Steve Lowe, the developer of Old Oakland in Downtown Oakland, wrote this response to Oakland News Now creator and Zennie62Media Founder and CEO Zennie Abraham’s post on what Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf should do to get the County of Alameda to give it’s host city a necessary level of funding to cope with the homeless issue.
The Homeless = Housing Crisis is a regional issue, and oddly enough, the regional agencies have the resources to deal with it via some sort of SF Prop C measure applicable to the 101 cities in the ABAG area!
While Libby or someone on Council or in the City Administrator’s office can maybe be successful in getting more from the County to help supplement various Oakland-based programs meant to deal with homelessness, it won’t be half enough to solve the problem – or, even more importantly, spin off the regional economic forum to deal with the root causes of all this dysfunctionality.
Zennie, I know you are a great proponent of innovative governance for Oakland, but I think at this stage of Bay Area maturation, we can be far more effective in dealing with the Homeless = Housing Crisis affecting all of us everywhere throughout the region by tapping into the same kind of holistic energy that has made the Bay Area “the Strongest Regional Economy in the World.”
Why else would Marc Benioff, someone you know, come to the conclusion that this Crisis is bad for business and therefore his support for a smarter tax on the wealthiest folks in San Francisco?
We now need your amazingly recognizable and incredibly effective pal to come to the point of understanding that it ain’t SF versus the rest of the Bay Area, and that taking care of just San Franciscans ain’t the solution: instead, it’s the greater city-state we all live in, something that needs smarter and more useful adjustments here and there before we can really begin to hone in on the actual causes and their real-time solutions.
And those long-term solutions can happen almost at once with the right proponents, whereas becoming involved with a County versus Oakland power struggle may take way more time, effort and legal posturing than it’s worth?
That’s what a whole lot of us believe that Libby should best be spending her political persuasiveness on.