I walked down to the Oakland Estuary on Saturday, behind the Jack London Aquatic Center, where for most of 2023 I had made friends, or at least acquaintances, with some of the people who were illegally living there in their boats. They were the same people that the media identified as the “Estuary Pirates,” a term I believe the Coast Guard invented.
Before I met them, I’d been shocked by conditions in the area, where I frequently walked. There were five or six boats, clustered at the foot of a pier, none of which seemed seaworthy. It looked like a hurricane had blown through. I was going to take a picture and send it to the city and tell them they really had to clean up this mess. It’s public property, on the Bay Trail, and it didn’t seem safe for pedestrians to be there, with garbage piled everywhere. So I took my phone out and was just about to click when someone approached me and said, “Hi.”
It was a 40-something man, small and muscular, with a shaved head and obviously Asian features. I got a little afraid. “Oh no,” I thought, “this is one of the boat people and he’s going to ask why I’m taking a picture and what am I going to tell him?” But he didn’t. He offered to shake hands instead. I put my phone back into my pocket, and we got to talking.
I found myself liking him. He was sweet and charismatic, originally from Vietnam. He introduced me to his wife and his friends, who were equally nice. I’d return to the pier maybe once every week or two, just to visit. But how did they get into this situation where they were living illegally on derelict vessels?
That was something my new friend, whom I’ll call Vince, wasn’t comfortable talking about, so I didn’t ask. He’d been very forthcoming about other details of his life—heck, he never stopped talking, especially when he was stoned, which he always was. But as for being homeless, he had nothing to say, except that they’d anchored up and down the California coast, as well as in the Delta.
One day I walked over and when he saw me Vince ran up, all excited, and yelled, “We’re pirates!” He had a big grin on his face. He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. In fact, his wife had got her picture in the Chronicle, which was reporting, rather hysterically, on the “pirates.” Vince didn’t deny being a “pirate,” whatever that meant, and I didn’t press him. I certainly had the impression that there was something going on in their lives that may have been a little outside the law. I sometimes wondered how they made money for living expenses. But by this time, I’d learned to respect Vince’s boundaries. It was a case, I guess, of Don’t ask, don’t tell. Besides, it wasn’t important to me. I simply enjoyed visiting this eccentric, friendly band of people.
After about a year, Vince told me the Coast Guard had given him and the other boaters a deadline to get out, a month hence. I asked where he would go. He didn’t seem particularly put out. When you live on a boat, you can go anywhere there’s water. He said he might just move across the estuary to Alameda, or perhaps back up into the Delta. Or maybe Washington State.
That was the last time I ever saw Vince. The next time I went, all the boats were gone. That was six months ago. I didn’t return until this past Saturday, not really expecting to see Vince again, but half-hoping to. The area was pristine. No boats, no more flotsam and jetson on the water, no more piles of trash on shore, just blue estuary water, waterfowl and green grass. People were out on the water in speed boats or paddleboards; little kids played along the shoreline. Oakland, with the help of the Coast Guard, had certainly cleaned up the area and returned it for the safe use of citizens. Still, I couldn’t help but think of Vince and his merry band of boat people. They’d been—let’s face it—rousted, just like London Breed is doing to homeless people in San Francisco. It’s good, I thought, that this area is all neat and clean again, but everything comes at a cost: in this case, Vince and his friends had been made to leave a place they’d enjoyed, where they had made their home for more than a year.
It leaves me with mixed feelings. I’ve been super-critical of encampments and have demanded that they be rousted and removed, by force if necessary. Meeting, and liking, Vince and his friends have showed me that these are difficult issues. Still, I think it was right for the Coast Guard to make them leave Oakland. So many homeless advocates tell us we should get to know homeless people and we’d find they’re just like us. Well, I did get to know homeless people rather well, and I did like them—but still, what they were doing was wrong. It inconvenienced the public, who were afraid to walk there, and whose tax dollars, after all, pay for the area’s upkeep. Vince and his friends chose knowingly to live a lifestyle that was always at risk of being interrupted by the law, and when finally it was, he really had no cause to complain (and I don’t think he did). He simply left, and God only knows where he and the others are now.
Steve Heimoff