Oakland Housing
Protest
On
Saturday March 3, 2001 there was a rally and protest held in front of
Oakland's City Hall to deal with housing and gentrification. This reporter
has recently experienced the housing crunch and high rents that gentrification
causes, as I was searching for an apartment to move into in Oakland.
During my search for clean, well maintained and drug/crime free housing I discovered that the average price for a one bedroom apartment was $1000.00 per month or greater. In Alameda, the rents were even higher--between $1300.00 and $1500.00 for a one-bedroom unit. Richmond, which is usually more attractive as a result of their low housing prices, was commanding $1000.00 to $1400.00 for one-bedroom units. The apartments that I would be interested in were very nice, most had a spa/pool and one even had a fitness center, and all were very well maintained. The apartments that were under $1000.00 had very common problems: lack of routine maintenance, very small units/bedrooms, unsecured parking, unsavory persons loitering and selling various underground economy products.
The issues raised by the rally were very timely for my own situation, and they also made me wonder who could afford these extreme prices? I wondered how Jerry Brown can justify gentrifying his own neighborhood while allowing developers the unchallenged right to build high rises and condo's that will effectively price out the longtime residents or the newly weds from living in Oakland.
Reverend Andy Meckstroth, First Baptist Church, spoke and made references to Jerry Brown's off handed comments that, "People that don't want gentrification are opting for slumification." Reverend Meckstroth pointed out that "Gentrification in Oakland is Slumification," and he also pointed out that the 10K housing was not going to be affordable for the working poor (many Oakland residents).
A very interesting chart was provided by Local 2850 and SEIU Local 250; that chart below shows how many hours per week it would take to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Oakland:
Job
Salary
Hours a week
Ticket takers/ushers
$6.73
99
Fast food cooks
$6.85
98
Parking lot attendants
$6.88
97
Food Service Workers
$7.03
95
Retail Sales people
$8.41
79
Hotel room cleaners
$8.56
78
A very disturbing fact of life in the 10K Project is the loss of the First Step Homeless shelter. First Step provided shelter, meals, employment assistance, housing assistance, and substance abuse treatment to 234 Oakland residents each year. First Step received referrals from hospitals, social service agencies, the police department and others. On September 25, 2000, they were forced to close when the new owners increased the monthly rent by $1,000.00.
Oakland
is a growing and beautiful city, which should be shared by all. Diversity
is the key and that means economic diversity as well as cultural and racial
diversity. If Oakland is filled with rich, white, art-damaged yuppies,
there really wouldn’t be any "…There
there".
Mayor
Brown has said, "Oakland is closer and faster by BART to downtown
San Francisco than San Francisco is." That is cute, but it does nothing
to address the fact that many Oakland residents cannot afford to move
to better locations. Not all of Oakland's housing crisis can be laid at
Jerry Brown's feet, however, but many are asking, what has he done to
correct the situation? How is Jerry making Oakland a better place for
those who elected him? What is happening in Oakland is economic violence
and a sellout of the city’s diversity. []
3/12/01
