| From Oakland District Three Councilmember Carroll Fife’s Newsletter Sent To ZENNIE62MEDIA, INC. The Office Of Councilmember Fife – Back in July, City Council voted to open a co-governed encampment that will provide 40 people with temporary housing at 3rd and Peralta. We should celebrate this decision for many reasons, some of which I wrote about in this article. Ultimately, providing housing is not only one of the cheapest options for treating homelessness on our streets, but it also creates the conditions of stability that allow other services to be utilized whether it be drug related rehabilitation or developing job skills. What does it mean to be a co-governed encampment? A co-governed encampment utilizes publicly-owned property for establishing housing infrastructure that can be maintained and governed by both the city and the tenants. By mutually developing the procedures and responsibilities to maintain the property, tenants are empowered to take control and responsibility where they can, ultimately leading to increased care for and connection with their community. The encampment is intended to function semi-autonomously with a democratically elected on-site leadership that interacts with a city-commissioned contract manager. The contract manager coordinates intermittently with the encampment leadership and serves as the bridge between the encampment leadership and the city. Decisions concerning the site facilities, location, site amenities, site layout and design of the co-governed encampment occur through a fair, equitable, and democratic process involving the tenants, in coordination with the contract manager. Images below from one of the recent meetings with the tenants. My office has been working with unhoused leaders who have been helping to guide this process at 3rd and Peralta in order to develop this new model for homeless interventions. |
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| Process In July, our office was told that the city administration would be able to have the site ready by Labor Day. However, as with many parts of the administration, the city does not provide services itself, but instead outsources to external vendors, often with very little oversight and resulting in execution being quite slow. The “public” domain of the city has become quite private over many decades of neoliberalism. While my office and role as a councilmember is separate from the city’s administration, I have wanted to operate in a way where we are providing oversight and truly engaging with the work we do in service of District 3. We have been deeply involved in the development of this site. This has included going to current encampments and interviewing people to see who would be a good fit for a co-governed structure, facilitating an initial cohort coming together, attending meetings with this cohort in order to help design the site, shape the rules, define the type of services that would be helpful for them to have onsite and the kind of management that will be required to run it. The modular units are now being assembled and we are expecting the site to be available for move-in by the tenants on December 1st. Images of the units below. The units are being laid out on a diagonal, a site design configuration identified by tenants as optimal for reducing hoarding around the units. |
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| Townhall Wednesday November 17th @ 6:30pm My office will be hosting a townhall next Wednesday in order to share more about this project. We welcome any questions, reflections or thoughts you may have. By organizing our community, we can solve the housing crisis and guarantee the right to housing for all. Register in advance for this webinar at this link. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. If you have any questions, you can reach out to [email protected] |
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| Neighborhood Crime Prevention Councils (NCPCs) On Wednesday evening, I went to the Adam’s Point Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) and appreciated getting to talk to constituents at length. NCPCs are a city community policing effort that allow for a designated police officer to meet regularly with community members within the police officer’s jurisdiction in order to hear residents’ concerns and identify solutions to crime. This police officer is intended to stay assigned to that beat/neighborhood/NCPC group for a long duration of time in order to become familiar with the neighborhood, the issues it faces, and its history of crime issues. While NCPC meetings are open to anyone in the public, they do tend to attract residents who are in favor of traditional policing. Safety is a complex issue and often neighborhoods can feel much safer through actions other than traditional policing, such as garbage removal, traffic management and community ambassadors regularly on the streets. I’m glad we were able to discuss some of the complexity of this issue at Adam’s Point last night. |
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| Community Clean-Up – Lil Bobby Hutton Park A month ago I shared a new project my office is developing called the 4Peace Coalition. It is a coalition of community members that are seeking to address community concerns by executing community-created solutions to our most pressing, and commonly under-resourced issues. Some of our immediate areas of work include youth services, community safety, strengthening neighborhood networks and interventions/solutions to homelessness. This project is currently in the initial stages of development and more information along with a website will be launched in the next month. For now, we are continuing to connect with partners and connect resources to community- led efforts including a community clean-up this Saturday. Flyer with event information below. |
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| IN THE COMMUNITY |
| Firehouse Tour Thank you to the Oakland Fire Department for giving my office a tour of three firehouses in District 3. I appreciated learning more about how the firehouses operate, the day to day working conditions firefighters work in and where resources are needed. |
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| AC Transit – Hiring AC Transit has lifted its hiring freeze and is hiring bus operators again. These are great union jobs that include health and retirement benefits. Bus operators earn $22.11/hour after training, the training is paid for by AC Transit. Learn more at www.actransit.org/becoming-a-bus-operator. |
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| Expanded Service to Address Illegal Dumping Waste Management of Alameda County, Inc. (WMAC) is creating expanded and free services to help Oakland combat illegal dumping. Starting November 15th: All Oakland residents can now make a FREE appointment to self-haul up to 4 cubic yards of junk to the Davis Street Resource Recovery Complex in San Leandro. (2615 Davis Street, San Leandro, CA 94577) Residents who cannot self-haul will be given the option for a second curbside pickup. In order to retain capacity for first-time pickups, we only intend to offer second pickups to customers who do not have a vehicle for transport of their material. Renters in apartments can now directly order a curbside bulky pick up. Renters no longer need permission from their property manager or owner. This change addresses inequity by removing barriers to accessing our services for residents in apartment complexes. All Oakland residents can now dispose of up to 4 cubic yards of non-recyclable materials per household (increased from 1.5 cubic yards for renters, and 3 cubic yards for single family homes). This yardage is offered in addition to other materials such as mattresses, kitchen appliances, scrap metal, etc. Adjusting the number of yards so that renters and single-family residents have the same level of service also addresses an equity issue. Increasing the number of yards for all residents will provide space for more material that might otherwise be illegally dumped. |
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