In the coming weeks, Oakland city council is expected to vote on an updated Encampment Abatement Policy (EAP) — deciding whether residential RVs and other vehicles can be treated like any other inoperable car and towed when needed.
Supporters say the change would help keep schools, parks, and small-business corridors cleaner and safer. Opponents worry it could criminalize people already on the margins for living in vehicles.
The following is a guest post from Empower Oakland advisor David Peters.
For years, families in West Oakland have lived with homeless neighbors on our blocks. My extended family is one of them. We have shared our block with unhoused residents for nearly a decade, and our street for at least 50 years.
So when we talk about Oakland’s new Encampment Abatement Policy (EAP), it’s not some national political fight about “criminalizing homelessness” or “woke politics.” For the flatlands, it’s about basic fairness — how we keep our communities safe, clean, and livable for everyone. Things taken for granted in more affluent areas.
Why it matters
You don’t see RV encampments lining the streets of Montclair, College Avenue, or Lakeshore. But in Black and Brown neighborhoods across West and East Oakland, they’ve become a permanent fixture.
The new EAP proposal being wrangled by city council would make a small but meaningful change: it would clarify that “encampments” don’t include vehicles. That means problematic vans, RVs, cars and other vehicles could finally be treated like any other illegally parked or inoperable vehicle — and towed.
This matters because right now, they can’t be removed by residents calling on the city. It requires special concerted action involving the mayor or council members, and months of time. On my block, a van has sat alongside an elementary school for months. Its former resident is long gone, and it has become a dumping magnet.
Neighbors have called 311. The school has called the city. Yet, nothing happens because it’s classified as an “encampment” despite the resident not being seen for months. Under the new policy, it could finally be towed, without having to call favors from powerful friends in city government.
Behavior, not homelessness
Most of us know and support our unhoused neighbors. Some walk their dogs with us, keep an eye on the block, and are part of our cultural community. But others — too frequently struggling with untreated addiction or mental illness — engage in public drug use, ignore cultural and community values and behaviors, and create unsafe conditions, often near our schools, parks, and small businesses.
The EAP gives the city a way to act on behavior, not status, to address challenging health and safety behaviors without criminalizing people simply for being unhoused.
A question of equity
In East Oakland, a recent news report showed businesses are struggling to operate amid unsanitary conditions. This isn’t about blaming unhoused people, it’s about holding the city accountable for equitable enforcement.
Our Department of Race & Equity should produce a public analysis comparing how encampments — contained in Black and Brown flatland neighborhoods — negatively impacts our neighborhoods versus wealthier and whiter neighborhoods above 580.
Fixing the legislation
To be clear, the original EAP draft wasn’t perfect. It didn’t match the California Interagency Council on Homelessness’ (Cal ICH) model language, which put about $45M in state grants to the county and city at risk. Cal ICH has since provided the language to bring the policy into compliance and eliminate the risk to the state grants.
It also didn’t seem to comply with the consent decree in the Miralle settlement which established specific requirements for the collection, storage, and retrieval of personal property during cleanups.
Those issues must be fixed — but they’re not reasons to abandon the effort altogether.
What’s next
Oakland doesn’t have the staff or budget to enforce the EAP citywide. That’s fine. Let’s start with high-sensitivity areas — schools, parks, and key commercial corridors in the flats — where health, safety and equity impacts are most critical. The amended EAP policy should address this by designating high and low sensitivity areas for enforcement.
No one expects the city to solve homelessness overnight — especially when the main drivers for chronic homelessness fall within the county’s purview to fund and treat. But sometimes, moving one block and one encampment at a time, especially when it’s away from a school or small business, makes a real difference.
Flatland neighbors and neighborhoods shouldn’t be held hostage waiting for the “perfect” solution while daily life deteriorates. We need practical steps now.
Importantly, as Alameda County prepares to disburse more than $1B in Measure W funds for housing and homelessness, and Mayor Lee has established the Office of Homelessness Solutions, Oaklanders should unite, not fight, to make sure that money delivers real, measurable results.
Otherwise, we may well end up with nothing meaningful or measurable after spending all the public funding.
While the contemplated EAP isn’t meant to solve homelessness, and isn’t a perfect answer, it does do one very important thing — deliver some power to everyday flatland residents to exert some control over health, safety, economic, and liveability issues in our neighborhoods by removing a barrier to healthier communities.
Demand this measure of equity for our neighborhoods.
How to get involved
If you agree that every neighborhood deserves equitable treatment:
Email your city council member and tell them to update the EAP
Demand a neighborhood level equity analysis from Oakland’s Department of Race & Equity
Show up and make your voice heard!
I got the North, I got the East, I got the West wit’ me……
This is about our neighborhoods — and our Mamas.
We (District 6 & 7) are tired in the deep east of the city telling us there is nothing they can do. It is not happening in Montclair so there is something that can be done and if they don’t have a clue why don’t someone pick up phone and call them to see how they are preventing it from happening in their community. Campers and dilapidated cars parked in front of our homes, schools, parks and businesses decimating our property values and force closing our business is insane. We don’t even have access to walk on our sidewalks. The city manager and council people. We are TIRED. Oakland look whose in office and rethink how you vote next time. We need some doers….
Thank you for sharing your perspective - It is also important for the equity office to look at encampments aren't in walkways that our children take and look at safe passages to their schools and community resource centers. I do want to lift the work of our councilmembers in District 7 (Reid and now Houston) who has advocated on behalf of East Oakland families.