There’s always been a schizophrenic quality to the City Council’s attitude towards homelessness. When they passed their Encampment Management Policy, in December, 2020, much was made of the fact that it appeared to declare encampments illegal. Many of us, including myself, were thrilled that, finally, the City Council, under intense pressure from citizens, was prepared to get tough with campers.
Of course, the city never did nothing of the sort. Despite the fact that the Encampment Management Policy had passed the Council by a unanimous vote, the Council in effect completely ignored their own edict. Under pressure from pro-homeless activists, they allowed the camps to exist, and denigrated anyone who wanted them expunged.
Shortly after the Encampment Management Policy passed, the City Council approved a “Revision” to it. That revision read: “The City cannot require any individual to accept any offered form of shelter and/or alternative housing, even if such assistance is strongly recommended for public health or public safety reasons. Instead, an individual offered shelter and/or alternative housing who declines the offer may continue to camp without risk of being issued a citation or arrested for remaining encamped…”.
I have to admit not knowing of that clause until recently. Indeed, it explains much of why the City Council acted as it did. For some time, the City Council, when asked why it tolerated filthy encampments such as Wood Street, defended itself by citing the Martin v. Boise case out of Idaho, which the U.S. Supreme Court had let stand, in 2019. According to Martin v. Boise, “homeless persons cannot be punished for sleeping outside on public property in the absence of adequate alternatives.” This ruling was used by municipalities across the country as an excuse for not clearing encampments. For instance, here in Oakland, when residents of “The Village,” a homeless encampment just south of the Coliseum, brought a lawsuit against the city for trying to evict them, some now-familiar faces supported the campers, citing Martin v. Boise. Among those familiar faces were Nikki Bas, Cat Brooks and none other than the future Madame D.A. herself, Pamela Price, who provided legal advice and counsel to the homeless people.
So why did the City Council feel the necessity for a “Revision” of the Encampment Management Policy, when they had Martin v. Boise handy? No Council member, either sitting or former, has ever bothered to explain this strange action. Perhaps it was because they had been advised by the city’s lawyers that Martin v. Boise was not the ironclad ruling it seemed to be. It was untried, untested law and ripe for another challenge. The Supreme Court never said that homeless people had the right to put up camps wherever they wanted; SCOTUS simply referred to “adequate alternatives” to tents, a broadly ambiguous term whose precise meaning could be (and has been) debated for years. It seems likely that the City Council, anticipating continued legal challenges to encampments, thought that Martin v. Boise might be overturned, or that clever lawyers might figure out a way around it. Hence, they came up with their Revision, in order to make sure that no homeless person in Oakland would ever be forced to leave a tent.
“[A]n individual offered shelter and/or alternative housing who declines the offer may continue to camp without risk of being issued a citation or arrested for remaining encamped…”. There it is, in stark black and white: The City Council of December, 2020, inventing a right for homeless people to break all sorts of ordinances and laws—a right even the U.S. Supreme Court did not recognize. It was this act of political violence that led us to start the Coalition for a Better Oakland. We realized that our city was being led [off the cliff] by radical, anti-police activists with no respect for laws or property rights or the concerns of the vast majority of citizens. Instead, they adopted homeless people as their pets, as it were, using them to foist all sorts of insults on the people of Oakland. I don’t believe that that crowd—Bas, Price, Brooks and the rest of them—gave a damn about homeless people. I think they saw the homeless as pawns they could manipulate, in order to solidify their political strength and pass laws that reflected their woke philosophy. And the fact that the majority of homeless people were Black merely amplified their manipulations: they could claim that efforts to regulate encampments were racist. Oakland politicians have gotten away with unlawful, harmful policies for years in the name of fighting racism. They’re still doing it, for example Pamela Price—now District Attorney—fighting to free Black murderers or reduce their sentences to the lowest possible level, all in the name of, yes, fighting structural racism.
I have a question for the newest members of the City Council, who were not yet elected when the Encampment Management Policy and its revision were passed: Janani Ramachandran and Kevin Jenkins. What do you plan to do about encampments, which still stain our city? Are you ready to uphold the rule of law and end them? I’m sure Bas, Carroll Fife, Dan Kalb and Noel Gallo have already whispered in your ears and tried to draft you over to their “protect encampments at any cost” radicalism. Don’t fall for it. Those Council members are on the losing edge of history. They will be remembered, if at all, for causing Oakland to slide into its darkest period ever. Is that how you want to be remembered?
Steve Heimoff