The dirty little secret of the current Oakland administration, including the City Council, is that they intend to allow homeless encampments to endure forever. They won’t say so in public, but behind the scenes, it’s acknowledged—and the reason lies in the numbers.
Let’s say there are 4,000 homeless people in Oakland. That was the number counted in the last census, which was in 2019; it’s probably higher now. In order to end homelessness and still comply with the Martin v. Boise decision, Oakland would have to shelter them all.
But that is never going to happen. There isn’t enough money to house 4,000 homeless people at the taxpayers’ expense, and there never will be. The city, through various programs, has housed at most only a few hundred people, but the rest remain out there, in their tents and jury-rigged huts. No one, not even the most ardent homeless advocate, is even pretending that the remaining 3,500 can successfully be housed. So where does that leave us?
Either we’re stuck with the appalling conditions in places like Wood Street, along the BART tracks in South Oakland, and the infamous Alameda Avenue area near Home Depot, or we have to figure out something else.
This is the dirty little secret of the progressives. They know that the camps are permanent, with their piles of garbage and rats and drug-dealing. They know that lawful, housed residents of vast tracts of Oakland are going to be permanently, negatively impacted. They know that they, the progressives, have no solution, nor do they desire a solution. All they care about, or claim to, is “social justice,” as if allowing thousands of Oakland residents to suffer is social justice.
There is a compassionate solution, although it will never happen because the city lacks the courage to do it. We could use large-acreage, city-owned land, such as the old Oakland Army Base, to build homeless districts, where tent dwellers would be compelled to live. These would be different from “the projects” of yesteryear. We could provide residents with security, plumbing, heat, electricity and rudimentary medical care; they could plant gardens, have spaces for movies and classes, and even elect their own representatives, who would have a say at City Hall. It could all be done relatively cheaply and quickly. Such a district might become a model for other cities. Within a few months, every tent, every homeless slum in Oakland could be eliminated, giving residents their lives back, and allowing Oakland to blossom as the pandemic becomes a faded memory. Moreover, this could all be done in coordination with MACRO. That program, if done properly, would clear the streets of the crazies, who make the flatlands so challenging.
But, like I said, the current powers-that-be in Oakland will never allow such a common-sense solution. Therefore, I have no hesitation in predicting that we’re going to have to live with the encampments and shanty towns forever—unless we enact a revolution in who governs us.
Steve Heimoff