It Could Happen Here - Miniature Ethnic Cleansing: Encampment Sweeps in Oakland

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Mia talks with Emma and Sathya, who do advocacy and support work for unhoused people, about Oakland's brutal regime of encampment sweeps.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is John Cameron Mitchell and my new fiction podcast series, Cancellation Island, stars Holly Hunter as Karen, a wellness influencer who launches a rehab for the recently canceled. In the future, we will all be canceled for 15 minutes, but don't worry, we'll take you from broke to woke or your money back. Cancellation Island's revolutionary rehab therapies like Bad Touch Football, Anti-Racism Spin Class, and mandatory Ayahuasca ceremonies are designed to force the cancel to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart when people start disappearing. Karen, where have you brought us?

Cancellation Island, where a second chance might just be your last. Listen to Cancellation Island on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How? Go slower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all-new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Listen to The Hook Up on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith. And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only.

Or listen to it with your kid. It could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. You get your podcast. From the producers who brought you Princess of South Beach comes a new podcast, The Setup.

The Setup follows a lonely museum curator, but when the perfect man walks into his life, Well I guess I'm saying I like you. You like me? He actually is too good to be true. This is a con. I'm conning you to get the Dilama painting. We can do this together. Listen to the setup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Coolzone Media.

Welcome to Get Up and Hear, a podcast about bad things. Usually, I don't know, this is mostly a bad things episode. I am your host Mia Wong. and one of the kind of things we've emphasized on this show a lot is that a lot of the structure of the kind of open fascism that we're seeing now is stuff that was put in place under liberal administrations and its practices that are carried out by Democrats. And one of the biggest ones of those, and this is something that I think you can trace the violence here and you can trace the politics that it inspired directly to how we got to Trump being in power, is the just continuous crisis in the US of governments doing sweeps of encampments

of unhoused people. And to talk about really one of the most horrifying things that happens regularly in a country of just unhinged and hideous horror is Emma, who does advocacy work for on housing disabled people and Alameda County and Satya who does support drink sweeps in Oakland when. Yeah, this fucking unhinged shit happens. So both of you to welcome to the show. I Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate the chance to talk with you. Yeah. I always want to say that I'm excited and like it is true.

However, I wish I read a podcast that was about like good things so that I could talk to people that wasn't like, wasn't me being like, yeah, I'm excited to talk about like the worst thing that's happened. So I think a place to start on this is, when we talk about what a sweep actually is on a physical level of what happens, because I think people really don't have a sense of that. Yeah.

Yeah, I think, Sathya, maybe you want to take this one? Yeah, I'm happy to take this one. Yeah, thank you. I feel like, first of all, before I even go into it, yes, I think a lot of people who have never experienced a sweep or don't have loved ones who have been swept, I think a lot of people have no idea what a sweep actually consists of, even if in a general sense they feel that it's a bad thing or a wrong thing. And I think part of that is deliberate. Sweeps usually happen during business hours, during nine to five hours,

because at least in Oakland, they're conducted by the Department of Public Works. They're city employees. They work nine to five. So except in cases where they work over time, or when the city uses loopholes to get around posting notice and ends up doing a sweep on the weekend, they're usually happening when a lot of middle-class housed folks are at work and not out and about seeing what's going on. So a sweep, and I'm primarily talking in the context of Oakland, California, but I think it's safe to assume that these operate in similar ways around the country. Generally what'll happen is you, let's say you're living in an encampment, a sweep has been posted in Oakland, there is policy that states that you're supposed to have received

at least a week's notice. However, a lot of people don't receive this notice, so you might not even know that it's happening. You might wake up at around 9 a.m. to a bunch of heavy machinery, pulling up dump truck, small bulldozers, other types of sort of like heavy equipment. And then you'll have somebody from the city administration, like a city administrator's assistant going around announcing that the city of Oakland is there, you know, making noise at your tent or your car or wherever you're staying saying, hey, this encampment

is being closed down, you have to be out of here. They're usually a representatives of the city's contracted outreach organization called Operation Dignity. They're supposed to be there. Very rarely do they actually have a referral for somewhere to go. They'll basically just be like, hey, do you want services? They won't usually specify what the services are. They'll just show up and be like, hey, do you want services? If you say yes or have questions about what services are available, they'll just show up and be like, hey, do you want services? If you say yes or have

questions about what services are available, they may give you a sort of very vague rundown of whatever might be available that day because they don't usually even find out what openings are available until 10 a.m. on any given day. So at the time that they roll up, they usually don't even know what's available yet. So it kind of progresses from there. I mean, every sweep is a little different, but the commonality between all of them is that what the city is there to do is essentially to erase all sign that anybody ever lived there. So either you are able to pack as much stuff as you can and get it out of the eviction zone before the city decides that it's your turn to be targeted, or all of your stuff ends up in the back of a dump truck.

There are other sort of specific pieces of policy and operational things that can vary from time to time, like for example, they're supposed to follow a bag and tag policy, which means that they're expected to store up to a cubic yard of somebody's belongings for 90 days at a storage location in East Oakland. They rarely do this unless hounded to do so. And most of the time, the actual process of going back and reclaiming your belongings from that location has enough barriers that almost nobody ever manages to do it. Yeah. So just make this clear. The thing that they're doing is they show up and they fucking destroy all your property.

Yep. Like the thing that it most closely resembles is like, we're doing our own miniature ethnic cleansings. Like, that's like what that is. Yep. Yes. And every sweep, there are at least several police, you know, depending on the size of the suite, they can be even more. And so there is a very real threat of police violence, like underlying every single encampment

suite. And so the suite that Oakland, the suite practices that Oakland has set up are like very practices that Oakland has set up are very kind of odd and they are associated with different lawsuits that have occurred in the past couple of, actually since the 70s. So there are certain requirements that the that homeless people are technically supposed to be receiving and for a bunch of complicated reasons, rarely ever are. For instance, the back-and-tag policy that Satya was just discussing, recently somebody did a PRA request to see whether or not to sit, he was actually following faithfully following that policy. And I think in like over a year, there were, I believe, eight bagging tags that were registered in the city system. And that was in that same period, there were like well over 100 sweeps, you

know, I don't have the exact number on me, but or yet, actually 537 close to instances of storing property. So, you know, that's people's, their whole lives, all their possessions, like, like precious items that they're able to hang on to are just, yeah, destroyed and they never see them again. And I would also add to the piece around like the quote, like offer of services, like that's also something written into their policy that they're supposed to be connecting people to housing ahead of sweeps. And that's what they use to continually justify the way that they operate is that in, for example, city council meetings and homelessness commission meetings where city admin is questioned on their procedures because they get complaints, like the homeless commission gets complaints

constantly of people being mistreated, losing all their belongings, never getting referred to housing and so forth. And the justification that's constantly used is like, well, we're offering people services every time and they just refuse them. And I think that that is pretty much the number one mythology that is continuing to spur a lot of the like pro sweep discourse in Oakland specifically, and I'm sure in other parts of the country as well. And people are not, to be clear,

most of the time people are not actually being offered services. It's just not happening. Yeah. Yeah. This is a national discourse. You should solve it. I think a lot of it is concentrated in the most unhinged like tech sectors in the Bay, but like you hear like officially Elon Musk has talked about like, oh, there's like, there's like a homeless industrial complex and like all of these people are just like,

they want to live on the street and like they're like turning down houses all the time. And it's just like, it's so it's so completely unmoored from reality. But what's funny is I've actually used the term homeless industrial complex myself. I didn't know that was hilarious. There is a homeless complex. It's just that the people making money off of it are the people who are perpetrating the sweeps. The reason that they're not actually putting forth real solutions that will get people into safe shelter and housing is because they're the ones benefiting from the perpetuation of these economic conditions. Yeah, there's so many things that I like want to take up on. But I guess just on that point,

specifically, like there was an audit into California's spending on homelessness. audit into California's spending on homelessness. I believe it was over a period of seven years, and it showed that there was $24 billion spent on grants to nonprofits or cities to provide people with different services that are kind of designed around homelessness and providing housing or legal services. Like there's a whole range of things that's out there, but a lot of the time, like these are the only options that are available to people and they tend to produce less than stellar results. So out of the $24 billion that was allocated to help homeless people in that same period of time, homelessness in California just like skyrocketed, right? So rates of homelessness increased while this money was getting pumped into the pockets of the bank accounts of landlords and developers.

It is an issue that people on every side of the political compass, they like to use this point to their own ends. So Elon Musk talks about it and people on the left will talk about it. But I think like the experience that people on the street have is, is very different than any of these narratives that you tend to hear in the media. Yeah. So unfortunately we need to take an ad break. I don't, I don't have a good transition here. I don't know.

We'll move from one set of horrors to a slightly different set of horrors and come back to the first set of horrors. Is this a good time? It's me, Dylan Mulvaney, and my dear friend Joe Locke from Heartstopper and Agatha All Along is my very first guest on my brand new podcast, The Dylan Hour. It's musical mayhem and it is going to be so much fun. I like a man. You like a man. What do I like, Joe?

You like a man too. We often... There's quite a similar... There's some cross-pollination happening in here. Not like... No! Have we? No. No.

Not yet. Never say never. I cannot wait for all you girls, gays, and theys to join me on this extremely special pink confection of a podcast. There is so much darkness in this world and what I think we could all use more of is a little joy. Listen to the Dylan Hour on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Love ya. This is John Cameron Mitchell and my new fiction podcast series, Cancellation Island, stars Holly Hunter as Karen, a wellness influencer who launches a rehab for the recently canceled. In the future, we will all be canceled for 15 minutes. But don't worry, we'll take you from broke to woke or your money back. Cancellation Island's revolutionary rehab therapies like Bad Touch Football, anti-racism spin class,

and mandatory ayahuasca ceremonies are designed to force the cancel to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart when people start disappearing. Karen, where have you brought us? Cancellation Island, where a second chance might just be your last. Listen to Cancellation Island on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. And Santi was gone.

I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Hmm, pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out-of-his-element hero as he engages in a series of ill-conceived investigative hookups. Mama always used to say, God gave me gumption in place of a gag reflex.

And, as I was about to learn, no amount of showering can wash your hands of a bad hookup. Now, take a big whiff, my brah. to learn, no amount of showering can wash your hands of a bad hookup. Now, take a big whiff, my bra. ["I Heart Radio"] Listen to The Hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith. And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith.

That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it?

A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. It could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless D***less Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. All of this money is being dedicated to these programs and homelessness is only rising. I think one thing that I've heard before that's a kind of useful way to think about this kind of government spending is if homeless people would be better off if you just gave them the money directly, you know, then that kind of way it's really hard to justify these programs when that can't be said of them, you know. And I think the thing that you pointed out Emma about the fact that we have huge amounts of money

allegedly being spent on like homelessness abatement or homeless services at the same time that homelessness is skyrocketing is really not an accident because what that money is really being spent on is to fuel exactly what is it like the homeless industrial complex. There's a reason that most of that money

is going into the pockets of landlords and developers and then sort of like these sort of large like non-profit almost like conglomerates of like service providers. And it's because the primary point of homelessness services as it exists in this country is not to get homeless people into housing, it's to line the pockets of the people that are making the most money off of the real estate market anyway, and So because of that it is not an accident that you see Homeless spending and homelessness Like escalating at the same time. It's because this is the feedback loop Like this is the way that our, you know, economic priorities in

this country are structured are such that those two things are going to feed into each other because that money doesn't actually exist to, like, serve the populations that they say that they're using it to serve. What they do get to do is by claiming that that money is going into homelessness abatement, when clearly it isn't, they then get to spin a narrative where they say, oh, we've spent all this money, but the problem is just getting worse. That must mean that it is the fault of unhoused people and that they're choosing this because clearly the services must exist to get them off the street. In reality, that's not the case at all.

Yeah, I think also it's super important for people to understand that these programs, housing programs, shelter programs, they are out there, but they are decoupled from the sweep operations that are occurring, right? So the city of Oakland, they are contracted with a nonprofit, Safia mentioned earlier, called Operation Dignity. And they are required to check in with different encampments that are scheduled to be closed at least a week before the sweep. And the purpose of that is to notify people

that it's happening, The city of Oakland is required, per the terms of this lawsuit back in, I believe, 2019, the Morales lawsuit. And there was a settlement that resulted in the city being required to provide clear notices whenever they're going to close a site. So yeah, this nonprofit provider is supposed to notify people and try to get them connected with services. However, the services, for the most part, housing for people who are unhoused is largely funded through the federal government and through this very complex and inaccessible

system called coordinated entry. The coordinated entry system is not something that the city of Oakland or Operation Dignity, that is not something that they're providing people with during the suite. So when the city of Oakland, like for instance, in one of the commission on homelessness meetings, the city administrator, Harold Duffy, he presented actually in response to a question about somebody's wheelchair being destroyed by public works. He gave this really roundabout, deflecting answer where he said basically that everyone who is at an encampment at the time of a sweep has expressly refused services,

like shelter or housing or whatever. And that kind of presumes that the city actually has opportunities that they can provide people with, which is just not the case. The coordinated entry system, it is a program that is first of all, like only people who are disabled can get what's called permanent supportive housing through the program. But also it is in such high demand and is so inadequate to the needs that Alameda County is currently like the situation that we're in.

And that the wait list is like thousands of people long and it can take well over a year before someone can get housing through that system. So it's just like it's not true. They do offer people what are called community cabins, which are touch beds. They're not even offering that they're full. They're full. Yeah, that's what they say they offer. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I feel strongly about this. So I think it's also worth saying like in terms of I feel like that's a really, really useful layout, Emma, in terms of like the way that

the system is actually structured for people not to be able to access services. I feel like it's also worth pointing out that just day to day on the ground, I feel like, I feel like I get to see a lot of sort of like minute details and changes in the way that they're operating in response to what their internal systems actually look like. And what we have seen over the last six months to a year is not only this pattern that Emma was talking about of people are consistently not getting connected with services and then being accused of refusing services just due to the conditions that they're living under. But also, everything that Oakland has that approaches, like, livable transitional housing, which is kind of laughable in this case,

because we can also go into, like, the conditions of the transitional housing programs and shelters in Oakland, which are abysmal. But everything that they have that approaches livable transitional housing is full. I very rarely, every few weeks maybe, I see one or two people get referred to one of those programs. And far more often I'll be in a situation, for example, I was at a sweep over near 23rd and Northgate a couple weeks ago, and I was there when Operation Dignity rolled up and I heard what they were saying when they were talking to people and this one dude was going around talking to folks and he kind of, he wasn't even approaching

talking about services. He was approaching being like, hey, I'm just here to let you know that this area is gonna be closed down. Like there's a sweep that's gonna be happening. So you guys have to be out of here. So that was what they led with. And then I prompted him,

cause I was there chatting with one of the guys that he was talking to. So I prompted him. I was like, do you have any services to offer? And then he was like, oh, you can go over to St. Vincent de Paul, which is a congregate shelter in West Oakland with about 40 beds. And nobody is guaranteed a spot. It's just a room full of cots. A lot of people refuse to go there because the conditions are so terrible and they don't feel comfortable or safe sleeping in a room full of a bunch of strangers with no kind

of security, no guarantee of being able to hold on to their stuff. People are only allowed to bring in like a backpack's worth of stuff, I'm pretty sure. And you also have to, it's first come first serve, so you have to line up outside every single day and you are not guaranteed an indoor place to sleep even if you line up outside. So what we have is a situation where the availability of services varies from day to day. I cannot think of a single sweep in the last year that I have been to, and I'm at usually multiple sleeps a week, where there were enough guaranteed spots available for every person being swept. So the implicit assumption at every single sweep, and the Operation Dignity people know

this too, like they know this. The implicit assumption when they roll up, and the assumption that colors even the tenor of all of their conversations that they're having with people, is that the majority of people are just going to have to figure out how to pack their shit up and find another place to camp. It's the assumption. And it's gotten to the point where, like, OD employees will roll up and, like I said, they won't even necessarily lead with an offer of services. They'll lead almost in the hopes that the majority of people already have a place to relocate. They'll ask, do you have a place to go? Before they offer services or ask if people are interested in services, they'll ask like, do you have another spot to move this stuff first? Because what they're hoping to do is eliminate as many people as possible from their list of people that they feel obligated to offer services to because they know they don't fucking have anything.

from their list of people that they feel obligated to offer services to because they know they don't fucking have anything. Yeah, I think it's super important to just emphasize that point. The city is telling the media, they're telling businesses, anyone that comes to them with problems related to homelessness or concerns, they're telling them that everyone is being offered shelter and housing. And it's just not true. And that is reflective in the city's own publicly available data. So they actually publish a list of all of the encampment suites that they do throughout the year. And in the commission on homelessness meetings, they'll like report back to the commission about like service enrollments that they've done through a certain period of time. And like from May to September, they had enrolled, I believe it was 60 people into services, like non-specified

services. And during that period, there was approximately 80 sweeps. And if you assume there's at least five to 10 people at every encampment when they do a sweep and usually it's more. That is like 9%, 4.5% of people getting enrolled into services and like of those maybe a smaller fraction getting into shelter. And when they get into shelter, they just languish there, right? They aren't connected with caseworkers who helped them get through this really convoluted coordinated entry process and like lengthy coordinated entry process. And so within a few months, they're just right back on the street, you know?

It's just ridiculous. And unfortunately, because homeless people have very little, like, I guess you could call it social capital, you know, the city can get away with a lot of this stuff. They do like blatantly illegal things that are against even their own policies and nothing happens. And I guess like maybe we should back up a little bit and discuss the city's policy. more ads I don't know by the question mark is this a good time it's me Dylan Mulvaney and my dear friend Joe Locke from Heartstopper and Agatha all along is my very first guest on my brand new podcast the Dylan Hour it's musical mayhem and it is going to be so much fun.

I like a man. You like a man. What do I like, Joe? You like a man, too. We often... We have quite a similar... There's some cross-pollination happening in here. Not like... No!

Have we? No. Hmm. No. Not yet. Never say never. I cannot wait for all you girls, gays, and thays to join me on this extremely special pink confection of a podcast. There is so much darkness in this world

and what I think we could all use more of is a little joy. Listen to the Dylan Hour on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Love ya. ["The Daily Show Theme"] This is John Cameron Mitchell and my new fiction podcast series, Cancellation Island, stars Holly Hunter as Karen, a wellness influencer who launches a rehab for the recently canceled.

In the future, we will all be canceled for 15 minutes, but don't worry, we'll take you from broke to woke or your money back. Cancellation Island's revolutionary rehab therapies like Bad Touch Football, Anti-Racism Spin Class, and mandatory Ayahuasca ceremonies are designed to force the cancel to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart

when people start disappearing. Karen, where have you brought us? Cancellation Island, where a second chance might just be your last. Listen to Cancellation Island on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all new fictional comedy podcast series. Join the flighty Damien Hirst

as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. And Santi was gone. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Hmm, pillow talk. The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. And what's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Hmm, pillow talk.

The most unwelcome window into the human psyche. Follow our out of his element hero as he engages in a series of ill-conceived, investigative hookups. Mama always used to say, God gave me gumption in place of a gag reflex. And as I was about to learn, no amount of showering can wash your hands

of a bad hookup. Now, take a big whiff, my brah. Listen to The Hookup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith. And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless D***less Me.

I'm the old one. I'm the young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. It could be a family show.

We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless D***less Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. We are back. Yeah. So yeah, let's talk about, I think, what the city's policies are supposed to be versus

like what they're actually doing on the ground. Yeah. I mean, their policy is their cover your ass technique, right? Their policy is what they refer back to whenever they want to sort of like, like Emma said, if they're interfacing with businesses or house people, you know, and we have a whole range of house people calling 311, which is basically their tip line for like, go you see a homeless person that you don't want to be seen. But there's a whole range of people,

there's people that are actively malicious and violent, and there's literally people going out doing vigilante shit and like destroying homeless people's stuff on their own. And then you also have people that are well intentioned and really think the city is offering services. So you have this whole umbrella and the narrative that the city sells to everybody

is bolstered by their policy. The purpose their policy serves is not to inform their actions, but to inform their PR. So I think it would be helpful, Emma, how do you feel about if you want to kind of give a breakdown of the city's policy and then I can kind of give a breakdown into what that translates into on the ground? Yeah. So this is like, it's kind of a complicated situation, but the city has what's what they call their encampment management policy.

And it was initially passed in 2020, but it's gone through like several evolutions over the past 10 years or so. the past 10 years or so. And it is related to different Supreme Court cases and the settlement that I mentioned earlier. So this policy, it provides certain very limited protections for people who are homeless in the city limits. The city is required by this policy to offer shelter. I believe it's a week for any person who's like subject to one of their encampment closures. And also we mentioned the back-in-tact policy. So if somebody, you know, they are evicted and they move somewhere outside with a tent,

they bring all of their possessions with them. They are provided with a, I believe, three foot by three foot, like, stored space in this facility that is super inaccessible and kind of like like I don't even know if it's actually real to be honest because this is like nobody ever I've never heard of anybody actually like getting their stuff stored and getting back but technically that is a possibility however the city will only hold on to it for so long before they throw it away. And then the last protection or provision is the city was, until recently, supposed to provide people with shelter.

So a few different Supreme Court cases are behind that provision specifically. And I think a lot of cities had a similar policy framework that they were following until the grants passed ruling. I guess maybe we don't need to get into that too much, but basically the whole idea of that policy was, if somebody is living outside and the city suites them, they have to provide them with some kind of alternative accommodation.

Because according to the 9th District Court, it was considered cruel and unusual punishment to penalize somebody for being homeless without offering them some kind of temporary accommodations. And so that was more or less the city's nominal framework for several years, basically. And the degree to which they actually followed these policies, you know, they really

didn't except for in certain situations where there are like, for instance, legal advocates who will file injunctions to stop the city from doing a sweep on the basis of failure to provide an alternative accommodation. And typically those arise when there is a very large encampment clearing operation that is scheduled and a contentious issue. A lot of the time, for instance, there'll be people staying on city or California state land and the city will force them to move because of some development project that they're planning to do. And so in those situations when the media has kind of narrowed their focus and begun discussing some of this stuff in the local press, then something like that became possible.

But after the grants passed ruling this past year, the city was no longer obligated under federal law to follow those policies. And in September of last year, the late mayor, Sheng Tao, she issued an executive order that more or less just totally rendered that policy framework irrelevant. So she put forth a new framework

that allows the city to sweep encampments under a tiered system of what are called emergency suites. So if, for instance, a encampment is blocking a roadway or a sidewalk, then it is a hazard to the public, quote unquote. Or if somebody has a tent that is up against a building of some sort, it's a fire hazard. And so in this tiered system, there's like different levels of safety hazards that

they're doing now. And basically what that looks like is like a fire marshal and the city administrator will convene after somebody calls in a complaint about somebody that's staying outside by their business. And with the fire fire hazard one I believe that they can just sweep without any prior notice whereas the other two there is some like level of notice that they're technically required to provide but yeah so the shelter provisions and the notice and storage. Like they're technically still supposed to follow that by their own city resolution. But there is this provision that if, for instance, they issue

somebody a one-hour notice to leave because of a fire hazard and advocates can't make it there because they don't really know. Nobody knows it's happening. Then the city can just do that and not offer people anything. These policies have the effect of disempowering our ability to respond to a scheduled operation. ability to respond to like a scheduled operation, then the city can really just do whatever they want because nobody's watching what they're doing. I guess we can, I think we can take this here towards something I think would probably be good to start closing on,

which is like, what can people actually do about this? First of all, I think listening to all of this, it can be really easy to feel disempowered and to feel like, you know, the walls are closing in and there's nothing that we can do. And that remains not the case, you know, I think people should feel empowered to be able to physically intervene, because the most effective way of physically intervening with this kind of violence is to commit to relationship building. Something that I've talked about a lot with sort of like fellow advocates and folks

that are kind of involved in like sweeps response and crisis response in Oakland is that the one thing that the city cannot take away from us that we have an advantage over them in is relationship building. Part of the reason that, for example, the Operation Dignity employees are so inefficient and so, you know, seemingly bad at their jobs is not just the fact that they don't have anything to offer, but also because everybody

on the street knows they're full of shit, because they never show up with anything real. And addressing house people in particular, right? Like, one of the things to get out of is sort of like the savior mentality or the guilt mentality of like, oh, like I don't have any housing to offer, therefore I can't do anything. Like I can't fix the problem, I can't fix the roots, so I can't do anything. In reality, all you really need to do

is to learn to set that mentality aside and show up and like start meeting folks where they're at, start meeting your neighbors where they're at, start building relationships. You need to know, like if you live in a particular neighborhood, think building relationships, you need to know, like if you live in a particular neighborhood, think to yourself, I need to know that if any unhoused person within a mile radius of my home was disappeared,

I would need to know, you know what I mean? Like I would wanna know if that happened. So if you go out with that understanding that you're starting to build lifelong relationships with the folks that are living outside in your neighborhood. Ideally a lot of other people in your neighborhood too, you know what I mean? But like what they're banking on is right now,

while they're still trying to use a PR cover for what they're doing, what they're banking on is people not talking to each other, people not finding out about the abuses, people not finding out about the violations, people not being there, and people not finding out about the abuses, people not finding out about the violations, people not being there, and people not having relationships that will remain strong, even as they try to physically scatter people's communities. And what you can do to start is start investing in those relationships.

Make sure you know what people's names are. Make sure you would know if somebody's routine was suddenly disrupted. Hey, that guy used to be on that corner. You know, every couple days of the week and now I never see him anymore. What happened to him? And I think you can start there and there's much more that you can concretely do. I mean, one of the ways that I'm accustomed to showing up at this point is direct on-the-ground sweeps response. So we're still able to keep track currently of what their schedule is on a weekly basis, more or less.

Like there's definitely operations we don't find out about until after the fact, but the majority of their weekday operations we do still know about ahead of time. And so we'll show up, we'll make sure we get there before the city does. So like by 8 a.m. ideally, right? Like we show up, talk to people, be like, what do you need? Do you need physical help moving your belongings out of the eviction zone? Do you need to borrow somebody's phone so that you can call somebody who said they were going to come help you? Do you need help pushing or pulling your vehicle? Any number of things really, but just like being willing

to show up and ask questions without necessarily knowing what answers you're going to get and being down to follow up and like do aftercare with people and chicken on folks and like keep building those relationships. I think that those are the building blocks of the organizing that we're going to need to be doing in the future because what the city is counting on is that they're going to be able to successfully create a scapegoat, right? They want to create a faceless, nameless mass of people that they can pin all their problems on and then incarcerate.

And the best thing that we can do is make sure that they can't successfully do that because we all have relationships to each other. Yeah. is make sure that they can't successfully do that because we all have relationships to each other. Yeah, I really appreciate those sentiments, Sathya. And I think like the Oakland like advocates doing like eviction and defense for people who are living outside, it's thrown in size and like capacity quite a bit in the past year. And the city has noticed that. So they've actually, they've passed various resolutions and honestly, a lot of their practices and their policies,

their encampment management team, they seem to be responding to the increasing effectiveness of this response, this network of community defense. And so I think that all of those things are so important, especially as the Trump regime starts to eliminate the very modest social safety net that there was. And before we end this conversation, I just want to emphasize that in Oakland, a majority who are homeless and are subject to state violence. They are non-white, mostly black, and are homeless in neighborhoods where they used to be housed.

And so the gentrification that has happened, particularly in West Oakland, and the influx of high income tech workers that displaced them and moved into their family homes. They are the same people who are calling 311 to push the city to displace them again, but from a tent or a car this time. I think it's just so important that particularly housed people try to tap into the networks of community defense that exist in their areas.

I'm sure that most cities probably have something comparable to Oakland. But with the measures that we're seeing cities begin to take, such as in Fremont, which is about 30 minutes south of Oakland, where they basically banned or criminalized mutual aid with, uh, unhoused people so you can get $1,000 fine or up to six months in jail for dating and abetting a, uh, a homeless person. And, you know, that's an extremely vague law. So like giving someone a blanket could fall under this. So you could be fined or put in jail for giving an unhoused person a blanket in Fremont currently. So it's very important that people try to be aware of their city government, how they're maybe passing anti-homeless measures in their cities

and trying to mobilize against that from happening. I also have one more thing to add to that I'm so sorry. Specifically for anybody thinking about getting involved or organizing strategically around community defense, sweep defense, whatever that looks like in your particular area, I would say first of all, especially if you're a house person in this case, like, invest valuable time into getting to know people on an interpersonal level and getting to know people's needs first, instead of falling into the trap of sort of imposing what you might have learned through, like, other sort of direct action organizing, because this is not that, you know?

Like, I think, yeah, first of all, just making sure that you're being, you're organizing as being led by the needs of, you know, homeless residents that are expressing what they need to you. But also on top of that, when it comes to this particular draconian waves of legislation that are being passed around like anti-homeless laws and stuff, don't preemptively obey. You know what I mean? Like, if you live in Fremont, don't preemptively say, ah, fuck, I better stop passing out blankets. Because what we've seen in Oakland with the particular iterations of anti-homeless legislation that they've passed here is that just because they've passed legislation doesn't mean that they feel confident enforcing it yet. And what you need to do really is step up real hard and show them you can't enforce this the way that you

want to. And they're going to push back. There's going to be this back and forth interplay that we've seen, you know, for example, in Oakland with the Safe Works and Ordnance, which we can probably get into another time because it's way too much to get into right now, I think, at this point in the episode. But it's a two way street. It's this fight that you have to play to show them just because you've passed this legislation doesn't mean you can enforce it in a particular way.

You have to give them something to fight against. You know what I mean? So that's just the other piece. Yeah. Yeah, and like in the rest of their policy is absolutely 100% evidence that if the state doesn't want to follow the law, it isn't real. But that also means that like if they can't enforce a law, like it also effectively ceases to exist. That's just a sort of balance of forces here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there is a lawsuit, apparently, against that. And it sounds like, you know, the city of Fremont is probably going to be removing that aiding and abetting clause from the resolution. But because that specific provision is actually like in the city's municipal code as a general provision. So, you know, even if they do remove it, charges could still be brought against somebody.

So like really the entire ordinance needs to be eliminated altogether. Yeah, I guess, do you have anything else that you want to make sure that you get in before we close this out? I don't think so. Not nothing that comes to mind. But yeah, again, it's super appreciate you having us on to talk about this. Yeah. You know, shit is rough right now. I think for me personally, it's been really helpful to direct my energy towards things in my social network in a way that's constructive and helpful to others. So I would definitely suggest if you're feeling any despair or worried about becoming like blackpilled or whatever. Like, yeah, just try to tap in and focus on things that are happening in your community.

It's good for you and it's good for the people in your community. Yeah, just seconding that, I think, like being able to tap in specifically with like the types of unhoused organizing and underground economies that exist wherever unhoused people exist and being able to tap into that and like, you know, again, speaking from the perspective of a house person, really humble yourself and learn from that. Like, you're going to learn a whole lot more relevant life skills just hanging out in social settings with people in the street than you are in any other area of your life.

So just go balls to the wall. Just start hanging out. Just like spend all your time loitering. Like just that's, that's where we need to be right now is loitering in the street. That's where the organizing is happening. So yeah, it's reclaimed the space. Oh yeah. This has been naked happened here.

Go loiter on three quarters and make the state's life miserable until it cannot do the things it is doing right now. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

This is John Cameron Mitchell and my new fiction podcast series, Cancellation Island, stars Holly Hunter as Karen, a wellness influencer who launches a rehab for the recently canceled. In the future, we will all be canceled for 15 minutes. But don't worry, we'll take you from broke to woke or your money back. Cancellation Island's revolutionary rehab therapies like Bad Touch Football, Anti-Racism Spin Class, and mandatory ayahuasca ceremonies are designed to force the canceled to confront their worst impulses. But everything starts to fall apart when people start disappearing.

Karen, where have you brought us? Cancellation Island, where a second chance might just be your last. Listen to Cancellation Island on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember what you said the first night I came over here? How goes lower? From Blumhouse TV, iHeart Podcasts, and Ember 20 comes an all new fictional comedy podcast series.

Join the flighty Damien Hirst as he unravels the mystery of his vanished boyfriend. I've been spending all my time looking for answers about what happened to Santi. What's the way to find a missing person? Sleep with everyone he knew, obviously. Listen to The Hook Up on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith.

And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our. That's my daughter man who my wife has always said is just a beardless d***less version of me and that's the name of our podcast, Beardless D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless, me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

From the producers who brought you Princess of South Beach comes a new podcast, The Setup. The Setup follows a lonely museum curator, but when the perfect man walks into his life, well I guess I'm saying I like you. You like me? He actually is too good to be true. This is a con. I'm conning you to get the Dilama painting. We can do this together. Listen to The Set Up on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.