I get a lot of emails from CBO members who describe their own particular frustrations with homeless people and encampments. Of course, they’re just venting; they know I can’t do anything about it. But it helps people to talk about their feelings. I always feel twin senses of empathy and helplessness when I read these emails, which I respond to personally.
Anyway, here’s an email I just got. I’m reproducing it here because it’s poignant, and so typical of all the others. I’ve changed the sender’s name to protect his anonymity, but otherwise, the email is verbatim:
Hey CBO! My name's “Nick,” I've lived here all 28 years of my life by Jingle Town. I never thought in all my years living here that Oakland would ever be like this. The insane amount of homeless has progressed to creating a sizeable community that ill willed individuals take advantage of. We get reports of people committing crimes in the homeless encampment by 24 Hour Fitness and McDonalds if not committing them in the encampment they are hiding out in the encampment. The rate of crime spiked during COVID along with the increase in the homeless community here on Alameda Ave. We've seen people breaking into the abandoned glass factory that no one holds accountable, who allows the homeless to break in. The homeless community has for sure affected our community. I have a homeless man that lives on Alameda Ave that has been vandalizing our home for several months now. Most of OPD has been difficult and are all talk and no action. Our peace has been ruined so we have installed and purchased cameras, lights, and legal firearms. The city doesnt seem to care, neither does Gallo and most of OPD (we do have an officer that is a massive help, but one person cant do the whole job of the beat).
If there’s one thing that all of the emails I get have in common, it’s a sense of surprised bewilderment: people who’ve lived in their neighborhoods for decades can’t believe how much things have deteriorated, and how rapidly. The specifics of their problems are always different, naturally, but that sense of surprise, of being aghast, runs through all the emails as a recurrent theme. People are amazed that the situation exists in the first place. They’re shocked that the city—which means OPD, the Mayor, and the City Council—can’t or won’t do anything to help. They sense “ill will” among many homeless people—which is a far different interpretation than the one homeless advocates advance, of homeless people being passive, peaceful victims of an unjust economic situation. Some are; many are not.
The solutions to these problems seem obvious to my email writers: why allow criminals to hide out in encampments? Why not arrest a vandal if you know who he is? Why are campers permitted to have open fires? Why is Oakland letting entire neighborhoods sink into decrepitude? What are the cops for, if they’re not permitted to clean up encampments and run background checks on their inhabitants?
As important as it is to ask these questions, I’m sure they’ll make some people uncomfortable. As a compassionate society, we’re reluctant to take any steps that suggest homelessness is a crime. Homelessness is not a crime. CBO doesn’t believe that, and neither does anyone I know. However, there are crimes associated with homeless people, and we all know what they are: petty thievery, shoplifting, littering, open-air drugtaking and selling, the expropriation of public spaces that are no longer usable by ordinary folks, and the occasional mugging. Ordinary people—you and me—should not have to deal with these things—well, maybe a little of that is to be expected in a big city, but not to the extent we’re forced to. Cities have a fiduciary responsibility to keep streets clean and citizens safe. Most political scientists, I think, would argue that public safety is the top priority for government.
Could Oakland be doing more to stem the tide of encampments and keep the public safe? Yes. But Oakland doesn’t have the will. Intimidated by homeless advocates, the city dithered when tents first started overwhelming us around 2015. Schaaf should have declared that encampments would be strictly managed. But she didn’t, and things just got worse, and worse, and worse, until today, we’re confronted with an almost insoluble situation.
Still, it’s not too late to fully implement the Encampment Management Policy. It can be done. But doing so will require the powers-that-be to tell the homeless advocates to stand down and stop trying to pressure them. This would require some personal courage on the part of Rebecca Kaplan, Nikki Bas, Sheng Thao and their colleagues—people, in other words, not known for displays of political courage. But they can be shamed into doing the right thing. Look at the bizarre 180-degree turn Thao took the other day, when, mirabile dictu, she described herself as a public-safety advocate and demanded the addition of two new Police Academies to increase OPD’s staffing level.
Coming just a few months after her shocking vote, in June, to defund OPD—including canceling upcoming academies—this might be viewed as a Trumpian disinformation campaign of unprecedented cynicism. Thao came under massive fire from her constituents for stripping $18 million from OPD and, now that she’s running for Mayor, she has “discovered” that more cops, not fewer, is her new religion. I don’t think she can get away with this hornswaggle. But if there’s a takeaway lesson, it’s this: When we, the people, are really pissed off by our elected officials, and when we take the time to let them know, they will occasionally be scared or embarrassed enough to do the right thing.
So, to “Nick” and the others who email me, I have one message: Join CBO. We’re reaching the point where we can take united action, including street rallies and email campaigns. Nick, you don’t have to take the situation in Jingletown lying down. Stand strong. CBO will be in touch.
Steve Heimoff