While Bishop O’Dowd students waited in anticipation for Spirit Week, crews within the City of Oakland arrived at the sprawling Wood Street homeless encampment. Armed with shovels and trash bags, workers attempted to clear the street of burned-out cars, tarps, tents, and general debris. The Wood Street encampment, where three hundred unhoused individuals resided, was dismantled within weeks.
Matt Butler lives in his RV on neighboring Brush Street, where the fear of displacement rapidly encroaches, sparking “a sense of doubt and hopelessness.” Butler has been in and out of homeless shelters and rehabilitation programs for years, but finds it “disruptive to stay around a bunch of people.” Every day, he fears that the City of Oakland’s crews will come to Brush Street next.
Like many cities in the Bay Area, Oakland is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. Coupled with a surge in addiction and a lack of effective mental health outreach, Oakland’s overall unhoused population has increased by almost 9% over the last two years. The growth of homeless encampments throughout Oakland, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, has made the increase in the number of unhoused individuals feel even more pronounced to city residents.
Now, for the first time in five years, the City of Oakland has a choice on how to respond to the growth of homeless encampments. On June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Grants Pass v. Johnson that local ordinances imposing criminal penalties on acts like public sleeping or camping do not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In effect, the Grants Pass decision gives local governments the legal ability to clear homeless encampments en masse, regardless of the available space in homeless shelters for newly vacated individuals.
Three months after the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass ruling, on October 2, 2024, Mayor Sheng Thao issued Oakland’s Encampment Management Policy to facilitate the closure of homeless encampments around the City. The Policy was a result of fierce behind-the-scenes debate on how best to use criminal enforcement tools to protect the public’s health and safety while attempting to address the needs of the unhoused who were to be moved from the encampments.
The City of Oakland weighed its response to the Grants Pass ruling carefully, issuing Oakland’s Encampment Management Policy after months of deliberation. In an interview last week, Oakland Deputy Mayor Dr. Kimberly Mayfield said, “In my estimation, the city took time to coordinate their implementation of Oakland’s Encampment Management Policy. Several community members called the Mayor’s office concerned that the rights of unhoused citizens would be violated with enforcement.”
The City of Oakland aims to offer shelter space, counseling, and rehabilitation programs to unhoused individuals affected by the clean-ups. Almost 200 Wood Street encampment residents accepted the services offered to them. Now, the City is preparing to install 169 affordable housing units where the Wood Street Encampment used to be.
While debates over effective strategies to reduce homelessness will undoubtedly continue and many unanswered questions remain, the Grants Pass decision offers a degree of flexibility in how cities can balance the needs of their unhoused population with public health and safety concerns. Under the leadership of Mayor Sheng Thao and Deputy Mayor Dr. Kimberly Mayfield Oakland’s multi-faceted approach, prohibitions against public encampments with supportive outreach to its residents may be the most effective and compassionate path forward.
