Berkeley & North Oakland Local News

12/22 9:35am (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff -  Editorial  The Covid moritorium, though well intentioned, has created a potential major threat to the availability of affordable housing in the short and long term. 

And this could become a permanent blow to de-gentrification if not changed soon. 

There are 1000s of homeless, evicted and low income tenants trying to find housing in Oakland amd Berkeley. But many have credit scores under 700. 

Unfortunately because landlords have either experienced or heard about landlords experiencing situations where they can’t evict a tenant who stops paying rent, regardless of whether they have a job or not, they’ve stopped renting. 

Even though most  low income tenants are working and pay rent a minority are abusing the system. They have jobs and can pay, but don’t - without any allowable recourse by landlord. 

This fear by landlords makes them only want to rent to people with A+ credit or not rent at all.

The fine for not renting (newly implemented) is not big enough to make it worth the risk to rent to a bad non paying tenant. 

Therefore, affordable housing, that may have been rented to a low income tenant will sit on the market till someone with excellent credit (usually not a minority or low income tenant) comes along.

If the city implemented a policy where anyone not paying rent had to show the inability to pay because of job loss landlords would start renting again to low income tenants. 

They would now have recourse for that VERY small percentage of working tenants  that took advantage of the system. 

This recourse ability, though rarely used, would be enough to free up what’s been estimated at as many as 10,000  apartments sitting vacant and growing. Landlords are waiting for the policy change. 

Every day that this perpetuates, the city of Oakland and Berkeley gentrification rates continue to climb and fewer minorities and low income people can find apartments in these cities. 

The majority of voters don’t understand this and those that do may be wealthy home owners that don’t own income property and want to see further gentrification.

The voters that are renters that support this policy of zero evictions may not see the harm being created.

The city officials may see it but are at the whim of the voters to keep the moratorium as is. 

CBS REPORT Wood St. Eviction

09/20/22  - More stories, photos and details coming out shortly - standby.

08/20/22 9:35am (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff - Fires unrelated to Wood Street residents have been occurring outside the encampment. An RV exploded in flames earlier today. The fire was extinguished within 15 minutes by local firefighters and no injuries.

 07/20/22 9:35am (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff -Judge William H. Orrick granted a temporary restraining order against CalTrans, postponing the displacement of 200+ Wood St. Encampment residents who were set to be evicted today. 

08/31/2021 9:35am (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff - Under direction from CalTrans, a work crew installed Jersey Barriers and chain link fence 20 feet from an encampment called Cob on Wood. The fencing was wrapped around a huge swath of land under the 880/580 junction in an effort to curb encampments.  This move continues the ongoing fight between a community of unhoused people, CalTrans and The City of Oakland over an encampment called Cob on Wood. Residents of the encampment and supporters from the community oppose the move because this community has been in existence for a long tine, has social structures and internal governance. The community cleans and maintains the area the best they can despite thieves from outside leaving stolen cars and contractors illegally dumping. 

08/23/2021 9:35am (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff -There is an unlimited free trash and bulky drop off this saturday from 9-1 at 7101 Edgewater if this makes sense - unlimited garbage. For Oaklamd residents.

08/21/2021 1:10 pm (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff - Celebration of community, friendship amd solidarity. Event is welcome to all. Commons (South side of COW).

08/20/2021 12:49 pm (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff - In a surprise visit today by CalTrans several residents were up-ended and barriers and fences were put in place. CalTrans is saying that this was a cleaning effort. Soil testing is slso performed. Developing story more to come.

CalTrans announced it would close the area and evict the residents. The day after the announcement, however, unhoused people signed individual legal complaints, and their lawyers convinced Superior Court Judge William Orrick to issue a temporary restraining order barring CalTrans’ planned action. While the injunction was still temporary, residents feared the eviction would happen anyway, and appealed to supporters to come bear witness. The day following the judge’s order a Highway Patrol SUV showed up, escorting a group of workers and heavy equipment.  After standing around for an hour they left, perhaps in compliance with the TRO or maybe to evade interfering photographers and witnesses.

06/03/2021 12:49 pm (The Berkeley Post) - by Max Levine Cob on Wood is a one of a kind community hub centered in the encampment on Wood St. In West Oaklamd, Ca. The  communal kitchen, bathroom, showers, health center, free shop, pizza oven, fire pit and stage are all services available tothe Sunny picnic table over the next hour I saw at least 10 residents come in and use the shower, kitchen, bathroom amd health center. This is definitely a shared services model that is being used by many people. The alternative that these people had to take showers prior to the shower being built was a truck that came around once a week and pushed out water for them to shower with. Having a kitchen with a refrigerator is a huge improvement. The health center has tons of different supplies that the residents can all take for free. This is truly a model that is unique and it could easily be replicated at other encampments.

CalTrans and the city of Oakland have a very methodical way of shutting down an encampment. Rather than shut the whole encampment down at once, they squeeze it down to smaller and smaller spaces in an effort to squeeze everyone out slowly.  On Wood Street they have three phases. The first phase has already occurred and you can see in some of the pictures that they have scraped everything off and set up cement barriers (see photos). Phase 2 would lemonade the shared service shared services and buildings that have been put up for showering and kitchen etc. Once those are removed then it really takes a lot of the activation and life out of the site.

CalTrans is hoping that their phase small step approach, will affect less people all at once and keeps it lower profile and out of the media

5/23/21 - The Berkeley Post - West Oakland ABC, a grass roots, on the ground not for profit group helped oversee the clean-up effort at the Wood St. encampment with the help of volunteers from EFAM and Con on Wood.
Residents of the encampment were recently offered a deal to be allowed to stay if they cleaned up and cared for the land. Cal Trans backed out on the deal last week and plans to demolish the encampment soon.

05/21/2021 5:49 pm (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff Writers Oakland closed down any new registration for state and federal Cares Act and SB91 funds. One employee of BACS, who asked to remain anonymous said, “the system is overwhelmed. We need more people to help

process applications.” New landlord/tenant eviction prevention funds shut down suddenly on Mat 17, leaving many stranded. Tenants and landlords are in disbelief since there are still funds buy no way to apply for them. This comes at a bad time when the eviction protection is close to expiring. See City of Oakland webpage:

5/19/21 - West Oakland, CA - 100s of K-bars have been brought in by Cal Trans. many of the residents speculate that these will be used to further shut down parts of the Wood St. Encampment, one of the largest in Oakland. One resident commented CalTrans’ attitude is to “push us in to one spot, push us out and clean us out like a trash compactor.”

05/17/2021 9:21pm (The Berkeley Post) - by Max Levine - In a deal verbally agreed on between Cal Trans, residents onsite and Councilwoman Fife’s office, the residents would be free to continue to stay on the Cal Trans land in exchange for cleaning up the site. Ironically, 

5/16/21 UPDATE: $60,000  surpassed in GoFundMe 

05/11/2021 5:21pm (The Berkeley Post) - by BP writers - Cob on Wood passes $50,000 in donations!

Several recent news pieces, including an international piece by the Guardian has revved up support…

05/07/2021 5:49 pm (The Berkeley Post) - by TBP Writers - All the Berkeley zip codes were analyzed and 94704 is 38% vaccinated wheras 94707 is 98% vaccinated. This directly correlates…

05/06/2021 5:49 pm (The Berkeley Post) - by Staff Writers -  Residents, media, politicians and Oaklamd City Officials all came to...

03/16/2021 5:49 pm (The Berkeley Post) - by Max Levine - In the Mayors virtual town hall meeting today, hosted by Jesse Arreguin, Mayor of Berkeley, the City announced that those 16-64 who are medically compromised, with underlying medical conditions, are now eligible to be vacinated.

02/19/2021 7:49am (The Berkeley Post) - by Max Levine - In one of the latest developments of new tech players landing in Berkeley, Taiwan based HTC Corp has recently purchased a 3 story building in a prime Berkeley neighborhood centralized to UC Berkeley and great restaurants. Co-founder, Cher Wang, actually has roots in Berkeley, having graduated UCB with a Master of Arts. It appears that some of all of their San Francisco operations may move out of SF. 

02/16/2021 9:01pm - As of 02/17/21 there has been over $17,000 raised by ABC, EFAM and LES: More needed! Wood St needs $20,000 to build 10 more tiny COB homes. GoFund.

01/08/2021 7:49am (The Berkeley Post) - by Max Levine - University Ave Exit has been an eyesore for many as they exit I80 to enter Berkeley. Trash from illegal contractor dumping, local inhabitants and the Freeway have marred the landscape. 

01/05/2021 5:49pm (The Berkeley Post) - by Max Levine - Jesse Arreguin, Mayor of Berkeley, has launched one of the most thorough and transparent COVID-19 public update programs in the Bay Area.