As our city struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic, what once was considered unrealistic is now beginning to be treated as necessary. Oakland has long treated its unhoused residents with neglect at best, and at worst, with the cruelty of constant sweeps, police violence and destruction of what few belongings unsheltered people have. Oakland and San Francisco were even named in a UN report that cited the treatment of unhoused people here as a human rights violation. 

As disease forces us to recognize that our communities are only as healthy as their most vulnerable members, treating our unhoused neighbors with the dignity they are owed is starting to be recognized in policy-making circles. 

It is a moral, and now a public health imperative that every unhoused person be provided shelter and services, whether they are unhoused due to addiction, mental health, being forced out of a speculative and racist housing market, or for any other reason. We don’t need to build the housing, we already have it. As Moms4Housing clearly demonstrated—there are four empty homes for every unhoused person in Oakland. These homes sit empty so wealthy speculators and abusive corporations can profit. We could have every person housed tomorrow if we so chose. Instead, tanks and armed forces were brought in to evict the moms, just as brute force is used to evict unhoused communities on the streets over and over again. Sweeps disrupt community bonds, destroy belongings, render access to services more difficult, and undermine the safety and well-being of unhoused people. The sweeps must end, not just during this moment of crisis, but permanently. 

San Francisco has begun to explore a policy to shelter unhoused people in vacant hotel rooms. It is now Oakland’s turn to provide housing to this vulnerable population. If we are to finally take this step, it is important that this be done in consultation with unhoused people and that it respect their basic right to choose how they live. We can learn from Oakland’s history of organizing for the unhoused, like the work the Housing & Dignity Village has done, in building independent living spaces and in advocating for solutions led by unhoused residents. Their Housing Oakland’s Unhoused report, written in partnership with community organizations and researchers, is an invaluable resource for all who want to act in solidarity with the unhoused community. Now is the time for solidarity, not for “solutions” created far from the realities of life on the street.

We call on the City of Oakland to take action now to ensure that every unhoused person who wants to live indoors is able to do so, and to provide safe camping distances for those who choose to live outside. We also call on the city to provide access to hygiene supplies, food, and other essentials to all unsheltered people. We further call on the city to prioritize harm reduction rather than policing drug use, providing access to housing and services to all that need them regardless of whether they are sober or not.  Finally, we call on the city to provide shelter and services to all unhoused people permanently and to end the sweeps forever.