To: Janice Jensen and Habitat for Humanity
From: the residents of the Wood Street Commons
Re: Developing a tiny home ecovillage for the residents of parcel 7 at Wood Street, Oakland
Dear Janice,
The residents of the Wood Street Commons have been trying to reach you. Your plans to develop a 170 unit apartment complex on a piece of land owned by the City of Oakland would have a very harmful impact on the community we have been building here for years, and we wanted to sit down with you and give you and the folks at Habitat for Humanity a chance to hear directly from the people who would be most negatively impacted by your plans.
We know that you and your partners at Mid Pen Housing have put a lot of work into making a deal with the City of Oakland, as well as making the plans for an apartment complex on the land we have been living on. We know that your plans face uncertainties, including the unknown costs of remediating the soil here, which may contain quantities of mercury, lead, arsenic, chromium and glyphosate (Roundup). The presence of an organized encampment of the unhoused on this piece of land owned by the City of Oakland presents more uncertainties for you.
For our part, your plans represent the fear and stress we face everyday of possible eviction by the City of Oakland from the land we have grown attached to, as well as the destruction of our community, which we care about deeply and don’t want to lose.
Many of the people in our community have experienced forcible eviction by Caltrans, the City of Oakland, the Department of Public Works, the Oakland Police, and the California Highway patrol. We have had our homes and property stolen and destroyed repeatedly by various city and state entities, and the work we have put into building community and stability, as well as recovering from trauma and loss, has been shattered again and again. We experience hatred, fear and prejudice from many in the housed community, while having our basic human needs and human rights reduced and denied by those who are supposed to protect and represent us.
The name of your company, and its founding principles, are about providing homes for those most in need, but if you choose to take the last renewal of your agreement with the City of Oakland, you will be doing the opposite of your name and founding principles. You will cause further loss, harm and trauma to those most in need. How would that effect your corporate reputation?
We are asking for a chance to sit down with you and share our perspective on the potential consequences of your development plans for parcel 7. We are also asking you to visit us at the Wood Street Commons and see some of the positive changes we have made in terms of cleaning the land, building tiny homes and common spaces, expanding the infrastructure for water, electricity, lighting and security, as well as our efforts at beautification with landscaping, art and a unique form of stretch fabric architecture.
Our community, the Wood Street Commons, has been at the forefront of a historic movement of encampments of the unhoused to become self-organized, to establish working relationships with other major stakeholders, such as Caltrans, City Councilpersons, City Administrators, the Department of Public Works, Waste Management Inc., as well as hundreds of residents, volunteers and advocates from the housed community. We have participated in mutual aid to other encampments facing eviction, as well as in the creation of a statewide consortium of encampments, with the purpose of ending evictions and increasing much needed resources and infrastructure for people living in encampments.
We have engaged our own campaign to reverse and counter the negative stereotypes leveled at us by the powers that be, and by ordinary citizens, through successful efforts at cleaning up trash, fire abatement, building bonds with people from the housed community, throwing parties for the public, having musical performances and open mics, fundraising, as well as sharing our ideas for the Oakland Commons Trust, a land trust controlled by residents which would acquire land within the City for the development of tiny home ecovillages with shared infrastructure, designed to support cooperative community and self-governance and local self-sufficiency.
Our campaign has so far successfully enabled us to stop attempts at eviction by both Caltrans and the City of Oakland. And we have also garnered an unprecedented amount of positive coverage for the unhoused from local, national and international press. (Please see the press packet included with this letter.) Never before have the unhoused gained this much positive support from the press and the housed community. The time when unhoused persons could be displaced and dispossessed with impunity is fast disappearing.
By having cooperative and legal ownership of land within Oakland, through the Oakland Commons Trust, we can create the basis for channeling and re-directing vast resources toward building 10,000 tiny homes in the City, thus effectively ending homelessness in Oakland. This will have far-reaching benefits for everyone in the City of Oakland, and become a bright alternative to all cities everywhere, which share the same plight.
We invite Habitat for Humanity to be partners with us to build tiny homes and the infrastructure suited to cooperative community, as well as to humanely bioremediate the soil, and to create common spaces that will immensely enhance the attractiveness and reputations of both your company and the City of Oakland.
Due to the urgency of the situation we are requesting a face-to-face meeting between representative s of Habitat for Humanity and the Wood Street Commons within 10 business days of receipt of this letter.
Sincerely,
The residents of the Wood Street Commons
Woodstreetcommons.com
Instagram.com/woodstreetcommons
From: the residents of the Wood Street Commons
Re: Developing a tiny home ecovillage for the residents of parcel 7 at Wood Street, Oakland
Dear Janice,
The residents of the Wood Street Commons have been trying to reach you. Your plans to develop a 170 unit apartment complex on a piece of land owned by the City of Oakland would have a very harmful impact on the community we have been building here for years, and we wanted to sit down with you and give you and the folks at Habitat for Humanity a chance to hear directly from the people who would be most negatively impacted by your plans.
We know that you and your partners at Mid Pen Housing have put a lot of work into making a deal with the City of Oakland, as well as making the plans for an apartment complex on the land we have been living on. We know that your plans face uncertainties, including the unknown costs of remediating the soil here, which may contain quantities of mercury, lead, arsenic, chromium and glyphosate (Roundup). The presence of an organized encampment of the unhoused on this piece of land owned by the City of Oakland presents more uncertainties for you.
For our part, your plans represent the fear and stress we face everyday of possible eviction by the City of Oakland from the land we have grown attached to, as well as the destruction of our community, which we care about deeply and don’t want to lose.
Many of the people in our community have experienced forcible eviction by Caltrans, the City of Oakland, the Department of Public Works, the Oakland Police, and the California Highway patrol. We have had our homes and property stolen and destroyed repeatedly by various city and state entities, and the work we have put into building community and stability, as well as recovering from trauma and loss, has been shattered again and again. We experience hatred, fear and prejudice from many in the housed community, while having our basic human needs and human rights reduced and denied by those who are supposed to protect and represent us.
The name of your company, and its founding principles, are about providing homes for those most in need, but if you choose to take the last renewal of your agreement with the City of Oakland, you will be doing the opposite of your name and founding principles. You will cause further loss, harm and trauma to those most in need. How would that effect your corporate reputation?
We are asking for a chance to sit down with you and share our perspective on the potential consequences of your development plans for parcel 7. We are also asking you to visit us at the Wood Street Commons and see some of the positive changes we have made in terms of cleaning the land, building tiny homes and common spaces, expanding the infrastructure for water, electricity, lighting and security, as well as our efforts at beautification with landscaping, art and a unique form of stretch fabric architecture.
Our community, the Wood Street Commons, has been at the forefront of a historic movement of encampments of the unhoused to become self-organized, to establish working relationships with other major stakeholders, such as Caltrans, City Councilpersons, City Administrators, the Department of Public Works, Waste Management Inc., as well as hundreds of residents, volunteers and advocates from the housed community. We have participated in mutual aid to other encampments facing eviction, as well as in the creation of a statewide consortium of encampments, with the purpose of ending evictions and increasing much needed resources and infrastructure for people living in encampments.
We have engaged our own campaign to reverse and counter the negative stereotypes leveled at us by the powers that be, and by ordinary citizens, through successful efforts at cleaning up trash, fire abatement, building bonds with people from the housed community, throwing parties for the public, having musical performances and open mics, fundraising, as well as sharing our ideas for the Oakland Commons Trust, a land trust controlled by residents which would acquire land within the City for the development of tiny home ecovillages with shared infrastructure, designed to support cooperative community and self-governance and local self-sufficiency.
Our campaign has so far successfully enabled us to stop attempts at eviction by both Caltrans and the City of Oakland. And we have also garnered an unprecedented amount of positive coverage for the unhoused from local, national and international press. (Please see the press packet included with this letter.) Never before have the unhoused gained this much positive support from the press and the housed community. The time when unhoused persons could be displaced and dispossessed with impunity is fast disappearing.
By having cooperative and legal ownership of land within Oakland, through the Oakland Commons Trust, we can create the basis for channeling and re-directing vast resources toward building 10,000 tiny homes in the City, thus effectively ending homelessness in Oakland. This will have far-reaching benefits for everyone in the City of Oakland, and become a bright alternative to all cities everywhere, which share the same plight.
We invite Habitat for Humanity to be partners with us to build tiny homes and the infrastructure suited to cooperative community, as well as to humanely bioremediate the soil, and to create common spaces that will immensely enhance the attractiveness and reputations of both your company and the City of Oakland.
Due to the urgency of the situation we are requesting a face-to-face meeting between representative s of Habitat for Humanity and the Wood Street Commons within 10 business days of receipt of this letter.
Sincerely,
The residents of the Wood Street Commons
Woodstreetcommons.com
Instagram.com/woodstreetcommons