The Dellums Institute for Social Justice

Housing Oakland’s Unhoused. In a recent UN Report on Adequate Housing, the Special Rapporteur Leilani Farha decries that "the world has come to accept the unacceptable" with "nearly a quarter of the world's urban population living in informal settlements or encampments, most in developing countries but increasingly also in the most affluent.  Living conditions are shocking and intolerable." The UN Report calls out only two US cities for human rights violations--Oakland and San Francisco, cities of great wealth and also escalating inequalities.  

Led by The Village, the East Oakland Collective, and the Dellums Institute for Social Justice/Just Cities, the Housing and Dignity Project worked for almost a year to develop a community-based plan to house all of Oakland's unhoused residents:  Housing Oakland's Unhoused. The plan is based upon listening sessions with unhoused residents, builds upon a human-rights best practice example implemented by The Village, and policy analysis conducted by UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy's Rawan Elhalaby and Dr. Dan Lindheim.  See here for Rawan's Advanced Policy Analysis.

Public Land for the People.  As part of the Housing Equity plan for the City of Oakland led by DISJ's Margaretta Lin, UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy's Carlos MacGregor Villarreal analyzed the City of Oakland's available land for affordable housing.  Click here for Carlos' Report.  At the same time, UC Berkeley City Planning student Carline Au mapped all publicly owned land in Oakland.  Click here for Carline's Report.  Based upon their combined research, there were close to 50 publicly owned vacant or underutilized parcels that the City's Housing Element identified as suitable for housing development, which could have produced over 7,300 new housing units.  Out of these 50 parcels, 36 were owned by the City of Oakland and could have produced over 3,600 housing units.  

Since then, city actions have led to some parcels being sold including for market rate development. After analyzing the City of Oakland's response on the public lands list, we estimate that there could still be 6,295 - 6,584 housing units constructed on available public land parcels, including 2,365 - 2,654 housing units on public lands owned by the City of Oakland. See here for updated list of available parcels.

During Oakland's worst housing crisis, with a 63% increase in rents since 2014, escalated evictions, and the explosion of new homelessness, we believe that the City of Oakland should utilize public land for building affordable housing, including low-cost housing innovations, rather than selling public land to market developers.  As of December 2017, there are over 20,000 market rate housing units under construction or in the pipeline, compared to less than 1,500 affordable units.  Stay tuned for more policy justice research and analysis as we support people powered organizing for a transformative public land policy in Oakland!

Anti-Displacement Recommendations from Our Beloved Community Action Network. We seek to continue Dr. King’s legacy and vision for creating “Beloved Community” in Alameda County in which, “All people can share in the wealth of the earth.  In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood.”[1] Our ability to create the Beloved Community is severely undermined by the displacement crisis in Alameda County.  We see critical opportunities to solve this crisis and believe the following goals are attainable through a uniting of community dedication and political will: 1)Enable every long-time resident who wants to stay and contribute to have access to new resources for tenants and homeowners. 2)Ensure that new County and City housing funds are being utilized for anti-displacement strategies. 3)Redeploy available local flexible funds to address funding gaps for major anti-displacement strategies. 4)Enact significant protective anti-displacement policies at the County, City, and State levels. Click here to view the full Report.

Open Data Map of California's Housing Cost-Burdened Elders.  As part of the work to convince the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to include Home Preservation strategies for elders as part of its $500 million Housing Bond, DISJ partner the Civic Engine created a map showcasing at a neighborhood level the status of elderly renters and homeowners paying more than 50% of their income towards housing:  California's Shame:  Why Are So Many Elderly Having to Struggle to Afford Housing. Click here to view the interactive map.