“We need to get people off the street and into a safer environment while they’re waiting for permanent housing.”
In December, homeless activists across California organized protests calling attention to the rise in encampment sweeps since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson last summer. Organizers in Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Vallejo, and Fresno coordinated protests in front of local city hall buildings on December 17, with Oakland and San Francisco taking their efforts one step further by establishing “sweeps-free sanctuary communities.” The sites, which started in front of city halls before moving to private lots in the near vicinities, were intended to demonstrate a sustainable, community-led solution to sidewalk encampments.
In Oakland, protestors set up a sanctuary community in the parking lot of the old Greyhound bus terminal on San Pablo Avenue, erecting tents and a resource station for people in need of shelter and support. The site was intended to act as a model for what sanctioned encampments could look like—that is, encampments that are not at risk of being swept and can provide unhoused residents with on-site access to service providers, community programs, and resources such as food, shelter, and harm reduction supplies. While the protest sanctuary camp was erected as a test run to show what’s possible for sites under this model, activists hope to work with the city to secure sanctioned sites as soon as possible to begin absorbing unhoused residents affected by daily sweeps throughout Oakland.
While Oakland’s Encampment Management Team (EMT) is still required to offer shelter to all unhoused individuals before a sweep under the city’s current Encampment Management Policy (EMP), Mayor Sheng Thao issued an executive order in September that expands “emergency” criteria for the closure of encampments. The emergency criteria allow encampments to be cleared within 72, 24, or 12 hours, depending on the city’s inspection and subsequent assessment of urgency. Citing the Grants Pass decision, Thao’s order states that “in no case, will emergency or urgent closures be delayed for shelter unavailability.”
According to the Alameda County 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) Report released in December, 2,271 of the 2,440 emergency shelter beds (93.1%) and 825 of the 1,018 transitional housing units (81%) within Alameda County were occupied as of January 25, 2024.
PIT workers counted 5,485 homeless individuals living in the City of Oakland, with 33% living in congregate or non-congregate shelters. For the remaining 3,659 individuals living unsheltered, 58% reported living in their vehicle or RV.
“Right now in California, they’re ramping up evictions and they’re ramping them up hard,” John Janosko, an organizer for unhoused people with the grassroots collective Wood Street Commons, told Street Spirit. “To the point where at night [in Oakland], sometimes [at] three or four in the morning, people are getting their vehicles towed. They used to never do that. We need to get people off the street and into a safer environment while they’re waiting for permanent housing.”
During the coordinated protests on December 17, activists with Wood Street Commons and POOR Magazine—a grassroots, nonprofit arts organization focusing on houselessness—pitched tents, gave speeches, and distributed food in front of Oakland City Hall, just hours before the city council’s final meeting of the year. A number of activists spoke to the protest’s demands during public comment.
“Listen to unhoused people’s expertise,” said Eli Monroe, a resident of District 2. “First, stop sweeps, especially in extreme weather, and redirect funds to encampment upgrades and services. Build and support permanent housing projects that emphasize agency and resident leadership and knowledge. Use vacant land throughout Oakland for dynamic projects like the Wood Street Commons New Horizons Community.”
New Horizons is a proposed series of permanent housing developments drawn up by members of Wood Street Commons and affordable housing architect Michael Pyatok, a project which began in 2023. New Horizons envisions a “community-led solution to homelessness,” according to the Wood Street Commons website. It also intends to house teachers, working class families, and unhoused residents on five sites throughout West Oakland, including Caltrans parcels along Mandela Parkway, the old 16th Street Station on Wood Street, and the former Oakland Army Base near the Port of Oakland. On-site services would include a learning center, jobs programs, wellness clinics, and community gardens.
But organizers acknowledge that a project of this size will take years to come to fruition. For the time being, they have set their sights on grabbing the attention of public officials to help them develop alternative, sanctioned communities on unused lots of land to protect unhoused individuals from the risks to health and property associated with encampment sweeps.
“I’m a representative of Wood Street Commons,” LaMonte Ford, a life-long resident of West Oakland who lived at the Wood Street encampment for eight years, told the Oakland City Council. “I recently just got housed, and not [because of] anything you guys created. Everything you are creating is killing people like me. We need land. We need it now. We need it fast. Public land for public use.”
John Janosko believes that interim solutions like sanctioned sanctuary communities would serve to protect and uplift unhoused Oaklanders as Wood Street Commons’ proposed housing projects secure funding, purchase land, and begin development, stressing that the sites will help people transition to a new start indoors.
“We’ve got to use this time to get people ready for their housing, to learn again how to live inside,” Janosko said, “Sanctuary communities would help get them ready for that, it would start the healing process.”
Outside the meeting, as night fell over Oakland City Hall, activists were confronted by Harold Duffey and Ivan Satterfield of the city administrator’s office, who told the protesters occupying the lawn that they needed to leave. Fearing intervention from Oakland police, organizers decided to pack up and head to the Greyhound terminal to begin building their sanctuary camp.
But as Duffey and Satterfield stayed back to ensure protestors would leave, a tense argument ensued. In an Instagram livestream of the encounter filmed by Black Zebra Productions, members of Wood Street Commons engaged in a heated back-and-forth with the city officials regarding the city’s adherence to its policies during encampment evictions.
“Our policy calls for posting [notices], outreach, and housing,” Duffey said in the video, “If we’re not doing it, I am committed to ensuring we do it that way…Whatever my charge is, I’m going to pick up that charge.”
As the conversation progressed, Janosko introduced Wood Street Commons’ New Horizons plan and asked for a meeting with the city administrator’s office, passing Duffey his business card.
“I’m committed to work with you to look at the plan,” Duffey said toward the end of the video, “[to] find a location for the plan, what it would cost, so on and so on…but you have to be patient and go through the process.”
In an interview on December 30, Janosko told Street Spirit that the two parties have set a time to meet on January 9. Street Spirit reached out to the city administrator’s office for comment, but did not hear back by press time. We will update this story with additional information if received.
Bradley Penner is the Editor and Lead Reporter of Street Spirit.