🏡💚 Where do they go?
There used to be a small encampment of people living out of their cars and RVs on the block right next to my house. The number fluctuated a little bit, but generally there were around 4-5 vehicles parked there for an extended period. The area near the cars was clean and pretty tidy, and I never had any bad interactions with the people there. Despite walking or biking past them on a nearly daily basis, I also never really spoke with any of them besides a brief wave or head nod.
Last August, I saw signs put up around the neighborhood saying that the city was going to be sweeping the encampments on that block and one on the next street over, and that anyone there needed to clear out in a few days. I hadn’t heard anything about this, so I went over to the encampment to see what they knew.
It seemed they had learned about it the same way I had, by seeing the signs being posted around the neighborhood. One of them asked me, “have you heard people complaining about us? At the neighborhood meetings?” (I hadn’t, and I hadn’t been to the neighborhood meetings).
I talked with a few of them for awhile, and they told me a little about their lives. As it turned out, one of them had lived in a home on that exact block for a number of years. He knew a bunch of people in the neighborhood. Later in the conversation, someone driving by rolled down their window and said hi to him in the very familiar kind of way you would do with a longtime neighbor. In one sense, that should be no surprise — one of the common myths about homelessness is that people who are homeless are from ‘somewhere else.’ In fact, 75% of unhoused people live in the same county where they were last housed. Many live walking distance from their childhood home. But even though I had heard those statistics before, in that moment I was shocked to hear that he had lived just a few houses down.
I pointed out where I was living and I remember him saying, “Oh that house? I worked on that house. I helped build those stairs when they raised it up.” He used to be in construction, but got injured on the job and was unable to do that kind of intense physical labor anymore.
When I asked him if he knew what he was going to do, his response was both dejected and determined — something along the lines of “this really sucks, but I’ll figure something out.” The few others I talked to shared a similar attitude of perseverance, unsure where they’d go but a resolve to keep going.
A week or so later, they were gone. I hadn’t been around to witness the sweep itself, but it seemed to happen essentially overnight. Where there used to be a few cars and an RV, there were only concrete blocks. They put those concrete blocks out as what I assume is a preventative measure from an encampment popping back up again. To this day, those concrete blocks line that segment of the street. I’m not sure if this is a common practice in other parts of the state, but you may have noticed them around Oakland. I only know their significance because I know what happened on my street — each a symbol of some group of people that had been forcibly removed from that spot.
On a few of the concrete blocks near my house, someone spray-painted “where do they go?”
I’ve been thinking a lot about that question this week. On Monday, Governor Newsom called on cities, counties, and towns across California to ban homeless encampments. This was accompanied by a template the Governor had created for a local ordinance that municipalities can adopt to outlaw encampments and clear existing ones.
Last year, I wrote about the ramifications of the Grants Pass Supreme Court ruling, which gave municipalities broad discretion to forcibly clear, remove, and criminalize people who are homeless — even if there aren’t enough shelter beds available for them to be inside. Newsom quickly took up the charge, ordering state agencies to begin clearing encampments from state parks and under freeways, and this latest move is another escalation of that approach.
He doubled down on this attitude on Wednesday after presenting the state’s budget, where he lambasted local officials for their failures to address homelessness. With a bizarre lack of self-awareness, Newsom said of local officials, “How do people get reelected? Look at these encampments. They’re a disgrace.” Probably the same way you got reelected…
This set off a spat of finger-pointing and criticizing between local officials and Newsom’s team, with cities and counties saying they need more funding to address the issue. But Newsom and his allies are undeterred in their resolve, with one saying “At some point, money cannot be an excuse.”
I’m not deeply versed in homelessness policy and programs. I don’t know the full range of services available to people who are unhoused, or what’s been tried before. But through all of this, I keep coming back to that question: where do they go?
I fundamentally can’t understand what proponents of punitive homelessness policy think the answer to that question is. Is it really just ‘anywhere but here’? Through some investigative reporting earlier this year, CalMatters explored the impacts of the Grants Pass ruling, and subsequent crackdowns on homeless, have meant for people living outside:
“Experts agree clearing or ‘sweeping’ encampments alone can’t end homelessness. But here’s what we did see over and over as a result of sweeps in those cities: people becoming more likely to lose touch with support services, people losing essential items they need to get into housing (such as birth certificates) or to survive the elements (such as tents) and people still stuck on the streets — sometimes in new locations.”
No shelter beds available? Doesn’t matter. Are shelters rife with abuse, scandals, and unsafe conditions? That’s no excuse. We’d rather pay to put a person in prison than have them visibly have no place to live.
Homelessness is a cruel indignity for all of society. It is a terrible and inhumane reality for almost 200,000 people in California without housing. And it’s a moral outrage that others are forced to bear witness to on a daily basis, learning to accept the horrible feeling of walking right by someone asking you for help. It makes our streets feel unsafe and dirty.
But we should never accept this kind of draconian treatment of our most vulnerable neighbors. We know we need big solutions that make housing guaranteed as a human right for everyone. That’s why we are fighting for green social housing, as a way to transform our housing system while also tackling the climate crisis. There are other tools we’ll need to use too, those that can alleviate the immediate suffering of people living outside. And in the meantime, I hope that in big and small ways — with our friends and family and with the politicians we meet with — we let them know that this is unacceptable, shameful, and that there real solutions we can fight for.
Speaking of green social housing, I also want to highlight an upcoming event that we (California Green New Deal Coalition) are hosting, and that I will be moderating.
On May 28th, we’ll be hosting an in-person panel event in Oakland: Green Social Housing: Grassroots Solutions to the Housing and Climate Crises
We have an incredible line-up of speakers who can share a diverse set of perspectives on the vision and grassroots movement for green social housing. The event is open to the public -- staff and community members are all welcome.
When: Wednesday, May 28, 2025, 8:30 - 11:30 AM (light breakfast/coffee served at 8:30, panel begins at 9:00)
Where: The California Endowment - Oakland (2000 Franklin St, Oakland, California)
RSVP here — space is limited, so please RSVP soon if you want to attend!
WHAT WE’RE READING
Home Sick: Uncovering the health harms in Homes of America’s manufactured housing communities (Human Impact Partners) — new report from our coalition member and friends at Human Impact Partners! I may write about this in a future newsletter, but it’s a really interesting look at the health impacts of poor conditions at manufactured housing communities.
Geologically rich but economically poor, Salton Sea communities want a say in their lithium future (Calmatters)
Berkeley residents form city’s first tenants union with power to bargain with landlords (Berkeleyside) — from awhile ago but really great story about tenant organizing in Berkeley. I also hope to write about this soon…
Supreme Court Considers Landlord Appeal That Could Overturn Tenant Protections (Shelterforce)
California must lead on climate change mitigation (Capitol Weekly)
This Tiny California Town Is Flooded, Broke — and Reimagining Climate Insurance (KQED)
Feel free to reply any time! I always enjoy hearing from people and getting any feedback/questions/additional thoughts.
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