Newsom’s office blasts Oakland’s response to city’s biggest homeless camp

OAKLAND — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office environment took Oakland officers to endeavor this week for shirking their accountability to distinct a huge, fire-inclined West Oakland homeless camp — and threatened to withhold millions in state funding.

In a letter to Oakland Town Attorney Barbara Parker, the governor’s business office accused the metropolis of washing its palms of the the vast majority of the Wood Road homeless encampment people for the reason that they are camped on land that is owned by Caltrans — not the city.

“We write currently out of concern that the town of Oakland is aiming to stay clear of accountability for supplying shelter and housing help to persons at the unsafe encampment commonly known as ‘Wood Avenue,’ inspite of considerable point out funding the Metropolis has acquired, and is getting, for this function in excess of the final two several years,” Ann Patterson, Newsom’s legal affairs secretary, wrote.

Newsom has designed clearing California’s homeless encampments a precedence, and the condition has allotted $300 million to Oakland and Alameda County to combat homelessness considering that the COVID-19 pandemic began — like $4.7 million not too long ago awarded to Oakland especially to deal with the Wood Street encampment. In its letter, the governor’s business threatened to redirect state funding to other neighborhood governments that are “willing and capable to provide the people of Oakland in fulfillment of distinct responsibilities outlined in condition law.”

Several hundred persons are estimated to stay in tents, make-shift shacks, cars and RVs alongside many blocks of Wooden Avenue and in adjoining vacant land owned by Caltrans. The camp has been a important level of rivalry for months, especially immediately after a fire there past month sent clouds of black smoke billowing through the spot and closed parts of the Interstate 80 and 880 overpasses. A further fire Tuesday, which ignited an RV and debris bordering the auto, brought 20 firefighters to the scene.

Pursuing the to start with hearth, Caltrans reported it planned to close the camps on its land — displacing an estimated 200 folks — by the initial week of August. A team of encampment residents promptly sued, and late past month, a federal judge dominated the transit agency simply cannot shut the camp right until at least the finish of August, mainly because it has but to formulate a strategy to relocate the inhabitants. The two sides are scheduled to look in courtroom once more following week to decide subsequent steps.

In his purchase, U.S. District Judge William Orrick purchased Caltrans to work with officers from Oakland, Alameda County and Newsom’s office to determine out where the encampment residents can go. City spokeswoman Jean Walsh mentioned Oakland has engaged in those people talks.

“City discussions with Caltrans and the county have determined feasible solutions to support Caltrans’ shelter desires,” Walsh claimed in an e-mail. “All get-togethers are doing the job to identify means vital to guidance sheltering around 200 men and women on condition land.”

But Patterson’s letter statements the city only not too long ago “finally confirmed” a assembly time with Caltrans’ attorneys to discuss the city’s part in mitigating the encampment.

The metropolis resumed do the job clearing the portion of the camp on Wood Avenue this week, but specified it does not have authority to apparent or handle encampments on Caltrans land. Town outreach groups have engaged with far more than a dozen folks living on Wooden Road — 6 recognized placements in shelters, 4 agreed to move into a safe and sound RV parking site, and 3 declined the city’s presents.

Town officials system to use the $4.7 million grant from the state to develop a 50-unit shelter on the web-site modeled just after the little household or “cabin communities” Oakland has stood up in half-a-dozen other destinations in the course of the city. It options to afterwards increase an additional 50 units.