This interview aired in the October 6, 2025 episode of Crosscurrents.
Cities around the Bay Area have been debating how to handle people camping in public places or living in RVs. Right now, Oakland is in the midst of dramatically changing its homelessness policy. The new proposal was put forth by District 7 Council member Ken Houston. Last month there was a public meeting about his proposal and it was highly emotional — it lasted seven hours. Over 90 people made public comments. Some people spoke in favor of the proposed changes, but most spoke out against them.
SPEAKER
I urge you to vote no on this cruel and inhumane ordinance…In the midst of a budget crisis it would spend millions while pushing people from one sidewalk to another with zero solutions.
SPEAKER
I am in support of Ken’s proposal because we have to start somewhere. As San Jose and San Francisco clamp down, we’ll have more people in Oakland.
SPEAKER
We cannot jail our way out of homelessness. We can’t.
KALW’s homelessness reporter Alastair Boone is here to tell us more about the proposed policy, and why the city is considering these changes.
H: Hey Alastair
A: Hey Hana.
H: So Oakland's talking about changing some of its laws about homelessness. What? What's been going on?
A: So in early September, Oakland council member Ken Houston, who represents parts of East Oakland, unveiled a plan for how he thinks the city should manage unsheltered homelessness.
It's called the Encampment Abatement Policy, and it's a significant revision of the city's current set of laws on unsheltered homelessness. Mm-hmm. So how is it different? The current set of laws is called the Encampment Management Policy, which was passed by the city council back in 2020. And I think the difference between the two policies is as simple as their names.
H: Hmm.
A: The current policy manages encampments, so it does things like describe where people can and can't camp. And it lays out how much notice the city has to give before closing an encampment, and it [00:01:00] defines, like, how their property should be stored. Mm-hmm. And the new policy also does these things, but it goes further. Its goal is to abate encampments.
H: Mm-hmm.
A: Like, remove them from the city altogether, and it makes three major revisions to the current policy to do this. Right. Let's get into the three revisions. What are they? So under the current policy, the city's required to make an effort to offer shelter to unhoused people before closing an encampment.
H: Uh huh
A: And council member Houston's abatement policy still recommends that city staff do this when possible, but it removes the requirement to do so.
H: Mm. So that's one. What's the next one?
A: The next one is about citation and arrest.
So while the current policy does talk a bit about arrest, it also stresses that the city won't cite or arrest people simply for sleeping outside. Mm-hmm. But council member Houston's proposed policy is a little more explicit about the possibility of arrest. And specifically it says that Oakland police could cite or arrest unhoused people who camp where they're not supposed to.
H: Mm-hmm.
A: And particularly those who go back to places that have already been closed.
H: That is definitely more explicit. Um, what is the last of the three proposed changes then, by Houston?
A: So right now people living in their vehicles are considered encampment residents by the city of Oakland. Um, and as encampment residents, they get some protections under the current encampment management policy.
Like the city's supposed to provide notice of at least 72 hours before closing an encampment, or in this case, for people living in vehicles before towing their vehicles. Hmm. And as it's currently written, the proposed changes would. Exclude people living in vehicles from the city's definition of encampment altogether.
So vehicles would just be treated like any other car subject to the vehicle code. There would be no requirement for the city to provide notice or offer shelter, even if there are people living in those vehicles. And so that means for people living in their cars, the new policy could mean it's a lot easier for their vehicles to get towed, and that is a big deal because over half of Oakland's homeless population lives in vehicles, at least 58%.
H: So Alastair, why is Oakland considering this new policy, what sparked these proposed changes?
A: The way I look at it, all these changes began after the Supreme Court's ruling in Grants Pass v Johnson last summer.
And that was the ruling that made it [00:04:00] possible for cities to fine or. To homeless people for sleeping outside, even if no adequate shelter is available. And that ruling led to kind of a waterfall of legislative change all over the country. Um, locally in California, governor Gavin Newsom has put out multiple statements telling cities to crack down on encampments.
Um, and since Newsom's orders city leaders all over this. State are either passing new policies or starting to consider changing their laws
H: and other [00:04:30] cities around the Bay Area besides Oakland have been changing their homelessness policies too. Right?
A: Yeah. We've seen a lot of changes in the Bay Area.
Last year, Berkeley passed an ordinance allowing this. City to close encampments under a handful of special circumstances, even when there's no shelter available. Um, and right now the city's also in the process of considering a new RV parking policy that would make it easier to tow RVs. And then in San Francisco, in July of this year, the city passed a 24/7 2-hour parking limit for large vehicles like RVs throughout the entire city.
And this February in Fremont, the city council, passed perhaps the most aggressive new homeless policy in this state.
H: Yeah.
A: It says that camping on public property is illegal and it threatens jail time and up to a thousand dollars in fines.
H: I know there's lots of conversations about the Fremont policies here, where I am in Union City.
A: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so those are just. Some examples. There have also been changes in other cities too, like San Jose.
H: So how is this all working, alastair? How are these policies working out?
A: It's interesting. Fremont hasn't actually made any arrests or citations since passing their new law. And city leaders say that's because they don't have the staff or shelter capacity to target large encampment communities.
Here in Berkeley, the city has swiftly closed a handful of smaller encampments, but they've also struggled to close some of their largest encampments because of lawsuits by encampment residents.
Critics of these policies say this shows that there's kind of a disconnect between passing new laws and actually having the resources to do what they say they're supposed to do, which is end unsheltered homelessness.
H: Mm.
A: So in Oakland, for example, there are over 5,000 people experiencing homelessness according to the last point in time count, but there are only about 1300 shelter beds,
H: so there aren't enough shelter beds. If Oakland's new policy passes, what would happen to these encampments then?
A: We sort of have some insights into that already.
Um, because the thing is, OPD can already tow RVs if they're parked illegally, like if they're in a two hour spot or if they're inoperable, even if there are people living in those vehicles, right? Um, and so in the past. The police haven't always enforced those laws when there are people [00:07:00] living in the RVs.
But lately, maybe because of the discussion around this new policy, it's hard to say. Um, but OPD seems to have stepped up in enforcing vehicle codes, and I actually talked to someone whose RV has been towed without notice twice, um, in, in the last month. Mm-hmm. Her name is Ashley Wilkes. She's lived in an rby since becoming homeless two years ago.
ASHLEY: They came and took my rv, uh, [00:07:30] without notice, and I, I like, didn't know what to do. Like they came, they didn't put out no signs or anything. They took everything. So I'm, I was, I was in a, a hole, a deep hole. Ashley
A: says she was actually able to get another RV as a donation from someone in the community. The same thing happened again just a month later.
H: Mm-hmm.
A: So now she's kind of struggling to figure out what to do next. Um, and the thing about, and the thing about losing your RV this way is that unlike during a normal encampment [00:08:00] closure, um, when Ashley's RV was towed, there weren't any city staff around or there weren't any outreach workers there offering services like shelter, um, or the opportunity to sign up for any programs.
So right now she's just staying on a friend's couch and trying to get on the housing list. But she says she can't stay there much longer.
ASHLEY: For me to have no camper is like a person with a home to have no home anymore.
REPORTER: What's different about living in a tent compared to living in a RV? Um, um, a tent you can get rained on, a rats can get inside. An RV is like a home. A tent is like being outside in a box
A: and she's laughing at me here. I think because the answer is just so obvious to her, and I hear people say this all the time, that there's just such a big difference when it comes to stability between living in a tent and living in an rv.
H: Yeah, makes sense. So Alastair, more people might have the experience that Ashley did. If Oakland City Council passes this new policy, what's next? When will the policy get voted on?
A: The idea was that the city council would vote on this proposal before the end of October. But in addition to the public comments, the proposal ended up getting some pretty strong pushback from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.
H: Hmm.
A: And that's because apparently the county has applied for a $40 million grant from this. State in tandem [00:09:30] with the city of Oakland and some of the changes in Houston's proposal would jeopardize that money because of the specific requirements on those funds. Okay. And it all got a little more messy too because after the public meeting, the city attorney did end up notifying council member Houston.
In that he violated the Brown Act by discussing his proposal behind closed doors before the meeting. So ultimately, city council members decided they needed more time to address these concerns, [00:10:00] and there will be another meeting where the public can weigh in, but that hasn't been scheduled yet.
H: All right, lots to follow. Thank you, Alastair
A: Thanks Hana..
