I really like Oakland Report (https://www.oaklandreport.org) and have come to depend on it for their reliable reporting. But they published something really silly yesterday and I just can’t resist a little snark.
They editorialized about “the out-of-control presence of encampments--in recreational vehicles (RVs), tents, and makeshift shelters.” Encampments are surely a thing to denounce. I do it all the time. Specifically, they complained that “The Flats”--the flatlands of Oakland--contain most of the encampments. This is patently unfair, they wrote, an example of “the legacy of inequity.” And Ken Houston’s new Encampment Abatement Plan (EAP) does nothing to end this inequity, they assert; “the Flats remain ground zero” for encampments, while “the more affluent, predominantly White neighborhoods in the hills” are spared.
This is surely true. Once you get up into the Hills, you hardly ever see illegal tents or encampments. Oakland Report’s solution? They don’t come right out and say it, but their strong implication is that the EAP should be rewritten so that the Hills have more encampments, thus in theory taking some of the burden off the Flats.
How, exactly, is the city supposed to get more homeless people to live in the Hills? It’s not that easy to get there. As a non-driver, I’d have to research bus schedules to figure it out. Suppose there is a bus that would get me there. Should I pack up my tent and all my belongings and take AC Transit’s Line 31 all the way to Redwood Peak? That would be a shlep, let me tell you. Would the bus driver even let me on? And once I have my little living space up there, then what? Suppose I depend on panhandling to make money. Whom am I supposed to hustle in the middle of the redwoods? Realistically, I’d have to make frequent trips—each 60-minutes long--from the Hills to the Flats and back again. Am I supposed to take the bus every time I have an appointment with, say, a social worker or doctor?
I suppose, given the circumstances, Oakland could dedicate a special van service, like MACRO, to take homeless people to and from the Hills. This would cost money, of course, but Mayor Lee could always put another parcel tax on the ballot. I imagine $198 a year would do it. Homeowners would howl, but after all the least we can do for our homeless sisters and brothers is to help them get around. I suspect the people who live in the hills—all those affluent White gazillionaires—would also complain, but screw them. They’re just a bunch of whiney rightwing racists anyway.
Come to think of it, it might be easier if we just allowed homeless people to live in the Line 31 buses and the other lines that go up into the Hills. Why not? That way they wouldn’t have to be constantly waiting for the bus and would have more time to bip cars. Yes, it’s true that the buses would quickly turn into stink hole slums, with urine sloshing along the aisles, but the homeless people wouldn’t care, and as for the paying customers, they’d get used to it, just as we’ve all gotten used to slums and urine and garbage in the Flats. Humans are an amazingly resilient species; we can get used to anything, even the woke government that has given us our current crisis.
I don’t mean to hurt Oakland Report’s feelings. Like I said, I like their reporting. But really, how else are we to react to their suggestion? We have to live in the real world, not a fantasy world. Sending homeless people to the Hills is just pure crazy talk. Let’s let the City actually enforce the EAP—which I don’t believe they will--before we change it. But we do have to do something to solve the multiple problems the homeless cause in the Flats. Unless and until we change our current government, that will not happen, and the Flats will continue to be burdened by this ongoing problem.
Steve Heimoff