Housing
A closed downtown Oakland jail could become a new homeless shelter.
Welcome back to the Tales of Two Cities podcast! This episode is all about endings.
Organizers said the main objective of the event was to amplify the voices of people most affected by poverty, and to challenge the notion that the poor are to be blamed for their poverty.
The City of Oakland is working to provide safe sites for homeless living in their RVs and more sanitation services at encampments in an effort to help address the city’s homeless crisis.
Over the years, Nella Gonçalves has become very used to hearing a certain question: “Ew, you work with the homeless? Don’t they stink?” Gonçalves is the deputy director of Beyond Emancipation, an organization that helps foster youth transition into lives as independent adults. Gonçalves meets a lot of very young people in very difficult positions; she said there’s not a single youth she works with who wouldn’t know what it’s like to fear homelessness. Yet, she observed, even though barely…
Oakland city council voted in an emergency moratorium to temporarily protect duplex renters from rent control exemptions. These exemptions apply to housing units where a landlord lives within the duplex or triplex with the renters.
The Oakland City Council meeting ended in confusion and shouts of anger Tuesday night after a legal issue delayed a vote on an ordinance that would have extended rent control protections to tenants living in own-occupied duplexes and triplexes. “What’s the issue?” shouted attendee Reisa Jaffe at new Council President Rebecca Kaplan (at-large). “I’d like to know what happened?” demanded another atttendee, standing up with his hands in the air. “These issues were just brought to our attention tonight,” said…
Incarceration doesn’t just affect the incarcerated, it alters the lives of their loved ones as well. Families struggle to maintain these relationships because of the financial and emotional burdens that the prison system places on them.
Laney College students, who were homeless, have moved into a Pocket House—a type of tiny house—that could serve as part of a solution to the housing crisis in Oakland.