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OAKLAND — Caltrans can begin sweeping the hundreds of residents living at the expansive Wood Street homeless encampment next week, a federal court ruled Friday.
Judge William H. Orrick dissolved a temporary restraining order he issued in July after telling the state transportation agency it needed to coordinate with the city of Oakland, Alameda County and the BNSF Railway to shelter or house residents before the land could be cleared.
Notices of the sweep will be posted on Labor Day, and the camp, which has been the scene of hundreds of fires in the last several years, will be cleared in phases over the next seven weeks.
Without a “constitutional right to housing,” Orrick said, he had to allow the sweep because the property ultimately belongs to Caltrans.
“I can’t privilege the residents of Wood Street over the thousands of other homeless people in this area, in order to order what is not available,” Orrick said during Friday’s hearing. “The failure of government and public policy to address the causes for and solutions for homelessness is glaring and endemic in much of our country, but this case can’t solve that problem.”
More than 200 people are estimated to live at the encampment — one of the largest in the Bay Area — that stretches across several West Oakland city blocks on vacant land owned by Caltrans and BNSF Railway. Some homeless residents said that number is likely higher.
The city of Oakland filed a proposal Thursday evening to move 50 people at a time from the encampment. Attorney Jamilah Jefferson said the city has 40 shelter beds available at six different locations, which will be held for 72 hours for people currently at Wood Street.
Alameda County’s Street Health Team — a registered nurse, a medical doctor and a community health outreach worker — is currently assisting around 50 people onsite, according to Buddy Rowell, an attorney representing the county.
Like other cities around the Bay Area, Oakland has struggled to create enough permanent supportive housing to offer all of its homeless residents long-term alternatives to the street.
While it’s “admittedly not a perfect proposal,” Orrick said, the plan “does its best” to address his concerns.
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More than 240 fires have erupted at the property since March 2020, Orrick said, including about a dozen fires since the temporary restraining order was issued July 22 and another on Friday. The federal judge said that public health concerns trump his desire to soften the impacts on the people living on the land.
Mark Guenzi, deputy attorney for Caltrans, requested that work start quickly, arguing that public safety hazards — including a potentially “catastrophic explosion” if fires reach nearby oxygen tanks — need to be mitigated.
But Brigitte Nicoletti, an attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center, which is representing the encampment’s residents, said the city, county, transportation agency and railroad exacerbated those dangers by failing to provide trash removal and sanitation.
Friday’s decision pleased Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has prioritized clearing encampments, including allocating $4.7 million from the state to specifically address the community at Wood Street. Earlier this month, Newsom threatened to revoke those funds — accusing Oakland city officials of washing their hands of responsibility for the homeless camp — if a solution wasn’t found soon.
“The court’s indication that it will lift the injunction in a week means Caltrans will hopefully be able to proceed to clean up the most dangerous portion of the Wood Street encampment in its efforts to ensure the safety of those living at the encampment and the surrounding community,” Newsom said in a joint statement with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf on Friday.
But Wood Street’s residents and housing advocates have argued that there are better options than clearing the camp.
In an open letter Aug. 23, the community wrote that state funding could be used to house 120 people in shipping container homes — equipped with running water and electricity — and to set aside space for people wanting to stay in their vehicles, RVs or tents, as well as a “centralized cooking model” to try and minimize fire risks.
Wood Street resident Ron McGowan said the approved proposal will only scatter the people and problems throughout the county, city and state.
After no one from the city, county or Caltrans could say they had census data on any of the people living at Wood Street in response to Orrick’s questioning, McGowan said all they had to do was ask.
“It’s absurd to think that we’ve gotten this far, and we have not had anybody take a survey of who is actually affected by this,” McGowan said, explaining that he would have shared his registry, complete with pictures and geolocations. “There must be a glaring hole somewhere in this process.”
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