OAKLAND -- The city of Oakland's attempt to clear an encampment on Wood Street to build low-income housing illustrates the array of considerations involved when closing a place where unsheltered people are living.
That site allegedly functioned as a small community with a common area used to organize donations and cook group meals several nights a week as well as"pop-up clinics, regular open mics, and other community town hall events." Meanwhile, city workers were engaging with site residents and helping them relocate to shelter, including a"safe parking" area for RVs and a number of newly built residential"cabins."
The city proposed to store personal property from the site only in accordance with its"Encampment Management Policy," which allocated one square yard of property storage per resident, an amount insufficient to store the large items. The legal issue they asserted was different than the issues that had animated the early stages of the litigation. When the judge entered the initial injunction, he said that the"state created danger doctrine" was implicated by the city's plan to conduct the clearing during a time of weather and health emergency with nowhere else for residents to go.
The plaintiffs relied on two decisions from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The first held that unabandoned property of a homeless person left temporarily on a city sidewalk could not be destroyed. The second case involved the destruction of property that was too big to fit into a 60-gallon container -- like the property in this case -- things ranging in size from mattresses and couches to sheds or structures.