Housing
During a heated meeting Tuesday night, Oakland City Council members approved two new plans to address the city’s foreclosure crisis in Oakland, and also accepted with mixed reactions a lengthy police department report about crime reduction plans for the city.
The City Council is slated Tuesday to vote on two different approaches to the problem of multiple property foreclosures in Oakland. One tries to help homeowners threatened with foreclosure in the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods, while the other would require investors who snatch up properties under foreclosure to fix them up, both inside and out. The new proposals come on the heels of a report called “Who Owns Your Neighborhood,” which was released last June and details Oakland’s foreclosure mess. The…
The demonstrative public show of support for the family of Alan Blueford and their quest to get police departments reports detailing how their son was shot and killed by an Oakland police officer on May 6 resulted Tuesday night in the release of the report to the family during an Oakland City Council meeting. The report was also publicly released online today by the Oakland Police department. On Tuesday night, protesters filled the council chambers, and shortly before the meeting…
When it opened in 1912, Oakland’s 16th Street Station was the end of the line for passengers traveling on the Transcontinental Railroad. On Saturday, BRIDGE Housing, the nonprofit affordable housing developer that owns the building, threw a party to celebrate the station’s 100th birthday.
The Oakland Housing Authority opened the first phase of a lottery for public housing and voucher program waitlists this week, receiving more than 10,000 applications in the first two days.
Mike and John Manente stand proudly together as they look up at their recent creation: Sheila, a dignified woman with a gentle face blended from yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, and earth tones. The setting sun gives her an amber hue. She’s the subject of the “The Gardener,” the latest in an ongoing series of murals entitled “The People of Oakland” by the father and son team. Last year the two men, both professional artists, created the “People of Oakland” to…
Years after serving as education director for then-Mayor Ron Dellums, professor Kitty Kelly Epstein aims to recast the controversial mayorship in a new book. “Organizing to Change a City,” released at the end of August, tells the story from a supporter’s view. It describes the community effort that secured Dellums’ victory and defends his tenure – all part of advancing Epstein’s contention that grass roots change is possible, even in a city as complicated as Oakland.
Oakland residents converged Tuesday on an East Oakland street that has been blighted by foreclosures, calling for a freeze on foreclosures until the Homeowners Bill of Rights comes into effect in January, 2013. California Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law on July 2, which and will prevent banks from forcing families their homes while they are still negotiating mortgages settlements.
St. Mary’s Center in West Oakland helps some of the 71,000 seniors in Alameda County who do not have enough money to meet their basic needs; that is half of the people in Alameda County who are 65 and over. But the center is just one node in the complex and incomplete web of aid for seniors who do not have enough money to live on. “Forget the issue of any kind of dementia, long-term chronic mental health issues, substance abuse issues—just be homeless and experience the trauma of that and then figure this out,” said Carol Johnson, the director of St. Mary’s.