As homelessness surges, the Northern California city’s move to push out campers and their occupants triggers anger from its neighbors.
Tom Valledao in his RV on Eighth Street in Berkeley, Calif. By Scott Wilson Scott Wilson Senior national correspondent focusing on California and the West Email Bio Follow May 24 at 7:00 AM BERKELEY, Calif. — This eccentric Northern California enclave was a sanctuary long before the designation became a must-have merit badge for any left-leaning city.
But Berkeley’s move serves as a parable for how one seemingly small government decision and a lack of basic coordination can rumble through a region short on housing and high on frustration. The ban was itself a reaction to steps larger cities and the state have taken that created homeless migration around the Bay Area, disruptive and endless, in a region with the highest housing costs in the country.
The increase reflects a bewildering fact given the resources already devoted to the issue: The problem, according to just-completed homeless counts in cities across California, is undoubtedly getting worse. Preliminary numbers released late last week from San Francisco and Alameda County, which includes Oakland and Berkeley, show significant increases in the homeless populations during the past two years. Berkeley’s rise was 43 percent.
An RV parked near Eighth and Gilman in Berkeley. A wealthy resistance Across the bay in San Francisco, which a recent report found has the highest concentration of billionaires of any city in the world, nearly every proposal to address homelessness has met with public ire in the past few months. The rising anger is in large part a result of just how visible the problem is here. An estimated 67 percent of the Bay Area’s homeless population is “unsheltered,” meaning they live and sleep outdoors. In the United States, only Los Angeles has a higher rate.
“We should strive to have the big answer — that is, that we are building here, we are building there, we are building everywhere,” Covert said. “This would provide the assurance of burden-sharing, which the chronic opposition is suspicious is actually happening.”Pam Benfante stands nearby as her neighbor, Chris Castle, installs a horn in his RV.
“I will say it was a little surprising for Berkeley to pass the ordinance without having talked to us first,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said. “Everyone wants a solution that doesn’t just push the problem to someone else’s doorstep. It’s neither effective nor compassionate.” To the homeless, the collection of cabins provides shelter and allows streetside communities to remain largely intact.
Residents carry their toiletries in Ziploc bags from behind the little settlement’s guarded gate onto the sidewalk, chatting as they wait their turn inside the small trailer. Afterward, Kato, who said she is escaping a violent home life, will rest inside her cabin, something she was unable to do when she lived in a regular shelter that closes during the day.
“The biggest challenge we face is that we do not have a lot of available land,” said Arreguín, who in his two years in office has doubled the number of shelter beds and has sharply increased spending on homeless programs. “Had we had a large enough parcel, we would have already opened a safe parking site for these RVs.”
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