Carroll Fife, as readers know, has been pushing for Oakland to develop a 6-acre city-owned site at the old Army Base, to which homeless people could relocate. It’s an ambitious project, especially given the toxic soil that would have to be cleaned up, at huge public expense.
I too have long called for homeless people to be moved to the Army Base; in fact, I said so before Carroll Fife did. So the two of us are aligned in that regard. But there’s one thing that separates us: in my vision homeless people would be compelled to move to the Army Base (of course, they could choose to leave town if they don’t want to make the move). In Fife’s vision, there would be no compulsion.
If she’s said anything about punishing non-compliers, I’m not aware of it. But we know from experience that many homeless people, when offered alternative shelter, refuse it; and they do so knowing there will be no consequences. This City Council has shown a complete indifference to confronting homeless people who flout the law. In their “compassion” for the homeless (which equals their contempt for the rest of us), they have repeatedly sent homeless people the message that, Hey, you can do anything you want, and we’ll never punish you for it.
So why would a homeless person agree to move to the Army Base? If they’re comfortable at, say, Mosswood Park or Lake Merritt or anyplace else, they have no motivation to pack up and leave for parts unknown. Therefore, Carroll Fife’s “plan” isn’t a plan at all. It’s a lie and a fantasy. God only knows why she’s even advancing it, since there’s no possibility at all of it working.
In my vision, once the city develops the Army Base site (which would cost a huge amount of money, but that’s a separate conversation), every homeless person in Oakland would be offered the opportunity to move there, with the city paying the costs of relocation. But every person who refused to move would be severely dealt with. Sending them to prison would certainly be on the table. Six months at Santa Rita sounds about right to me. Of course, Fife & Friends would howl at the injustice, the cruelty of “criminalizing poverty,” and their naïve followers would take up the chant. Screw them. The City could do this if it really wanted to: Martin v. Boise would not be a factor because Oakland would have offered the homeless people a place to live. We could let Fife bay at the moon for the rest of her life, while at the same time solving the homeless problem once and for all.
But we won’t do it, at least as long as the current crop of woke politicians is running things. They hate lots of different populations: cops, White people, employers, landlords, to name a few; but their anger never extends to homeless people (the majority of whom are Black). Elected officials are, of course, supposed to represent all the people, and to stand for public order and safety. But people like Fife long ago decided that God put them here to fight for the rights of people of color, and if that means violating their oath of office and defending lawbreakers, then that’s what they’ll do. Giving someone like Fife political power is like making El Chapo head of the Department of Justice. It’s a joke.
For the record, I’m still in favor of developing the Army Base. But only if the plan explicitly includes immediate punishment for refuseniks who won’t move. It’s time to stop molly-coddling these people.
Steve Heimoff