HOW IT STARTED:
During her annual State of the City address on Thursday, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf called on her constituents to open their doors and residences to the city’s homeless, as union workers picketed against her for her administration’s handling of the city’s rampant housing problem.
“Give up that Airbnb. Fix up that back unit,” Schaff said, encouraging property owners to lease apartments at more affordable rates to recently homeless individuals, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“In Oakland, we don’t step over the homeless we step toward them,” Schaaf said.
The city’s uptick in vagrants is tied to a general gentrification in the Bay Area, stemming from San Francisco, where artists and innovators unable to afford skyrocketing rents have migrated to Oakland.
In May, the Chronicle noted that a survey by Everyone Counts found that the number of homeless persons in Oakland had increased by 25 percent since two years ago.
— “Oakland Mayor Urges Residents to Take in Homeless: ‘Give Up That Airbnb,’” Breitbart.com, November 4th, 2017.
How it’s going:
Residents living near homeless encampments, vandalized and abandoned warehouses, and lines of motorhomes and stripped-down cars say the police department isn’t doing enough, so they have formed vigilante patrols to clean up their East Oakland neighborhood.
Those living closest to the defunct plant owned by Owens-Illinois along Alameda Avenue say an uptick in crime has led them to keep watch over their streets and spend their own money to add lighting and security cameras to protect their properties.
“We’re can’t depend on the city to do it,” neighbor Denise Gray said. “It’s just getting too far out of hand.”
Records show Oakland police are called to the area surrounding the abandoned plant nearly once a day for reports of robbery, assault, auto theft and drug crimes.
Additionally, with sprawling homeless encampments adjacent to the warehouses, the fire department has responded more than 500 times in the past three years, records show.
—“’Oakland looks like a trash can:’ neighbors form vigilante patrols to curb crime,” Bay Area Fox affiliate KTVU, today.
Related (from Glenn): When the Dawn Patrol’s got to tell you twice, they’re gonna do it with a shotgun. “Anyone with a brain and a bit of historical knowledge could have seen this coming, which is no doubt why it eluded so much of our political class.”