When I suggested creating tent cities on the outskirts of town for encampments, I was accused of wanting to throw homeless people into concentration camps. But it’s a good idea, and certainly conforms with Oakland’s Encampment Management Policy, which restricts tents to “low-sensitivity” areas.
A good example is the former Oakland Army Base, a 422-acre site that has been largely idle for decades. It could house hundreds if not thousands of people, who would be provided with sanitation, trash pickup, security, crisis intervention and other centralized services.
Homeless activists complain that we can’t shuffle homeless people off to fringes around the city where there’s nothing for them to do and no place to go. A homeless person was quoted in the news as saying, “What this policy tries to do is actually make the homeless population invisible to give a cosmetic effect that homelessness has been solved.” Pushing the homeless away from populated areas, critics charge, will deprive them of the “resources” they need.
I disagree. Those resources can be provided in a much more efficient and cost-effective way if they are focused on a single large area, rather than dispersed at hundreds of different sites across Oakland’s 78 square miles.
The idea of relocating homeless people to outlying areas is already a reality in San Francisco, hardly a conservative bastion. City leaders are proposing to create “a secure parking site” for RVs at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area, about as isolated a part of San Francisco as you could find, on the Bay shore east of where the old stadium used to be. The plan was introduced by the president of the Board of Supervisors, Shamann Walton, and by Mayor London Breed, meaning it has the backing of the highest political leaders. The site is ideal for homeless people, Walton explained, “because it’s private, remote and has been closed for many years.”
Sounds a lot like the Oakland Army Base.
Have a great weekend!
Steve Heimoff