Speaker 1: Calls media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it happened here a podcast about bad things.
Speaker 2: Usually I don't know, this is mostly a bad things episode.
Speaker 2: I am your host, Miya Wong. And one of the
Speaker 2: kind of things we've emphasized on the show a lot
Speaker 2: is that a lot of the structure of the kind
Speaker 2: of open fascism that we're seeing now is stuff that
Speaker 2: was put in place under liberal administrations, and it's practices
Speaker 2: that are carried out by Democrats, and one of the
Speaker 2: biggest ones of those and this is something that I
Speaker 2: think you can trace the violence here and you can
Speaker 2: trace the politics that it inspired directly to how we
Speaker 2: got to Trump being in power. Is the just continuous
Speaker 2: crisis in the US of governments doing sweeps of encampments
Speaker 2: of unhoused people. And to talk about really one of
Speaker 2: the most horrifying things that happens regularly in a country
Speaker 2: of just unhinged and hideous horror is Emma, who does
Speaker 2: advocacy work for on house and disabled people. And I'll
Speaker 2: to County and Satia, who does support dream sweeps in
Speaker 2: Oakland when yeah, this fucking hintshit happens. So both of
Speaker 2: you two, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you, appreciate the chance
Speaker 1: to talk with you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always want to say that I'm excited and like
Speaker 2: it is true. However, I wish I ran a podcast
Speaker 2: that was about like good things, so that way I
Speaker 2: could talk to people. It wasn't like, it wasn't me
Speaker 2: being like, yeah, I'm excited to talk about like the
Speaker 2: worst thing that happened. So I think a place to
Speaker 2: start on this is when we talk about what a
Speaker 2: sweep actually is on a physical level of what happens,
Speaker 2: because I think people really don't have a sense of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think softya, maybe you want to take
Speaker 1: this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm happy to take this one. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: I feel like, first of all, before I even go
Speaker 3: into it, yes, I think a lot of people who
Speaker 3: have never experienced a sweep or don't have loved ones
Speaker 3: who have been sweat I think a lot of people
Speaker 3: have no idea what a sweep actually consists of, even
Speaker 3: if in a general sense they feel that it's a
Speaker 3: bad thing or a wrong thing. And I think part
Speaker 3: of that is deliberate. Sweeps usually happen during business hours,
Speaker 3: during nine to five hours, because at least in Oakland,
Speaker 3: they're conducted by the Department of Public Works. They're city employees.
Speaker 3: They work nine to five, so accept in cases where
Speaker 3: they work over time or when the city uses loopholes
Speaker 3: to get around posting notice and ends up doing a
Speaker 3: sleep on the weekend. They're usually happening when a lot
Speaker 3: of middle class housed folks are at work and not
Speaker 3: out and about seeing what's going on. So a sweep,
Speaker 3: and I'm primarily talking in the context of Oakland, California,
Speaker 3: but I think it's safe to assume that these operate
Speaker 3: in similar ways around the country. Generally, what will happen
Speaker 3: is you, let's say you're living in an encampment. A
Speaker 3: sweep has been posted. In Oakland, there is policy that
Speaker 3: states that you're supposed to have received at least week's notice. However,
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't receive this notice, so you
Speaker 3: might not even know that it's happening. You might wake
Speaker 3: up at around nine am to a bunch of heavy
Speaker 3: machinery pulling up dump truck, small bulldozers, other types of
Speaker 3: sort of like heavy equipment, and then you'll have somebody
Speaker 3: from the city administration, like a city administrator's assistant, going
Speaker 3: around announcing that the city of Oakland is there, you know,
Speaker 3: making noise that your tent or your car or wherever
Speaker 3: you're staying, saying, hey, this encampment is being closed down.
Speaker 3: You have to be out of here. There usually are
Speaker 3: representatives of the city's contracted outreach organization called Operation Dignity.
Speaker 3: They're supposed to be there. Very rarely do they actually
Speaker 3: have referral for somewhere to go. They'll basically just be like, hey,
Speaker 3: do you want services. They won't usually specify what the
Speaker 3: services are. They'll just show up and be like, hey,
Speaker 3: do you want services. If you say yes or have
Speaker 3: questions about what services are available, they may give you
Speaker 3: a sort of very rundown of whatever might be available
Speaker 3: that day, because they don't usually even find out what
Speaker 3: openings are available until ten am on any given day,
Speaker 3: so at the time that they roll up, they usually
Speaker 3: don't even know what's available yet. So it kind of
Speaker 3: progresses from there. I mean, every sweep is a little different,
Speaker 3: but the commonality between all of them is that what
Speaker 3: the city is there to do is essentially to erase
Speaker 3: all signed that anybody ever lived there. So either you
Speaker 3: are able to pack as much stuff as you can
Speaker 3: and get it out of the eviction zone before the
Speaker 3: city decides that it's your turn to be targeted or
Speaker 3: all of your stuff ends up in the back of
Speaker 3: a dump truck. There are other sort of specific pieces
Speaker 3: of policy and operational things that can vary from time
Speaker 3: to time, like, for example, they're supposed to follow a
Speaker 3: bag and tag policy, which means that they're expected to
Speaker 3: store up to a cubic yard of somebody's belongings for
Speaker 3: ninety days at a storage location in East Oakland. They
Speaker 3: rarely do this unless how to do so, and most
Speaker 3: of the time, the actual process of going back and
Speaker 3: reclaiming your belongings from that location has enough barriers that
Speaker 3: almost nobody ever manages to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, so to just make this clear, the thing that
Speaker 2: they're doing is they show up and that they fucking
Speaker 2: destroil your property.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Like the thing that it most closely resembles is like
Speaker 2: we're doing our own miniature ethnic cleansings. Like that's just
Speaker 2: like what that is.
Speaker 1: Ye, yes, And every suite there are at least several
Speaker 1: police you know, depending on the size of the suite,
Speaker 1: that can be even more. And so there is a
Speaker 1: very real threat of police violence, like underlying every single
Speaker 1: encampment suite and so the suite that Oakland this week.
Speaker 1: Practices that Oakland has set up are like very kind
Speaker 1: of odd, and they are associated with different like lawsuits
Speaker 1: that have occurred and the past couple of actually since
Speaker 1: the seventies. But so there are certain requirements that the
Speaker 1: City of Oakland is obligated to follow in like certain
Speaker 1: provisions and offers that like homeless people are technically supposed
Speaker 1: to be receiving and for a bunch of complicated reasons,
Speaker 1: like rarely ever are so for instance, like the bag
Speaker 1: and tag policy that Satya was just discussing, like they've
Speaker 1: recently somebody did a PRA request to see whether or
Speaker 1: not to city was actually following faithfully following that policy.
Speaker 1: And I think in like over a year there were
Speaker 1: I believe eight bagging tags that were registered in the
Speaker 1: city system. And that was in that same period there
Speaker 1: were like well over one hundred sweeps. You know, I
Speaker 1: Jesus don't have the exact number on me, but are yeah,
Speaker 1: actually five hundred and thirty seven closure two instances of
Speaker 1: storing property. So you know that's people's their whole lives,
Speaker 1: all their possessions, like precious items that they they're able
Speaker 1: to hang on to are just yeah, destroyed and they
Speaker 1: never see them again.
Speaker 3: And I would also add to the piece around like
Speaker 3: the quote like offer of services, Like that's also something
Speaker 3: written into their policy that they're supposed to be connecting
Speaker 3: people to housing ahead of sweeps, and that's what they
Speaker 3: use to continually justify the way that they operate. Is
Speaker 3: that in for example, city council meetings and Homelessness Commission
Speaker 3: meetings where city admin is questioned on their procedures because
Speaker 3: they get complaints, like the Homeless Commission gets complaints constantly
Speaker 3: of people being mistreated, losing all their belongings, never getting
Speaker 3: referred to housing, and so forth. And the justification that's
Speaker 3: constantly used is like, well, we're offering people services every time,
Speaker 3: and they just refuse them. And I think that that
Speaker 3: is pretty much the number one mythology that is continuing
Speaker 3: to spur a lot of the like pro sweep discourse
Speaker 3: in Oakland specifically, and I'm sure in other parts of
Speaker 3: the country as well. And people are not, like to
Speaker 3: be clear, most of the time, people are not actually
Speaker 3: being offered services.
Speaker 1: It's just not happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a national discourse he chose ault. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I think a lot of it kind of
Speaker 2: is concentrated in the most unhinged, like tech sectors in
Speaker 2: the Bay. But like you hear, like officially Elon Musk
Speaker 2: has talked about like, oh, there's like there's like a
Speaker 2: homeless industrial complex, and like all of these people are
Speaker 2: just like they want to live on the street, and
Speaker 2: like they they're like turning down houses all the time,
Speaker 2: and it's just like it's so it's so completely unmoored
Speaker 2: from reality.
Speaker 3: But what's funny is I've actually used the term homeless
Speaker 3: industrial complex myself. I didn't know that there is that's hilarious.
Speaker 3: There is a homeless Yeah, it's just that the people
Speaker 3: making money off of it are the people who are
Speaker 3: perpetrating the sweeps. The reason that they're not actually putting
Speaker 3: forth real solutions that will get people into safe shelter
Speaker 3: and housing is because they're the ones benefiting from the
Speaker 3: perpetuation of these economic conditions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many things that I want to pick
Speaker 1: up on, but I guess just on that point specifically,
Speaker 1: Like there was an audit into California spending on homelessness.
Speaker 1: I believe it was over a period of seven years,
Speaker 1: and it showed that there was twenty four billion dollars
Speaker 1: spent on grants to nonprofits or cities to provide people
Speaker 1: with different services that are kind of designed around homelessness
Speaker 1: and providing housing or legal services. Like there's a whole
Speaker 1: range of things that's out there, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the time like these are the only options that are
Speaker 1: available to people, and they tend to produce less than
Speaker 1: stellar results. So, out of the twenty four billion dollars
Speaker 1: that was allocated to help homeless people in that same
Speaker 1: period of time, homelessness in California just like skyrocketed, right,
Speaker 1: So rates of homelessness increased while this money was getting
Speaker 1: plumped into the pockets of the bank accounts of like
Speaker 1: landlords and developers. It is an issue that people on
Speaker 1: every side of the political compass like they like to
Speaker 1: use this point to their own ends, right, So Elon
Speaker 1: Musk talks about it, and like people on the left
Speaker 1: will talk about it. But I think, like the experience
Speaker 1: that people on the street have is very different than
Speaker 1: any of these narratives that you tend to hear in
Speaker 1: the media.
Speaker 2: Yes, unfortunately, we need to take an ad break. I
Speaker 2: don't have a good transition here. I don't know, We'll
Speaker 2: move of one set of horrors to a slightly different
Speaker 2: set of horrors and go back to the first set
Speaker 2: of horrors.
Speaker 1: All of this money is being dedicated to these programs,
Speaker 1: and homelessness is only rising. I think, like one thing
Speaker 1: that I've heard before that's a kind of useful way
Speaker 1: to think about this kind of government spending is if
Speaker 1: homeless people would be better off if you'd just gave
Speaker 1: them the money directly, you know, then that kind of way,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to justify these programs when that can't
Speaker 1: be said of them, you know.
Speaker 3: And I think the thing that you pointed out, Emma,
Speaker 3: about the fact that we have huge amounts of money
Speaker 3: allegedly being spent on my homelessness abatement or homeless services
Speaker 3: at the same time that homelessness is skyrocketing is really
Speaker 3: not an accident, because what that money is really being
Speaker 3: spent on is to fuel exactly what is it, like,
Speaker 3: the homeless industrial complex. There's a reason that most of
Speaker 3: that money is going into the pockets of landlords and
Speaker 3: developers and then sort of like these sort of large
Speaker 3: like nonprofit almost like conglomerates of like service providers. And
Speaker 3: it's because the primary point of homelessness services as it
Speaker 3: exists in this country is not to get homeless people
Speaker 3: into housing. It's to line the pockets of the people
Speaker 3: that are making the most money off of the real
Speaker 3: estate market anyway. And so because of that, it is
Speaker 3: not an accident that you see homeless spending and homelessness
Speaker 3: like escalating at the same time. It's because this is
Speaker 3: the feedback loop, Like, this is the way that our
Speaker 3: you know, economic priorities in this country are structured, are
Speaker 3: such that those two things are going to feed into
Speaker 3: each other because that money doesn't actually exist to serve
Speaker 3: the populations that they say that they're using it to serve.
Speaker 3: What they do get to do is by claiming that
Speaker 3: that money is going into homelessness abatement, when clearly it isn't.
Speaker 3: They then get to spind a narrative where they say, oh,
Speaker 3: we've spent all this money, but the problem is just
Speaker 3: getting worse. That must mean that it is the fault
Speaker 3: of unhoused people and that they're choosing this because clearly
Speaker 3: the services must exist to get them off the street.
Speaker 3: In reality, that's not the case. At all.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think also it's super important for people to
Speaker 1: understand that these programs, housing programs, shelter programs, they are
Speaker 1: out there, but they are decoupled from the sweep operations
Speaker 1: that are occurring. Right So, the City of Oakland, they
Speaker 1: are contracted with the nonprofit Softia mentioned earlier called Operation Dignity,
Speaker 1: and they are required to check in with different encampments
Speaker 1: that are scheduled to be closed at least a week
Speaker 1: before the suite and the purpose of that is to
Speaker 1: notify people that it's happening. The City of Oakland is
Speaker 1: required for the terms of this lawsuit back in I
Speaker 1: believe twenty nineteen, the Moralees lawsuit, and there was a
Speaker 1: settlement that resulted in the city being required to provide
Speaker 1: clear notices whenever they're going to close like a site.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this nonprofit providers was to like notify people
Speaker 1: and try to get them connected with services. However, the
Speaker 1: services for the most part, like housing for people who
Speaker 1: are unhoused, is largely funded through the federal government and
Speaker 1: through this very complex and inaccessible system called coordinated Entry.
Speaker 1: The coordinated Entry system is not something that the City
Speaker 1: of Oakland or Operation dignity like that is not something
Speaker 1: that they're providing people with during the suitep. So when
Speaker 1: the City of Oakland, like for instance, and one of
Speaker 1: the commissions on Homelessness meetings, the city administrator Harold Duffy,
Speaker 1: he presented actually in response to a question about somebody's
Speaker 1: wheelchair being destroyed by public works. Yeah, he gave this
Speaker 1: really like roundabout deflecting answer where he said basically that
Speaker 1: everyone who is at an encampment at the time of
Speaker 1: the sweep has like expressly refused services like shelter or
Speaker 1: housing or whatever, and that they kind of presumes that
Speaker 1: the city actually has opportunities that they can provide people with,
Speaker 1: which is just not the case. The Coordinated Entry System,
Speaker 1: it is a program that is first of all, like
Speaker 1: only people who are disabled can get what's called permanent
Speaker 1: supportive housing through the program. But also it is in
Speaker 1: such high demand and is so inadequate to the needs
Speaker 1: that Alameda County is currently like the situation that we're
Speaker 1: in that the wait list is like thousands of people long,
Speaker 1: and it can take well over a year before someone
Speaker 1: can get housing through that system. So it's just like
Speaker 1: it's not true they do offer people what are called
Speaker 1: community cabins, which are tough sheds. They're not even offering
Speaker 1: people that they're full the full. Yeah, that's what they say.
Speaker 1: They offer. Sorry, I had me to cut you off.
Speaker 3: I feel strongly about this, So I think it's also
Speaker 3: where things like in terms of I feel like that's
Speaker 3: a really a really useful layout, Emma, in terms of
Speaker 3: like the way that the system is actually structured for
Speaker 3: people not to be able to access services, I feel
Speaker 3: like it's also worth pointing out that just day to
Speaker 3: day on the ground, I feel like I feel like
Speaker 3: I get to see a lot of sort of like
Speaker 3: minute details and changes in the way that they're operating
Speaker 3: in response to what they're like internal systems actually look like.
Speaker 3: And what we have seen over the last six months
Speaker 3: to a year is not only this pattern that e'm
Speaker 3: I was talking about of like they're like people are
Speaker 3: consistently not getting connected with services and then being accused
Speaker 3: of refusing services just due to the conditions that they're
Speaker 3: living under, but also everything that Oakland has and that
Speaker 3: approaches like livable transitional housing, which is kind of laughable
Speaker 3: in this case because we can also go into the
Speaker 3: conditions of the transitional housing programs and shelters in Oakland
Speaker 3: which are abysmal, but everything that they have that approaches
Speaker 3: livable transitional housing is full.
Speaker 1: I very rarely.
Speaker 3: Every few weeks, maybe I see one or two people
Speaker 3: get referred to one of those programs, and far more
Speaker 3: often I'll be in a situation. For example, I was
Speaker 3: at a sweep over near twenty third and Northgate a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago, and I was there when Operation
Speaker 3: Dignity rolled up and I heard what they were saying
Speaker 3: when they were talking to people, and this one dude
Speaker 3: was going around talking to folks and he kind of
Speaker 3: he wasn't even approaching talking about services. He was approaching
Speaker 3: being like, Hey, I'm just here to let you know
Speaker 3: that this area is going to be closed down, Like
Speaker 3: there's a sweep that's going to be happening, so you
Speaker 3: guys have to be out of here. So that was
Speaker 3: what they led with. And then I prompted him because
Speaker 3: I was there chatting with one of the guys that
Speaker 3: he was talking to, so I prompted him. I was like,
Speaker 3: do you have any services to offer? And then he
Speaker 3: was like, oh, you can go over to Saint Vincent
Speaker 3: de Paul, which is conger Get shelter in West Oakland
Speaker 3: with about forty beds, and nobody is guaranteed a spot,
Speaker 3: is just a room full of cots. A lot of
Speaker 3: people refuse to go there because the conditions are so
Speaker 3: terrible and they don't feel comfortable or safe sleeping in
Speaker 3: a room full of a bunch of strangers with no
Speaker 3: kind of security, no guarantee of being able to hold
Speaker 3: onto their stuff. People are only allowed to bring in
Speaker 3: like a backpack sort of stuff, I'm pretty sure. And
Speaker 3: you also have to it's first come, first service. You
Speaker 3: have to line up outside every single day, and you
Speaker 3: are not guaranteed an indoor place to sleep even if
Speaker 3: you line up outside. So what we have is a
Speaker 3: situation where the availability of services varies from day to day.
Speaker 3: I cannot think of a single sweep in the last
Speaker 3: year that I have been to, and I'm at usually
Speaker 3: multiple sleeps a week where there were enough guaranteed spots
Speaker 3: available for every person being swept. So the implicit assumption
Speaker 3: at every single sweep and the Operation Dignity people know
Speaker 3: this too, like they know this, the implicit assumption when
Speaker 3: they roll up, and the assumption that colors even the
Speaker 3: tenor of all of their conversations that they're having with
Speaker 3: people is that the majority of people are just going
Speaker 3: to have to figure out how to pack their shit
Speaker 3: up and find another place to camp. It's the assumption,
Speaker 3: and it's gotten to the point where, like od employees
Speaker 3: will roll up and like I said, they won't even
Speaker 3: necessarily lead with an offer of services. They'll lead almost
Speaker 3: in the hopes that the majority of people already have
Speaker 3: a place to relocate. They'll ask do you have a
Speaker 3: place to go? Before they offer services, or ask if
Speaker 3: people are entered as services, they'll they'll ask, like, do
Speaker 3: you have another spot to move this stuff first? Because
Speaker 3: what they're hoping to do is eliminate as many people
Speaker 3: as possible from their list of people that they feel
Speaker 3: obligated to offer services to because they know they don't
Speaker 3: fucking have anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's super important to just emphasize that point.
Speaker 1: The city is telling the media. They're telling like businesses,
Speaker 1: anyone that comes to them with problems related to like
Speaker 1: helplessness or concerns, they're telling them that everyone is being
Speaker 1: offered shelter and housing and it's just not true and
Speaker 1: that is reflective in the city's own publicly available data,
Speaker 1: so they actually publish like a list of all of
Speaker 1: the encampment suites that they do throughout the year, and
Speaker 1: in the Commission on Homelessness meetings, will report back to
Speaker 1: the Commission about like service enrollment that they've done through
Speaker 1: a certain period of time, and like from May to
Speaker 1: September they had enrolled I believe it was sixty people
Speaker 1: and to services like non specified services. And during that
Speaker 1: period there was approximately eighty sweeps. And if you assume
Speaker 1: there's at least five to ten people at every encampment
Speaker 1: when they do a sweep, and usually it's more that
Speaker 1: is like nine percent four point five percent of people
Speaker 1: like getting enrolled into into services, and like of those
Speaker 1: maybe a smaller traction getting into shelter. And when they
Speaker 1: get into shelter, they just languish there, right, they aren't
Speaker 1: connected with case workers who help them get through this
Speaker 1: really convoluted coordinated entry process and like lengthy coordinated entry process,
Speaker 1: and so within a few months they're just right back
Speaker 1: on the street. You know, it's just ridiculous. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: because homeless people have very little like I guess you
Speaker 1: could call it social capital, you know, the city can
Speaker 1: get away with a lot of this stuff they do,
Speaker 1: like blatantly illegal things that are against even their own policies,
Speaker 1: and nothing happens. And I guess like maybe we should
Speaker 1: back up a little bit and discuss the city's policy.
Speaker 2: It's from second at break and then we will come
Speaker 2: back more ads. I don't know by them question mark.
Speaker 1: We are back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, let's talk about I think what the
Speaker 2: city's policies are supposed to be versus like what they're
Speaker 2: actually doing on the ground.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, their policy is their cover your ass technique, right,
Speaker 3: Their policy is what they refer back to whenever they
Speaker 3: want to sort of like like Emma said, if they're
Speaker 3: interfacing with businesses or house people, you know, and we
Speaker 3: have a whole range of house people calling free one one,
Speaker 3: which is basically their tip line for like go you
Speaker 3: see a homeless person, you don't want to be seen.
Speaker 3: But there's all a range of people. There's people that
Speaker 3: are actively malicious and violent, and there's literally people going
Speaker 3: out doing vigilanti shit and like destroying almost people's stuff
Speaker 3: on their own. And then you also have people that
Speaker 3: are well intentioned and really think the city is offering services.
Speaker 3: So you have this whole umbrella and the narrative that
Speaker 3: the city sells to everybody is bolstered by their policy.
Speaker 3: That's the purpose their policy services, not to inform their actions,
Speaker 3: but to inform their pr So I think it would
Speaker 3: be helpful, Emma, how do you feel about if you
Speaker 3: want to kind of give a breakdown of the city's
Speaker 3: policy and then I can kind of give a breakdown
Speaker 3: into what that translates into on the ground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is like, it's kind of a complicated situation.
Speaker 1: But the city has what's what they call their Encampment
Speaker 1: Management policy, and it was initially passed in I think
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, but it's gone through like several evolutions over
Speaker 1: the past ten years or so, and it is related
Speaker 1: to different Supreme Court cases and the settlement that I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. So this policy, it provides certain very limited
Speaker 1: protections for people who are homeless in the city limits.
Speaker 1: The city is required by this policy to offer shelter.
Speaker 1: I believe it's a week for any person who's subject
Speaker 1: to one of their encampment closures. And also we mentioned
Speaker 1: the bag intag policy. So if somebody, you know, they
Speaker 1: are evicted and they move somewhere outside with the tent,
Speaker 1: they bring all of their possessions with them. They are
Speaker 1: provided with a I believe three foot by three foot
Speaker 1: like storage space and this facility that is super inaccessible
Speaker 1: and kind of like like I don't even know if
Speaker 1: it's actually real, to be honest, because it's just like
Speaker 1: nobody ever, I've never heard of anybody actually like getting
Speaker 1: their stuff stored and getting back. But technically that is
Speaker 1: a possibility. However, the city will only hold on to
Speaker 1: it for so long before they throw it away, and
Speaker 1: then the last protection or provision is the city was
Speaker 1: until recently supposed to provide people with shelter. So a
Speaker 1: few different Supreme Court cases are behind that provision specifically,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of cities kind of had
Speaker 1: a similar policy framework that they were following until the
Speaker 1: Grant's Pass ruling, and I guess maybe we don't need
Speaker 1: to get into that too much, but basically, the whole
Speaker 1: idea of that policy was like, if somebody is outside
Speaker 1: the thing outside and the city suites them, they have
Speaker 1: to provide them with some kind of alternative accommodation because
Speaker 1: according to like the Ninth District Court, it was consideredly
Speaker 1: cruel and unusual punishment to panalyze somebody for being homeless
Speaker 1: without offering them some kind of temporary like accommodations. And
Speaker 1: so that was more or less the city's nominal framework
Speaker 1: for several years basically, and the degree to which they
Speaker 1: actually followed these policies, you know, they really didn't, except
Speaker 1: for in certain situations where there are like, for instance,
Speaker 1: legal advocates who will file injunctions to stop the city
Speaker 1: from doing a sweep on the basis of like failure
Speaker 1: to provide an alternative accommodation. And typically those arise when
Speaker 1: there is a very large encampment clearing operation that is
Speaker 1: scheduled and a contentious issue. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: the time, for instance, they'll be people staying on city
Speaker 1: or like California state land and the city will like
Speaker 1: force them to move because of some development project that
Speaker 1: they're planning to do. And so in those situations when
Speaker 1: the media has kind of narrowed their their focus and
Speaker 1: begun like discussing some of this stuff and the local press,
Speaker 1: then like something like that became possible. But after the
Speaker 1: Grants Past ruling this past year, the city was no
Speaker 1: longer like obligated under federal law to all of those policies,
Speaker 1: and in September of last year, the late Mayor Shankal,
Speaker 1: she issued an executive order that more or less like
Speaker 1: just totally rendered that policy framework irrelevant. So she put
Speaker 1: forth a new framework that allows the city to sweep
Speaker 1: encampments under a tiered system of what are called emergency suites.
Speaker 1: So if for instance, a encampment is blocking a roadway
Speaker 1: or a sidewalk, then it is a hazard to the
Speaker 1: public quote unquote, or if it's somebody has a tent
Speaker 1: that is up against a building of some sort, it's
Speaker 1: a fire hazard. And so in this tiered system, there's
Speaker 1: like different levels of safety hazards that they're doing now.
Speaker 1: And basically what that looks like is like a fire
Speaker 1: marshal and the city administrator will convene after somebody calls
Speaker 1: in a complaint about somebody that's staying outside by their business.
Speaker 1: And with the fire hazard one, I believe that they
Speaker 1: can just sweep without any prior notice, whereas the other
Speaker 1: two there is some like level of notice that they're
Speaker 1: technically required to provide. But yeah, so the shelter provisions
Speaker 1: and the notice and storage like it, they're technically still
Speaker 1: supposed to follow that by their own city resolution, but
Speaker 1: there is this provision that like, if for instance, they
Speaker 1: issue somebody like a no or a one hour notice
Speaker 1: to leave because of like a fire hazard, and like
Speaker 1: add kids can't make it there because they don't really
Speaker 1: know nobody knows it's happening, then the city can just
Speaker 1: do that and not offer people anything. Right, So these
Speaker 1: policies have the effect of disempowering our the ability to
Speaker 1: respond to like a scheduled operation. Then the city can
Speaker 1: really just do whatever they want because nobody's watching what
Speaker 1: they're doing.
Speaker 2: I guess we can. I think we can take this
Speaker 2: here towards something I think would probably good to start
Speaker 2: closing on, which is, like, what can people actually do
Speaker 2: about this?
Speaker 3: First of all, I think listening to all of this,
Speaker 3: it can be really easy to feel disempowered and to
Speaker 3: feel like, you know, the walls are closing in and
Speaker 3: there's nothing that we can do. And that remains not
Speaker 3: the case, you know. I think people should feel empowered
Speaker 3: to be able to physically intervene, because the most effective
Speaker 3: way of physically intervening with this kind of violence is
Speaker 3: to commit to relationship building, something that I've talked about
Speaker 3: a lot with sort of like fellow advocates and folks
Speaker 3: that are kind of involved in like sweeps response and
Speaker 3: crisis response in Oakland is that the one thing that
Speaker 3: the city cannot take away from us that we have
Speaker 3: an advantage over them in is relationship building. Part of
Speaker 3: the reason that, for example, the Operation Dignity employees are
Speaker 3: so inefficient and so you know, seemingly bad at their
Speaker 3: jobs is not just the fact that they don't have
Speaker 3: anything to offer, but also because everybody on the street
Speaker 3: knows they're full of shit because they never show up
Speaker 3: with anything real and addressing housed people in particular, right, like,
Speaker 3: one of the things to get out of is sort
Speaker 3: of like the savior mentality or the guilt mentality of like, oh,
Speaker 3: like I don't have any housing to offer, therefore I
Speaker 3: can't do anything, Like I can't fix the problem, I
Speaker 3: can't fix the roots, so I can't do anything. In reality,
Speaker 3: all you really need to do is to learn to
Speaker 3: set that mentality aside and show up and like start
Speaker 3: meeting folks where they're at, Start meeting your neighbors where
Speaker 3: they're at, start building relationships. You need to know, like
Speaker 3: if you live in a particular neighborhood, Think to yourself,
Speaker 3: I need to know that if any unhoused person within
Speaker 3: a mile radius of my home was disappeared, I would
Speaker 3: need to I would need to know, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Like, I would want to know if that happens.
Speaker 3: So if you go out with that understanding that you're
Speaker 3: starting to build lifelong relationships with the folks that are
Speaker 3: living outside in your neighborhood, ideally a lot of other
Speaker 3: people in your neighborhood too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But like, what they're banking on is right now, while
Speaker 3: while they're still trying to use a pr cover for
Speaker 3: what they're doing. What they're banking on is people not
Speaker 3: talking to each other, people not finding out about the
Speaker 3: abusis people not finding out about the violations, people not
Speaker 3: being there, and people not having relationships that will remain
Speaker 3: strong even as they try to physically scatter people's communities.
Speaker 3: And what you can do to start is start investing
Speaker 3: in those relationships. Make sure you know what people's names are,
Speaker 3: make sure you would know if somebody's routine was suddenly disrupted. Hey,
Speaker 3: Beckuy used.
Speaker 2: To be on that corner.
Speaker 3: You know, every couple days out of the week, and
Speaker 3: now I never see him anymore what happened to him?
Speaker 3: And I think you can start there, and there's much
Speaker 3: more that you can concretely do. I mean, one of
Speaker 3: the ways that I'm accustomed to showing up at this
Speaker 3: point is direct on the ground sweeps response. So we're
Speaker 3: still able to keep track currently of what their schedule
Speaker 3: is on a weekly basis more or less, Like there's
Speaker 3: definitely operations we don't find out about until after the fact,
Speaker 3: but the majority of their weekday operations we do still
Speaker 3: know about ahead of time, and so we'll show up.
Speaker 3: We'll make sure we get there before the city does
Speaker 3: so like by eight am ideally right, Like we show up,
Speaker 3: talk to people, will be like what do you need?
Speaker 3: Do you need physical help moving your belongings out of
Speaker 3: the eviction zone. Do you need to borrow somebody's phone
Speaker 3: so that you can call somebody who said they were
Speaker 3: going to come help you. Do you need help pushing
Speaker 3: or pulling your vehicle? Any number of things really, but
Speaker 3: just like being willing to show up and ask questions
Speaker 3: about necessarily knowing what answers you're going to get, and
Speaker 3: being down to follow up and like do aftercare with
Speaker 3: people and chicken on folks and like keep building those relationships.
Speaker 3: I think that those are the building blocks of the
Speaker 3: zing that we're going to need to be doing in
Speaker 3: the future, because you know, what the city is counting
Speaker 3: on is that they're going to be able to successfully
Speaker 3: create a scapegoat, right. They want to create like a faceless,
Speaker 3: nameless mass of people that they can pin all their
Speaker 3: problems on and then incarce rate. And the best thing
Speaker 3: that we can do is make sure that they can't
Speaker 3: successfully do that, because we all have relationships to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really appreciate those sentiments yet, and I think
Speaker 1: like the Oakland like advocates doing like eviction defense for
Speaker 1: people who are living outside. It's grown in size and
Speaker 1: like capacity quite a bit in the past here, and
Speaker 1: like the city has noticed that. So they've actually like
Speaker 1: they've passed various resolutions, and honestly, a lot of their
Speaker 1: practices and their policies, like their Encampment management team, they
Speaker 1: seem to be like responding to the increasing effectiveness of
Speaker 1: this response, just like network of community defense. And so
Speaker 1: I think that like all of those things are are
Speaker 1: so important, especially as the term regime starts to eliminate
Speaker 1: the very like modest social safety net that that there was.
Speaker 1: And you know, before we end this conversation, I just
Speaker 1: want to emphasize that in Oakland, like a majority of
Speaker 1: the people who are homeless and are subject to state violence,
Speaker 1: they are non white, mostly black, and are homeless in
Speaker 1: neighborhoods where they used to be housed. And so the
Speaker 1: gentrification that has happened, particularly in like West Oakland, and
Speaker 1: the influx of high income tech workers that displaced them
Speaker 1: and moved into their family homes, they are the same
Speaker 1: people who are calling three one one to push the
Speaker 1: city to displace them again, but from a tent or
Speaker 1: a car this time. And I think it's just so
Speaker 1: so important that particularly like housed people try to tap
Speaker 1: into the networks of community defense that exist in their areas.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that most cities probably have something comparable to Oakland,
Speaker 1: but with the measures that we're seeing, cities begin to take,
Speaker 1: such as in Fremont, which is about thirty minutes south
Speaker 1: of Oakland, where they basically banned or criminalize mutual aid
Speaker 1: with unhoused people. So you can get one thousand dollars
Speaker 1: fine or a six months in jail for dating and
Speaker 1: a betting a homeless person, and you know, that's an.
Speaker 3: Extremely vague law, so like giving someone a blanket could
Speaker 3: fall under this, So you could be fined or put
Speaker 3: in jail for giving an unhouse person a blanket and
Speaker 3: free month currently.
Speaker 1: So it's very important that people try to be aware
Speaker 1: of their city government, how they're maybe passing anti homeless
Speaker 1: measures and there in their cities, and trying to mobilize
Speaker 1: against against that from happening.
Speaker 3: I also have one more thing to add that I'm
Speaker 3: so sorry, just specifically for anybody, for anybody thinking about
Speaker 3: getting involved or organizing strategically around community defense, sleep defense,
Speaker 3: whatever that looks like in your particular area, I would say,
Speaker 3: but first of all, especially if you're a house person
Speaker 3: in this case, like invest valuable time into getting to
Speaker 3: know people on an interpersonal level and getting to know
Speaker 3: people's needs first, instead of falling into the drop of
Speaker 3: sort of imposing what you might have learned through like
Speaker 3: other sort of direct action organizing, because this is not
Speaker 3: that you know, like I think, yeah, first of all,
Speaker 3: just making sure that you're being you're organizing as being
Speaker 3: led by the needs of you know, homemost residents that
Speaker 3: are expressing what they need to you. But also on
Speaker 3: top of that, when it comes to this particular draconian
Speaker 3: waves of legislation that are being passed or on, like
Speaker 3: anti homeless laws and stuff, don't preemptively obey, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, Like if you live in Fremont, don't
Speaker 3: preemptively say, oh fuck, I better stop passing out blankets.
Speaker 3: Because what we've seen in Oakland with the particular iterations
Speaker 3: of anti homeless legislation that they've passed here is that
Speaker 3: just because they've passed legislation doesn't mean that they feel
Speaker 3: confident enforcing it yet. And what you need to do
Speaker 3: really is step up real hard and show them you
Speaker 3: can't enforce this the way that you want to. They
Speaker 3: are going to push back. There's going to be this
Speaker 3: back and forth interplay that we've seen, you know, for
Speaker 3: example in Oakland with the safe works and ordinance, which
Speaker 3: we can probably get into another time, because it's way
Speaker 3: too much to get into right now, I think at
Speaker 3: this point in the episode. But it's a two way street.
Speaker 3: It's this fight that you have to play to show
Speaker 3: them just because you've passed this legislation doesn't mean you
Speaker 3: can enforce in a particular way, you have to give
Speaker 3: them something to fight against, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So that's just the other piece.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and like and the rest of their policy
Speaker 2: is absolutely one hundred percent evidence that if the state
Speaker 2: doesn't want to follow the law, it isn't real. But
Speaker 2: that also means that, like, if they can't enforce a law,
Speaker 2: like it also effectively ceases to exist. That's just the
Speaker 2: sort of balance of forces here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And there is a lawsuit currently against that,
Speaker 1: and that sounds like, you know, the City of Fremont
Speaker 1: is probably going to be removing that aiding in a
Speaker 1: vetting clause from the resolution, but because that specific provision
Speaker 1: is actually like in the city's municipal code as a
Speaker 1: general provision, so you know, even if they do remove it,
Speaker 1: charges could still be brought against somebody. So like, really
Speaker 1: the entire ordinance needs to be eliminated all together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess do you have anything else that you
Speaker 2: want to make sure that you get in before we
Speaker 2: close out?
Speaker 1: I don't think so, not nothing that comes to mind.
Speaker 1: But yeah, again, I super appreciate you having a song
Speaker 1: to talk about this. Yeah, you know, shit is rough
Speaker 1: right now. I think for me personally, it's been really
Speaker 1: helpful to direct my energy towards things in my social
Speaker 1: network in a way that's like constructive and helpful to others.
Speaker 1: So I would definitely suggest if you're feeling like any
Speaker 1: despair or like worried about becoming like black till or whatever, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just try to tappen and focus on things that are
Speaker 1: happening in your community. It's good for you and it's
Speaker 1: good for the people in your community.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just seconding that, I think like being able to
Speaker 3: tapp in specifically with like the types of unhoused organizing
Speaker 3: and underground economies that exist wherever unhoused people exist, and
Speaker 3: like being able to like tap into that and like
Speaker 3: you know, again like speaking from the perspective of a
Speaker 3: house person, like really humble yourself and learn from that.
Speaker 3: Like you're going to learn a whole lot more relevant
Speaker 3: life skills just hanging out in social settings with people
Speaker 3: in the street than you are in any other area
Speaker 3: of your life. So just go balls to the wall,
Speaker 3: just start hanging out, just like spend all your time loitering,
Speaker 3: Like just that's that's where we need to be right now,
Speaker 3: is loitering in the street.
Speaker 1: That's where the organizing is happening. So yeah, street claim Space.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this has been It could happen here. Go
Speaker 2: loiter on street Quarters and make the state's life miserable
Speaker 2: till it cannot do the things that is doing right now.
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Speaker 2: You can now find sources for it could Happen here,
Speaker 2: listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.