I was glad to see Caltrans follow through on their intention to clear out the homeless people living on their property in the Wood Street area. Obviously this is something Caltrans has long wanted to do and needed to do. The scores of fires that the campers regularly start are threats to the integrity of the superstructure that holds up the freeways above. Caltrans could have been sued had something terrible happened. A big fire last June also caused the California Highway Patrol to shut down the 880 freeway and issue a SIG-alert. Amtrak had to halt operations. This kind of interruption of the daily lives of tens of thousands of working people is unacceptable.
I was glad, too, that the judge who had previously prevented Caltrans from acting, William Orrick, reversed his earlier decision and let Caltrans conduct the cleanup. We don’t know why Orrick changed his mind. Was it because of Gov. Newsom’s threat to fight him in court? Who knows? At any rate, Orrick did the right thing.
On Friday, the Chronicle reported that some of the homeless people tried to block Caltrans. “Residents tried to stop Caltrans from clearing the camp by building a blockade of mattresses, car seats and other items.” Some of them were arrested. The Chronicle referred to the scene as “chaos.” One homeless man was overheard saying, “All we’re going to do is come back. You’re wasting your time.”
Some of the rhetoric that the evicted homeless campers and their supporters are using is ridiculous and over the top. One supporter told NBC Bay Area News, “The residents were…demanding an end to the state violence.” This is patently absurd, and I wish that news organizations that claim to be professional would not propagate this kind of nonsense. Another of the evicted homeless people told KTVU News, “Every time we're displaced, it is stressful, detrimental to our health and takes four years off our lives. Stop eviction. We need a breather here.” Surely, this person must have known, and should have known, that his time at Wood Street was limited. The massive encampment has been notorious for years; it was obvious to everyone that it was only a matter of time before it was cleaned out. There will be no “breather” for Wood Street homeless people.
Let’s get one thing straight: The homeless people have no right to live there. No right under the Constitution, no right under the United States Code, no right under California law. They’re lucky they were allowed to stay on Wood Street as long as they were. Everybody’s bent over backwards to accommodate them: Caltrans, the city, OPD, BART, Alameda Sheriffs Department. But enough is enough: Caltrans and Oakland authorities have reached the limit of their patience. If the homeless people “come back” to Wood Street, I hope they’re promptly arrested. It’s not against the law to be poor—the progressives who say that clearing encampments is “criminalizing poverty” are lying. But it is against the law to break the law, and the Wood Street people were breaking the law flagrantly. Anyhow, if they’re arrested, at least they’ll have four walls, three square meals a day, and showers.
Is it uncompassionate to insist that these camps be cleaned up, starting with the biggest and dirtiest of them? We all wrestle with our consciences on these issues. There’s seldom a clear-cut right way to do anything. It’s uncompassionate to the vast majority of Oaklanders to allow these encampments to fester in our city. Whose “rights” take precedence here? Ultimately, everything is political. And the fact is that the politics of encampments are changing fast, away from unlimited tolerance and towards a disinclination to allow them to remain, especially when they’re as filthy and dangerous as Wood Street. Is there a place for all the evicted people to go? Probably not. At some point, sadly, we have to say, It is what it is. We—society—will do what we can, but our resources are limited, and there’s not a solution to every problem under the Sun.
Steve Heimoff