining residents now falls under the purview of the city. But internal staffing shortages may prove to be a roadblock.
Oakland’s Human Services department—which oversees city funded interim housing contracts—has been without a permanent director since Sarah Bedford retired from the position in 2022. Advocates say that staffing shortages like these have long caused concern about the city’s ability to provide effective oversight of the program.
“We have been asking for accountability from the city around significant issues with service provision since the beginning of this program,” says Brigitte Nicoletti, an attorney who has worked with a number of residents of the cabin program. “To have this be the end result shows that our concern was justified, and exposes the city to potential legal liability.”
On Tuesday night, advocates from the Oakland-based organization Love and Justice in the Streets got a call from residents, saying there was no food on site. In response, Talya Husbands-Hankin brought groceries—including food, water, and toilet paper—for those who are still living there.
“It’s completely unacceptable that the city is failing to uphold their commitments to those who are living in their shelters,” Husbands-Hankin said. “The City of Oakland is in the midst of a budget crisis, which directly impacted the residents of this shelter. So why are they spending thousands of dollars daily to displace people during sweeps?”
Residents say the lack of security at the shelter has led to an increase in theft, as people are entering the open gate in the middle of the night and taking things.
“It’s anarchy,” said Terry Walker, who says he has lived at the shelter for the last two years. “ I try not to be out here at night. [It’s] dangerous. Any and everybody come through here, I guess they’re trying to take things and recycle.”
But Terry also said that even before BOSS left, the shelter did not feel secure. Numerous residents reported that the security guards were often asleep, or lax with the rules.
“ But a lot of people were already coming in these cabins…people were squatting in them before they [BOSS] left.”
Frazier says that BOSS had “adequate security” through 7AM on June 1.
Many of the residents of the community cabins have lived together for years, dating back to the days that they lived at the Wood Street encampment—on the same lot where the cabins now stand. As a result, many said that providing for one another is nothing new. On Monday night, Tamara Rosselli walked over to Target and spent $45 on groceries to cook for everyone.
“I went down and got as much as I could and came back and made a big pot of spaghetti and fed everybody that was here that wanted some.”
Living together without supervision may not be new for cabin residents, but many said they felt abandoned by the shelter operator.
“ I think people are feeling like we’re not worth anything to them,” Rosselli said. “It’s a pretty shitty feeling.”
Alastair Boone is the Director of Street Spirit and a beat reporting fellow for KALW covering homelessness.