‘Why would you all do this to me?’ asks man whose makeshift cabin was taken in Oakland sweep. ‘I literally needed somewhere to sleep.’

Oaklanders who frequent the waterfront paths along Lake Merritt are accustomed to seeing encampments and trash heaps. Last spring, though, they came upon a surprising sight.

A small hand-built cabin suddenly appeared in a grassy clearing on the lake’s western shore, just a short walk from the swanky Lake Chalet restaurant. The structure looked as if it was made with permanence in mind. Sturdily built of measured wooden planks, with plexiglass windows and a corrugated steel roof, it was big enough to provide a dry, safe space for one occupant. Its minimalist, functional design attracted the attention of a steady stream of passersby, many who knocked on the door and came in for a closer look. 

But on Sept. 30, the cabin’s builder and sole occupant, Decoryan Jemelle Warner, returned from charging his phone to find the site empty. Earlier that morning, city workers had hauled away his home and possessions.

Warner, a 36-year-old Oaklander and former union carpenter, said he had built the cabin out of necessity. In March, he was evicted from his East Oakland home along with his brother and his brother’s pregnant partner. The expectant couple quickly found placement at a mixed-income development that houses families. But Warner was not permitted to join them in the small apartment.

Warner said he phoned Alameda County’s housing hotline, 211, and went through the steps to get on the wait list for permanent housing. He said he was not selected through the Oakland Housing Authority’s Section 8 voucher lottery. Seven months later, he remains wait-listed for other housing options. He declined a spot at one of Oakland’s Community Cabins, saying they look and feel prison-like, and that he wished to avoid being housed near possible substance users. 

So he decided to put his creative skill to work. Collecting discarded materials from the streets, he built his own cabin in a few days, mounted it on wheels, and rolled it himself from East Oakland’s 98th Avenue to Lake Merritt, a distance of seven miles. 

Like Warner, some 5,400 other Oaklanders facing yearslong wait lists for housing now face even greater risk of being forced from makeshift homes. The city is beginning a new push to sweep encampments and their occupants off the street. Last month, Mayor Sheng Thao ordered city agencies to “develop and implement a plan to close all encampments” in places the city deems they interfere with critical infrastructure. The order was made despite the Oakland Housing Authority’s acknowledgement that the city lacks sufficient permanent housing, or the mayor recognizing that there is not enough temporary shelter for those in need. 

In August, Gov. Gavin Newsom followed his executive order requiring state agencies to clear encampments with a threat to pull funding from cities that do not comply. This statewide effort to sweep encampments follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that gives cities the legal power to impose criminal penalties on homeless people for camping in public spaces.

Warner’s journey

The city impounded Warner’s cabin amid a series of scheduled encampment cleanups across the city that followed the court’s ruling. The Police Department told Oakland North it didn’t remove the cabin. The Public Works Department, which typically does the cleanups, didn’t return calls, nor did city spokesperson Sean Maher.

The city has yet to update its Encampment Management Policy to reflect the court ruling. However, a Sept. 23 executive order by Thao, who is facing a recall election, created a set of “emergency” exceptions during which notice must be posted only 12 to 24 hours in advance of closures. “In no case will emergency or urgent closures be delayed for shelter unavailability,” the order states.   

Warner’s cabin stood for six months. He kept the area around it clean and planted succulents. But he said city workers told him to remove them. On Creek to Bay Day in September, a day Oaklanders dedicate to cleaning up waterways, Warner joined residents of surrounding campsites to collect trash from the lake and shoreline.  

The cabin provided shelter, but Warner says he had bigger things in mind by placing it in such a visible public space. “I wanted this to be a prototype, like a step towards people getting into permanent housing,” he said.

He envisioned the cabin, which he named “The Last Resort #1,” as a model that could be made inexpensively and at scale to provide temporary relief for the city’s growing displaced population. 

“I was able to price this out so I can make it,” he explained, “like a price list for the city so they can see. This is less than $500, instead of spending $200 for a tent that’s going to fall apart in two weeks.”

In mid-September, two weeks before his cabin was seized, Warner sat on a crate next to his lakeside spot. The sun was setting and its orange glow refracted through the cabin’s translucent windows. Warner, who is charming and warm, was dressed stylishly in donated clothes: skinny jeans, a long wool coat, and slides. The brass and crystal rings on his fingers were his own designs, products of his jewelry business, Jemelle Co., which he started before his eviction. For a while, he sold items for $10 each. But the business was cut short when his jewelry-making tools were stolen one night in June. After that, he came up with his own lock-up system, using a power drill and screws to secure the entrance to the cabin after dark and when he was away during the day.

Warner said he had once used those skills as a union carpenter, helping restore city treasures, such as the Fox Theater and Oakland School for the Arts. After the work wound down, he supported himself with odd jobs and his jewelry business, allowing his contractor’s license to expire.

Not all Oaklanders were supportive of his cabin, which became a minor spectacle on the social media site Nextdoor.  “Anyone who can build that can get a job,” one Oaklander commented next to a photo of the cabin. 

A few hours after his cabin was hauled off, Warner found it a few miles away in a city parking lot on 50th Avenue. Its wheels had been removed, its roof damaged, and it was wrapped in yellow caution tape. “Why would you all do this to me?” he could be heard asking an employee in a video he took at the site. “I literally needed somewhere to sleep.”

Twenty four hours after the cabin was seized, it was released back to Warner. In a recent phone interview, Warner said he had repaired the damage, reattached the wheels, and pushed the cabin all the way back to Lake Merritt, where it now stands is on the east side, not far from the tennis courts, across the lake from its previous spot.  

---

Oakland honors Al Attles, coach of the champion 1975 Warriors, during ‘Love Life’ week