Good afternoon and welcome to the Community and Economic Development Committee meeting of Tuesday, March 10th, 2026.
The time is now 1.33 p.m. and this meeting may come to order.
Before taking roll, I will provide instructions on how to submit speaker cards for items on this agenda.
If you're here with us in chamber, we'd like to submit a speaker card.
Please fill one out and turn one into myself or a clerk representative, no later than 10 minutes after the start of this meeting.
Or before the item is read into record.
online speaker requests were due 24 hours prior to the start of this meeting time this meeting came to order at 1 33 p.m
And this and speaker cards will no longer be accepted 10 minutes after making that time 1 43 p.m
We'll now proceed with taking roll
councilmember five is
excused councilmember
Ramachandran present councilmember Unger here and chair Brown present. Thank you
We have three members present one excused five and chair before we begin. Do you have any?
announcements at this time yes welcome everyone to the community and economic development committee
First announcement is just we will be
Changing the order of the item so we will hear item S
3 followed by S 5 and then the last item will be item number 4
No other announcements at this time
Thank you
Noting the presence of councilmember 5 at 134 p.m. And also noting the changes made to the agenda
Noting that we'll be hearing items 1 2 3 5 then 4
Reading an item 1 approval of the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on February 24th
2026 and there are no speakers on this item
Move approval of the minutes
Thank you
I'm sorry that was a motion made by council member Unger second by council member Roman
chandrin to accept the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on February 24th
two thousand twenty six on roll council member five I council member Roman chandrin I come
from under I and chair Brown thank you item number one passes with four eyes to accept
the draft minutes from the committee meeting held on February 24th two thousand twenty
six reading an item to determination of scheduled outstanding committee items and we have one
speaker that signed up excellent and did we need to do of urgency oh this is the
item three okay so to the administration any changes for the pending
list administrator Baker so for the next item any changes to our pending list no
you know so I'll entertain emotion okay we'll take the speaker calling in the
name that sign up to speak on item number two missus sada olavala so I
cannot understand the rationale for this body never getting any kind of
information from the Oakland Housing Authority. You have the mandate for
appointing members to the Oakland Housing Authority, public housing comes
under your umbrella, and housing is supposed to be a crucial issue.
Public housing is a crucial component for individuals, low income, and so forth,
but we get no interaction on how we need to look at public housing under the Oakland Housing
Authority, particular what's going on with the crazy man in Washington with HUD looking
at mandating certain things that is greatly going to impact public housing.
8 vouchers, the opportunity that you can use your Section 8 voucher to purchase a home.
We haven't waited on any of that stuff.
So when are we going to take the time to bring Oakland Housing Authority into the room?
They have many complaints that have been brought forward by the people who are living in public
they are in public housing.
And nobody's there to address it except them.
We are not protecting the best interests of people who live in
public housing until we bring Oakland public housing into the
room to get a report and to actually have a performance
evaluation on what's going on with public housing in this
city.
Thank you for your comments chair that concludes all
speakers on this item we just need a motion.
motion. So moved. Thank you that was a motion made by councilmember five
seconded by councilmember Unger to accept the determination of schedule
outstanding committee items as is. On roll council members five. Aye.
Ramachandran. Aye. Unger. Aye. And Chair Brown. Aye. Thank you item number two passes
with four ayes to accept the pending list as is. Before reading in item S3 we
We do need, sorry, we do need a vote as this item was added,
was amended at the three day agenda for an urgency finding.
I'll make the motion to move this item to hear the item.
Second.
Thank you, that was a motion made by Chair Brown,
seconded by Council Member Ramachandran
to accept the urgency finding on item S3
the council members present.
And to hear the item on role
council members five.
I'm a chandrin I hunger I and
chair brown I thank you motion
passes with the for eyes now
reading an item number three.
Adopt a resolution authorizing
the city administrator to
accept an appropriate.
Appropriate up to four point
four million dollars in grant
funds from the federal lead
hazard of reduction grant
program.
Entering to a professional
twelve hundred and one thousand
twenty four dollars and thirty
cents to provide grant
administration and management
construction service
construction services for the
lead.
Based paint mitigation and
healthy homes program and to
waive the city of Oakland's
local and small local business
enterprise program requirements
local employment and Oakland
apprenticeship requirements and
requests for proposal slash
qualification competitive
process requirements.
Upon completion of sorry upon
procurement process enter into one or more agreements in a total amount not
to exceed three hundred thirty four thousand eight hundred seventy eight
dollars and thirteen cents with one or more workforce development services
services providers to expand the supply of workers and firm available
available to conduct lead-based paint mitigation and healthy homes work and
make grants eligible make grants to eligible property owners for the
That's why we're here today.
And I want to thank you for
having me with us today.
Thank you for having me with
us today.
And I want to thank you for
the remediation of lead-based
paint hazards and healthy home
improvements and we have one
speaker that signed up.
Excellent.
Thank you so much.
So for this first item we will
be hearing from Caleb Smith.
Good afternoon council members.
Caleb Smith senior policy
analyst for the city's housing
community development department.
We are here today seeking
permission to accept a 4.4
million dollar grant from the
U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development.
competitive program and it is the first time that Oakland is receiving funding
through this program. We're very excited about this because these funds are
going to be able to address two carrier areas of need. First and foremost the
funds from this program will address lead-based paint hazards, which is a
significant issue in Oakland considering our old housing stock. A lot of those
homes have exposed lead paint hazards which is a potent neurotoxin. In addition
to the four million dollars that this grant has dedicated to that use, this
This grant also contains $400,000 to pay for accompanying healthy home improvements to
address other in-home health hazards like mold or radon exposure.
Now, in terms of the delivery of this grant, as part of our application for TAHUD, we partnered
with the local nonprofit Habitat for Humanity East Bay Silicon Valley, which will be serving
as a subrecipient.
They will oversee the day-to-day administration of the remediation work contained in this
grant, including working directly with the contractors who will do the physical work,
as well as coordinating all the testing before and after the work is done to make sure it
is effective, and also working with the renters and homeowners on temporary relocation while
the work is done, because oftentimes they need to move out for a few days while the
work is being done.
In addition to working with Habitat on the remediation, this item also, following a future
competitive bidding process will authorize us to work with one or most likely multiple
workforce and business development organizations to provide additional supports to Oakland
workers and Oakland small businesses to access the economic opportunities that come with
this grant.
Our budget included a little over $330,000 to provide these supports.
We are mindful that at present there is a shortage of qualified workers and businesses
with the necessary certification to conduct this kind of lead-based paint remediation.
So investing in expanding our capacity for this work will be beneficial both for this
grant and for other future lead-based paint mitigation efforts in future.
We also, I'm mindful that for especially the smallest firms, the firms that would be a
good fit for this kind of work, if this is their first experience contracting with a
government-funded program, the additional compliance opportunity requirements can be
challenging at times. So the small business capacity building supports will
be useful to make it accessible to these firms. In terms of who's going to be
served directly by this program, based on the parameters of the underlying HUD
grant program, this program will be available to both homeowners and renters
in Oakland. There is a requirement, first off, that the renters or homeowners need
to be low-income, and second, that they have small children in the household or
regularly present at the household,
which makes sense because these small children
are the most vulnerable to these lead-based paint hazards.
Although applications can be received citywide,
the outreach as well as prioritization for this program
will be based on a set of census tracts
listed in the staff report,
which mirrors the equity-based targeting
from our future equitable lead hazard abatement program.
The expected duration of this program
is going to be approximately four years,
And we're excited that once this program has been successfully completed,
the city will likely be able to apply for additional funds
from the Department of Housing and Urban Development
so that this funding source that we are receiving here for the first time
has the potential to be an ongoing source of support
for addressing lead-bait paint hazards here in Oakland.
So that's just a quick overview of this program.
And we're now pleased to take any questions. Thank you.
Excellent. Thank you so much, Caleb.
We can go to the public speaker.
Sorry, we have a number of speakers, Chair,
calling in the names that signed up
to speak on item number S3 in no particular order.
You can come up to the podium,
state your name for the record.
Or if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand
to be easily identified.
Mrs. Sada Olibala, Greg Slaughter,
Valerie Batchelor, Alberto Parra,
Marcus Romero Garcia, Isabelle, and Linda.
OK, so I found something that said $4.8 million
from a $24 million, 2019 legal settlement with paint
manufacturers has sat unused by the city of Oakland since 2021
with plans for usage by the city not expected for uses
until mid 2025.
So the question is, have y'all used that money?
and where's the report on the expenditures
of that particular funding source.
Ms. Brown, okay, I'll go on.
There has been very slow coordination
between the city and the county
related to dealing with this issue.
Also currently the system often waits for children
to test positive for lead poisoning before taking action
rather than proactively removing hazardous.
And we have to realize that this is only a chip of the iceberg
because we got lead in the water.
So when we deal with this issue, we've
got to go to that issue because OUSD has 80% of its water
fixtures and the schools showing some level of lead.
And they're doing a very poor job of remediating that issue.
Over at McClellan's, we got lead in the soil.
And I've been trying since 2021 with the remodelization for them to do something about the lead in the soil that's on the football field, and they're doing nothing except applying for notice of exemption, which means you don't have to deal with it.
So we got a lot of issues with lead and people who have the ability to do something, including the city, and OUSD, it's not happening.
Okay, Chair Brown, I apologize, there isn't a misunderstanding,
we're actually wanting to make comments on item number four.
Can we go ahead and do that when it comes to that item,
or should we just make our public comments?
And I realize I've said it's a three, but it's four.
Yeah, that's fine.
Okay, thank you.
Okay, Chair, at this time all names have been called.
Okay, excellent.
Colleagues, any questions or comments?
If not, I'm in the immediate.
I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Caleb.
Caleb, can you quickly explain, I guess, the difference between this particular grant that HCD went after and the settlement funds around the program?
Sure. I believe my colleague, Ugo Ramirez, would like to cover that point.
Good afternoon. Ugo Ramirez, Deputy Director. So this program, which is a competitively awarded HUD grant, we're very excited, a very heavy lift to get that application in,
separate and distinct. However, it is complementary for obvious reasons, but
it is a separate program apart from the equitable lead hazard abatement program.
We expect to have the details on that program and the MOU with the county
sometime in May. Excellent, thank you so much. And then in applying for this
particular grant is the scope of the work equal to kind of the the scope of
the settlement as well because I guess my question is do we consider I know
this program the programming is is gonna be focusing in on homes right but as was
mentioned by the public commenter we know that you know many of the buildings
that are utilized you know within the city of Oakland and in various other
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in that some aspects of the HUD funded program
are similar to draft elements
of the equitable lead hazard abatement program,
but then it's complementary in that, for example,
homeowners, owner-occupied homes
will also be served by the HUD grant,
whereas the equitable lead hazard abatement program,
because it's leading with equity,
really targets our most vulnerable tenants
in our most burdened census tracks.
So of course that financial assistance
would go to the rental property owners
on behalf of those vulnerable tenants.
Excellent, thank you so much.
Council Member Fife.
Yes, thank you.
I just wanted to state a couple things for the record
that this lawsuit that gave rise to the settlement
from these paint companies,
I think it started in like 2019 or 2000.
And just to the speaker's point,
I've been trying to get these funds out
into the community since I was elected
and since I started serving in 2021.
And what I was told at that time was that
the city of Oakland didn't have the infrastructure
to create a program that would address the individuals
that would potentially be displaced for all of the repairs
that needed to happen in the city of Oakland.
So we were facing a potential crisis
in displacing individuals
and still didn't have a program that was created.
So since then, hats off to HCD and the Department of Race
and Equity for being diligent about this process
and ensuring that we could address the issues as best
as we can because I still think that the level of need
in the city outweighs the resources that we have
to address the crisis.
That said, in light of the recent disparity study,
Caleb, you stated it in your presentation, but I would like you to elaborate on why we
needed a waiver and what steps were taken to confirm that there were no firms, no, there
were not responsive firms to address what's being asked for with this grant.
Sure.
Through the chair to Councilmember Fyfe, this was based off of our department's previous
For us to make sure that we're
not having.
This experience working with
similar firms our department
has a legacy home rehabilitation
program funded primarily by
community development block
grants which among other kinds
of home improvements does
include some lead based paint
remediation work- in our
experience there's a very
limited pool of contractors
that the city's been able to
work with so far.
Of three quarters of our
our currently African-American contractors.
And we are mindful though that based on some of the analysis
that was done leading into the Equitable Lighthouse
or Debatement Program, they did take a look
at the availability of certified contractors
with the necessary certifications to do this work
in our area.
And it was well short of what we needed
to address our forthcoming pipeline,
which is why it was so important for us to include
this not just workforce development,
But also small business development budget in this grant to grow the capacity moving
forward over time, especially because we want to address those barriers to entry.
I just want to state that I think that's an example that you all provided with this particular
grant around workforce development and economic development that all of our city departments
need to model to ensure that we do have race equity and gender equity in the grants that
that we pursue and the contracts that we pursue.
I am really grateful for the leadership of HCD
showing everyone else how it should be done.
If we really wanna address the disparities in the city,
I will make a motion to accept staff's recommendation
on this item and say thank you, Caleb, specifically.
You bring a lot of money into the city of Oakland.
We appreciate that.
Thank you, Council Member.
It's very kind.
Yes, I concur.
Thank you so much, Caleb and the HCD team.
And so Council Member Unger.
I'll just second that.
Okay, excellent.
Thank you, we have a motion made by Councilmember Fyfe,
seconded by Councilmember Unger,
to approve the recommendations of staff
and to forward this item to the March 16th
special city council agenda on roll.
Councilmembers Fyfe?
Aye.
Ramachandran?
Aye.
Unger?
Aye.
And Chair Brown?
Aye.
Thank you, item number S3 passes with four ayes.
To forward this item to the March 16th, 2026,
special city council agenda on consent
before reading, sorry, noting the change to the agenda
and we'll be hearing item S5.
Before taking S5, we do need a vote
as this item was added at the three-day agenda.
Excellent, I'll entertain a motion on that.
So moved.
Thank you, that was a motion made by Councilmember Unger,
seconded by Chair Brown,
to accept the urgency finding for item S5.
On roll, Councilmember Spive?
Aye.
Ramachandran?
Hi.
Unger.
Aye.
And Chair Brown.
Aye.
Thank you, motion passes with four ayes
to accept the urgency finding for item S5.
Now reading in item S5, adopt a resolution
authorizing the city administrator to apply for,
accept an appropriate up to $1,600,000 in funds
from the State of California Department of Housing
and Community Development's Pro-Housing Incentive
Pilot Program for capitalized service reserves
for affordable housing and make grants or development loans
under the new construction of multifamily rental affordable
housing program, or the rapid response homeless housing
program contingent on funding available.
And we do have two speakers that signed up.
Excellent, thank you.
Thank you so much.
And so we'll once again hear from Caleb.
Hello again, Caleb Smith, Senior Policy Analyst
with the City of Elkins Housing Community Development
Department.
This is seeking authorization from the council
to apply for a grant opportunity from the State Housing
Community Development Department.
This is their ProHousing Incentive Program.
The state has a program called the ProHousing Designation
Program, which recognizes cities that go above and beyond
the requirements of state law to be housing friendly.
This is based on a combination of land use, funding,
really a lot of this work that the city does
across departments.
So we should share our appreciation of the good work
that the Planning and Building Department, Economic Workhorse
Development, and a lot of other departments
to make this designation possible.
This grant opportunity for potentially roughly 1.3 to 1.6 million dollars is available only
to cities that the state has designated as pro-housing.
I want to be real if we are awarded these funds will be used for capitalized service
funds to support our work on deeply affordable housing here in Oakland because there is a
limited amount of these funds available from other sources so there's a strong need for
it.
Though we always apply for this grant when it is up,
it's a very straightforward application.
We're also mindful that the state's rules prioritize
newly designated pro-housing cities
that have not previously received this funding.
And that's the reason why although we were awarded funds
in the first round that this grant existed,
we have not yet received an additional award.
We're mindful though that at a certain point
the state is going to run out of pro-housing cities.
So if we keep applying,
then hopefully we will eventually
be awarded additional funds.
So that's just a little background about this grant.
Now please take any questions, thank you.
Excellent, thank you so much, Caleb.
And then can you quickly share
one of the questions I had asked previously.
Can you explain how that pro-housing designation
kind of impacts some of the other grants
that we do apply for as well?
Certainly, thank you, Council Member.
The city's pro-housing designation
does not just unlock access to this grant program,
it also provides a scoring advantage
in a series of housing and transportation related grants
for both the city and sometimes even for our partners.
So examples that include the state's
Affordable Housing Sustainable Communities Program,
a program several open projects have won funds from
over the past few years,
which pays for affordable housing
and transportation improvements close to transit.
Also, things like the state's CalHome program,
which supports things like home ownership,
that also has a scoring bonus.
And then on the transportation side,
I believe there's an inner city rail program
that we as a city don't apply for,
but our friends at BART could potentially
get a scoring bonus from that.
So there's a wide variety of ways
in which the city of Oakland's housing friendly policies
is making it possible for us to be in a good position,
both funding wise and potentially also for our partners too.
Thank you.
Excellent, thank you so much.
And so if no immediate questions,
we can hear from the public speakers.
Calling in the names that signed up to speak on item S5.
David Boatwright and Mrs. Sada-Olevala.
David Boatwright, District Four.
This program's called a pilot program,
yet there've been other projects like this preceding it
and it's not clear what makes this a pilot project
and what impact that has on the ability to use these funds.
The other thing is it's only for $1.6 million,
which in housing is a drop in the bucket.
What type projects might this be combined with
and where does this money go?
If we're awarded this money, where does it go
until it's tied to something more significant?
That's it, thanks.
So this is a project for which the application
is due March 31st, 2026.
So is this another rush job
that y'all trying to rush it through?
and we haven't timely dealt with it.
So there are compliance issues that have to be a part
of the application, and it says that you have to be
in compliance with state and federal housing laws.
Are y'all in compliance with federal housing laws?
No, we don't know, because you don't have any ability
to have any insight or who has the insight about HUD.
That's the Oakland Housing Authority.
So how are you achieving compliance with housing,
federal housing, and state housing?
The other thing is that when I read it,
it's such a thing as a revenue bonus award, up to $500,000.
I don't know if that applies to us.
But the thing that concerns me, it
says funds are made available to each geographic category
based on the percentage of 20, 30 population projections.
So this project will not be based on income,
it'll be based on geographical categories.
And I might have looked up the wrong thing,
but that's what I did find
when I looked up this particular grant.
How are you able to get a partial award
That says that exists.
And let's see, that's all I had related to this.
Thank you, that concludes all speakers on this item.
Excellent, any questions or comments, colleagues?
Caleb, I did have a quick question.
Would you happen to remember that in the first time
that the city applied for this pro-housing grant,
What project it was used to fund that first time?
Yeah, I'm afraid I don't have that information
off the top of my head.
This application isn't dedicated to a specific project.
It sort of becomes a flexible fund
that can be integrated with some of our other projects
that are awarded through either our new construction
notice of funding availability process
or our rapid response homeless housing project process.
Yeah, I think that the public speaker made a good point.
know that the report or even what you mentioned was that you know there's
consistency around applying for this right so that we try right but I was
curious you know in that first time that we applied curious how the funding was
allocated so maybe if you can follow up with an email we'll look into that thank
you councilman excellent thank you so much all right so we just need a motion
motion to move this item to the special city council meeting on the 16th rate.
Thank you that was a motion made by councilmember Unger seconded by
councilmember Ramachandran to approve the recommendations of staff and to
forward this item to the March 16, 2026 city special City Council agenda on roll
council members five aye Ramachandran aye Unger aye and chair Brown aye thank you
item number S5 passes with four ayes to forward this item to the March 16,
the 2016-2026 special city council agenda on consent.
Now reading in item number four.
Receive an informational report
on the Housing and Community Development Department's
Anti-Displacement Strategic Action Plan
and we have 12 speakers that signed up to speak.
Excellent, thank you so much.
And so we will hear from Chris.
Hello, hello.
Thank you, hello council members, members of the public.
My name is Chris Norman, Chief of Staff
for the City of Oakland's Housing
and Community Development Department.
May I please have the slides on the screen?
There we go.
All right, so, and I'm joined as well by Ugo Ramirez,
our deputy director of community development.
He'll come up in just a little bit in the second half
to present the next part of this.
So we are very excited to present this informational report
on HCD's second strategic plan
focused on its anti-displacement services.
We bring this to you today as an informational report.
The impetus for this plan was the end of the pandemic era
of fiction moratorium in 2023,
when the previous council requested information
on community level trends related to displacement
and housing stability.
Beyond the typical response,
we decided to create the strategic plan
to better communicate how HCD services would grow
and be prioritized over the coming years.
With that, I want to acknowledge that this plan
focuses on HCD's sphere of influence
and the resources that we manage.
So we don't speak to what the city at large does
or cultural preservation, economic development,
but I do wanna shout out EWD's most recently
published strategic plan as well.
All right, so we will cover the following today.
I will provide some introductory framing
around how we approach housing investment
in the city of Oakland,
as well as an overview of what we support in HCD
related to housing stability services.
I'll then discuss the development process of the plan,
including rooting us in key data that tells a story
of housing stability in Oakland over the recent years.
The data is foundational for the actions we describe later in the presentation.
I'll share how we approach community engagement to develop the plan and
highlight some of the feedback and themes we heard directly from Oakland residents.
Afterwards, our deputy director will share guiding principles for how we invest our funds and
offer our equitable investment framework to make sure that we can have the greatest impact with our dollars.
We'll then share select implementation strategies to move this work forward.
And then we'll end with the discussion on what performance measurement and management looks like.
All right, let's get started.
So I want to acknowledge that housing means several things to many people and that those definitions are not the same.
This slide depicts some of the key buckets we use when we talk about what housing means.
It can mean protection to keep people housed, which is the focus of today's conversation.
It can relate directly to homelessness, meaning interim or transitional shelter.
It can mean the development of permanently affordable housing with public subsidy to make sure that it's affordable long term.
It can mean preservation or rehabilitation to make sure we don't lose the housing we already have.
And it can mean market rate production or homeownership opportunities.
I share this because we want to be specific when we talk about the issues we face and the solutions we come up with.
Many housing entities around the Bay Area in California use the 3P framework for how we approach housing solutions.
We must preserve what we already have, build new affordable housing, and
the focus of today's conversation, protect residents from displacement.
The work we do in this protection category is primarily supported by funding resources such as the rent adjustment program fee,
Boomerang or 1870, as well as some federal dollars that we have.
This supports the services part of our work, which is different from the capital resources needed to build new housing.
We believe that clarity is critical in our work, which is why HDD articulates our approaches across the three Ps through our strategic plans.
These plans name a North Star that guides our work with the ultimate goal of creating impactful solutions across the full spectrum that I showed earlier.
And I want to acknowledge that a large part of housing stability is the availability of housing in general.
The work to build more housing and enough housing for different income levels is discussed in our capital investment plan.
Somewhat separately, but of course, they are very linked.
You will also note some overlap today between the anti displacement plan and the city's new homelessness strategy.
Both plans, for example, highlight homelessness prevention is absolutely critical, and we'll show how that links together later.
So, what does HCD support with our current protection funding?
HCD's protection work is generally held within the department's community development division, which is comprised of two units.
the Rett Adjustment Program, or RAP, and the Community Development and Engagement Team, or CD&E.
In total, HCD only has about $16 million in the current fiscal year across these two units to support housing stability work.
This is compared to more than $100 million for capital development, much of which is thanks to Measure U, which by law cannot be used for services like these.
Our deputy director will discuss these two teams in greater detail later, but RAP operates with about $10.5 million annually,
There's about five and a half million left to spend on other services such as eviction defense homelessness prevention, etc
Again, we'll discuss this more deeply
But I wanted to highlight several ordinances all passed by Oakland City Council that create what we call a protective policy
Environment meant to serve the majority of Oaklanders and promote stability as well as a fair rental market for small property owners
This ranges from rent control to just cause to the rent registry and these all fall within the realm of protection as they aim
to stabilize residents at large.
To put that in context, there are about a hundred and eighty two thousand occupied homes in Oakland.
Oakland is a renter majority city with about 59% of its residents being renters and of those rental units
40% are rent controlled and 18% of them have some sort of government subsidy in them to keep them affordable long-term.
I want to mention for a second, why did we create this plan?
Why is it important to discuss housing stability and anti-displacement work in Oakland?
I myself am a black and Mexican person who grew up in an extremely low income household,
where my parents were disabled and they did not work.
My family was forced out of our home and split up due to housing policies that told us where we could or could not live.
Unfortunately, my story and my family's story is not unique.
It is our country and our region's history that is impacted by redlining, community disinvestment, growing economic inequality, and much more that got us where we are today.
So I want to share that because everybody in this room has a story related to this, and that's why we're talking about this.
This section that I'm coming into now will offer some data, some of which you've already seen, but it's important to raise it contextually so that we all have a kind of foundational point and that we understand why we're doing this.
It's not easy data to receive, I want to name that.
But I also want to acknowledge that every data point is more than a number, these reflect people, these reflect our neighbors, and our families.
So let's dig in.
Oakland's black population decreased from 43% in 1990 to 21% in 2023.
That's an out migration of almost 70,000 black Oaklanders, which is about three fourths of the current black population of the city.
I want to take a second to thank our Department of Race and Equity, who helped us ground this work in the city's racial equity impact analysis process.
Thank you for that, that is 19% in 2025.
The REIA process has us all start by naming the future we want to see in our community, especially in response to where we are now.
Along with our stakeholders and community members, this is a statement we developed to name the future condition that we want to see.
Local Oaklanders, including all income levels and those most impacted by disparities in
displacement have healthy, safe, fair, affordable, and stable housing.
Oakland's communities are stabilized without disproportionate displacement of historically
underserved communities.
According to the city's REIA process, to make progress towards where we want to be, we first
need to understand where we are now.
Our plan selects key data points that tell the story of stability and displacement in
in Oakland desegregated by demography and geography
wherever possible.
These topics include displacement migration, rent
burden, overcrowding, evictions, and more.
I won't go through all of them, but I
will name a few just to make sure we
have similar understanding.
First of all, the table on the left
shows the income ranges we use when
we discuss what is considered low income or extremely low
income in Oakland right now.
For example, those households who earn 100%
of an area's median income, meaning half of the households
will earn more than that, and half of the households
earn below that.
For a single person, it's $112,000 a year.
And for a family or a household of four,
it's about $160,000 a year.
Those are the medians.
Low income is up to 80% of those numbers.
And very low income is up to 50%, extremely low income
up to 30%.
I want to thank our partners at Stanford University's Changing
Cities Research Lab, who have been critical partners for Oakland
They brought a powerful report on the state of housing insecurity in Oakland, which I
suggest reviewing.
But they also helped us do an analysis, which you see on the right.
This colorful chart basically shows that when extremely low-income people are displaced
from Oakland, they experience it much more intensely than any other group.
They're more likely to be forced to leave the Bay Area altogether.
They don't just move somewhere down the street.
They don't move to the next city over.
They leave the Bay Area at large because choice is absolutely key and critical in determining
where we land. That's compared to moderate or higher income residents who
can more so afford to find other places more locally. Next, I want to highlight
rates of rent burden. When a household is burdened, that means they pay over 30%
of their monthly income on rent and when they are severely rent
burdened, that means they pay over 50% half of their monthly income on rent.
About half of all Oaklanders at large are rent burdened and about 28% are
severely rent burdened. But when broken down by race, however, we start to see those disparities.
For example, whereas 37% of white rental households are rent burdened in 2022, 62% of black households
pay more than a third of their income on rent. These differences are important to highlight
because they show us where we might focus our efforts to reduce disparities in housing.
I'm going to skip ahead just a bit for the sake of time, but homelessness, we know this
is critical especially around the nation here in Oakland. According to the 2024
point-in-time count, again we clearly see why there is an equity imperative to
this work. Whereas black folks make up 22% of the population, they represent a
52% of the unhoused population. I also want to discuss home inflow, who
becomes newly unhoused. We cannot stop homelessness if there continues to be
growth in who experiences homelessness. Though we may house about
1500 people in a given year over 2500 people become newly unhoused and in
Oakland 59% of those newly unhoused folks are black. That is extremely
frustrating and we wonder we want to reduce and eliminate homelessness
altogether yes but we also have to recognize that these disparities exist
and we have a responsibility to create strategies that meets the needs of these
specific groups as well. Alright almost done with my part this is a huge one
this is data from the Superior Court of Alameda,
and it demonstrates eviction filing rates
from before the pandemic, 2019, up until 2024.
We saw a huge dip in eviction filings
during the eviction moratorium, 2020 through 2023,
but then the numbers skyrocketed,
surpassing pre-pandemic rates.
While evictions may not lead directly to homelessness,
they are absolutely still a disruption in families' lives
and community connection and so much more.
Oakland's housing stock is fairly old,
with about 3 fourths of it being built before 1980.
These exact numbers have shifted in recent years,
but there's still a significant proportion of older housing
around.
The older these homes are, the more likely
they are to face several cold-related issues.
While many can be remedied without disruption
to a resident's life, some may require relocation,
which has the potential to result in displacement if not
handled correctly and with care.
So that's all I'll discuss for quantitative data, but
I also want to highlight some of the qualitative things we heard from our community members.
We worked on developing this plan over the past two years with community engagement from late 2024 to early 2025.
First, we held two part focus group sessions with several stakeholders to create a shared understanding of the issue and
then to discuss potential implementation strategies.
With that feedback, we designed community dialogue sessions, which we hosted with each council member at the time.
out to you. Thank you so much
and thank you for your
assistance back at that point.
We coordinated with other city
departments and also held
discussions with our county and
regional partners to think
about how we can leverage
resources. Overall we interface
with over a few hundred
residents and part to partner
and develop this plan. I'm not
gonna definitely not gonna read
this line but these are. Some
partners that were invited to
to our sessions and joined us.
And by just naming, I'm not going to elaborate on them, but I am going to just read some
of the perspectives and themes that we heard from members of our community during our sessions.
Past and present out migration of black Oaklanders is massive and disproportionate.
Addressing disproportionately high rates of black homelessness must be our highest priority
as a community.
As you hear these, I also want to say think about these and keep in mind which ones stay
with you as we talk about our implementation strategies because we want, we design the
strategies to respond to these directly. Significantly more people become unhoused
for the first time than what our homelessness system response can serve. Evictions succeed
pre-pandemic levels since the lifting of the moratorium. Eviction defense and legal services
are effective but they're not scaled to meet the need and they're not targeted necessarily to
to prevent homelessness, people who need it the most.
Oakland's rental assistance program
is effective and targeted.
We experienced that, they shared.
Oakland HCD, funding for services is scarce
compared to what it puts into capital.
That was in response to some of the data we shared.
Tenant protection laws are vital and should be strengthened.
Tenants need to know, I can't read that
because I have, they need to know.
They need to know what their laws are
and rights are in relation to the ordinances
have been passed by Council. Longtime small property owners are vital to
Oakland's housing ecosystem and they need help. Homeowners and lease
holders who informally house friends and family are essential to stabilization
and they also need help. And then residents need to know where to go to
get the assistance they need no matter what issue they're facing. So those are
some things that we heard directly from members of the public and I want to pass
So I'm going to pass it now to oogo deputy director of our department to talk about our implementation plan.
Who Ramirez deputy director housing and community development department. I oversee Oakland H CDs community development division which is comprised of, as Chris said, the rent adjustment program unit, or rep.
Sorry.
the Community Development and Engagement Unit or CDE. This division, the Community Development
Division, is responsible for implementing housing stability policies and programs,
such as rent control and just cause, code compliance relocation, and community-based
services including eviction legal defense through Oakland Housing Secure, and targeted homelessness
prevention through keep Oakland housed among other partnerships.
To guide our approach to resource allocation and resource development, we establish the
following guiding principles.
This is essential as resources are extremely limited and not scaled to the need.
We start by basing all of our decisions on equity, which in turn starts with looking
at the data.
group causes and who's most burdened so that we can divide, devise strategies that reduce
those inequities.
This centers our residents with highest risk of housing loss and deep long-term poverty.
We're committed to not only maximizing the impact of the existing slice of the pie, but
also growing the pie by leveraging funding sources such as Oakland HCD demonstrated in
in an earlier item, that $4.4 million
competitively awarded grant,
expanding partnerships and resources,
as Mayor Lee and other city leaders are doing
through our Measure W advocacy
and partnership with the county,
and implementing as best we can
as we work to make systems work for our residents
whom we center in our work.
And finally, we iterate, evaluate our impact,
and learn to achieve greater results.
The need is great and we can't do it all.
So we asked ourselves and our key community stakeholders
throughout the development of this plan
the following question.
With the limited dollars available,
how should funding be prioritized
to have the maximum impact
for those most impacted by housing disparities?
Our resource allocation approach is best represented
by this equitable investment framework.
It's an adaptation of the public health model of prevention
wherein at its base, you'll find strategies
that promote protective factors
that contribute to one's health.
In this case, tenant protection policies
that contribute to housing stability
for most of our residents.
And as the strategies go up the pyramid,
they're more targeted, more intensive for our residents
with the highest degree of housing insecurity,
housing precarity, housing instability,
whatever term you prefer.
Consistent with our racial equity impact analysis,
interventions that help mitigate risk factors,
such as risk of homelessness, risk of eviction,
risk of foreclosure, risk of losing
our legacy small rental property owners.
We concentrate our resources where inequities are greatest
to thereby reduce those inequities.
It's for this reason that homelessness prevention
is at the top of the pyramid
and is our highest service priority.
Each of the tiers is described in detail
in the anti-displacement strategic action plan,
but I'll provide a high level overview here.
So at tier one, our highest priority,
consistent with our guiding principles
and racial equity impact analysis,
is homelessness prevention.
Our residents who are most likely
to not only lose their housing,
but to experience literal homelessness.
These residents are informally housed, couch surfing,
or otherwise marginally housed.
They have no or extremely low incomes.
They have rents that eat up most
or close to all of their income.
And they've been involved with systems
that disproportionately alter their life trajectories,
such as criminal, legal, and foster systems.
The service interventions
include flexible financial assistance,
mostly rental assistance, and individualized support.
Tier 2A focuses on our tenants
at highest risk of housing loss,
service interventions that are very similar
to homelessness prevention,
but serve a subset of residents who may, without our help,
lose their housing and suffer the detrimental
and rippling effects of eviction, for example,
but who will not necessarily experience homelessness.
Tier 2B focuses on our low income homeowners
and legacy small rental property owners.
We heard loud and clear and we agree
that they are essential to the vitality
of Oakland's culture, economy, and housing ecosystem,
especially when it comes to housing precisely
those residents are larger strategy centers.
Not just the mom and pop landlords,
but also the auntie and elder homeowners
who provide housing to their friends and family,
despite their limited resources, overcrowding,
and deferred maintenance.
Interventions here include foreclosure prevention,
estate planning, and other legal services
that can help to establish intergenerational wealth,
generous housing rehabilitation financing
to address deferred maintenance and promote healthy housing,
and small business development support
for legacy small rental property owners.
And finally, at the base or foundation of the pyramid,
is our rental housing policies
that promote housing stability
and a viable rental housing market.
This protective policy environment
includes foundational policies such as rent control
and just cause, code compliance relocation,
and other tenant protection policies.
The anti-displacement strategic action plan
is an implementation plan.
It's not a planning document that sits on the shelf
and never sees the light of day.
Our implementation strategies are organized
in the following categories.
To target and scale our services,
to serve our residents with the most housing precarity,
to improve housing habitability,
to increase small rental property owner viability,
to strengthen tenant protection policies,
and to increase homeowner viability and prevent foreclosure.
This plan goes into detail
for each of these implementation strategies,
and it considers, for example,
their equity impact potential,
funding, and staff capacity constraints,
and whether the strategy is tied
to a core function of the department,
such as a mandate to implement a specific local ordinance
like rent control, the rent adjustment ordinance.
I will highlight a few of our implementation strategies,
and I'm happy to elaborate if you have any questions
following our presentation.
When prioritizing services most impacted by disparities,
some of our implementation strategies
include partnering with Alameda County
to scale up Oakland's model
targeted homelessness prevention program
using Measure W funds and thereby advancing
one of Mayor Lee's five points in the city's plan
to reduce homelessness by 50% in five years.
applying our targeting approach to other effective programs such as eviction legal defense and
Availing ourselves of greater flexibility in our use of federal community development block grant or CDBG
funds by preparing
Neighborhood level analysis to develop what CDBG calls a neighborhood revitalization strategy area
It's a little wonky and bureaucratic but happy to elaborate on that later
Improving housing habitability through our partnership with the planning and building department in our joint
implementation of our equitable lead hazard abatement program at HCD, LHAP, and
their proactive rental inspection program or PRIP.
Increasing small rental property owner viability by exploring a
CDBG funded small business development program in partnership with the economic and
workforce development department that provides individualized business
advising and technical assistance to our legacy small property owners
strengthening tenant protection policies with policy analysis and
consultation with our tenant property owner and other key stakeholders to
inform recommendations we make to you to the City Council to amend tenant
protection policies.
For example, the recent displacement of dozens of tenants from their homes on January 19th
provided insights as to how the code compliance relocation can be better improved to be clearer,
more responsive to the needs of displaced tenants and better aligned with the city's
other tenant protection policies, such as just cause eviction protection.
And finally, increasing low-income homeowner viability through foreclosure prevention and
other legal services, such as estate planning, that helps families establish intergenerational
wealth.
All right, to maximize our resources and impact, HCD will use city funds to prioritize impact
for those with the greatest need, and we, of course, will need your support.
to leverage expertise of and partnership with our sibling departments for greater impact,
align with county and regional priorities to leverage funds, support state legislation
for anti-displacement policies and programs and your advocacy and that will be essential,
optimize use of federal formula funds, and explore philanthropic support for new programs
and approaches, such as that initiative to establish intergenerational wealth through
estate planning.
So to conclude, we need all three Ps to address the housing crisis.
These are the strategies in HCD's sphere of influence.
There are other strategies and other systems outside of HCD's sphere of influence that
are critical to protecting our residents from displacement, such as education, employment,
health care, child care, cultural, uh, preservation.
As I mentioned earlier, our homelessness prevention imperative is central to both our anti-displacement
strategic action plan and Mayor Lee's five point plan to reduce unsheltered homelessness
by 50% in five years.
As you can see here, that will require scaling up our efforts.
The most humane and cost-effective way to address homelessness is to prevent it from
happening in the first place. And reducing influence on homelessness will also enable
these other essential strategies to work optimally and overall actually save hundreds of millions
of dollars over five years if appropriately scaled. Ongoing evaluation and accountability
are key. HCD prepares several reports on performance and impact of our production, preservation,
and protection strategies, as you can see here,
but HCD will begin preparing a more in-depth annual report
on anti-displacement policies, programs, and partnerships
that support housing stability,
as well as our progress on this,
our anti-displacement strategic action plan,
its implementation strategies.
So we plan to prepare this report
toward the end of the calendar year
for the previously completed fiscal year.
And this is the last slide.
Thank you for bearing with us.
For those who would like to go deeper,
our anti-displacement strategic action plan
includes these appendices that cover discussion
of additional grounding data and sources,
community engagement and feedback,
alignment with our housing stabilization strategies
of the housing element.
I think you see a pattern here of really touching back
on other strategic plans that the city has in place.
and also alignment and consistency
with foremost experts in the field of anti-displacement.
So we include a white paper on strategy effectiveness
by Karen Chappell and her colleague.
So thanks again.
Chris and I are happy to take any questions.
Excellent.
Thank you so much.
Super grateful for all of the hard work
in putting together this very detailed report.
Just wanted to uplift in,
make sure that members of the public,
when you click on the agenda item,
scroll to the bottom of the view of the report,
scroll to the bottom and then you can click
on the full report, which is over 50 pages.
And really from pages, starting at page 50,
you can actually see and check the status
of all of the recommendations to see whether or not,
you know, these are ongoing efforts
or what is the work that is being done.
I also wanted to take a moment to also thank
the Department of Race and Equity for just your efforts
and really producing a report that really sheds light
on the continuing inequities that we're facing
within the city of Oakland.
I think that this plan does provide really valuable insights
into the ways that Oaklanders have been displaced
from their homes and what the causes of those are
and how that continues to push folks into homelessness.
And so these findings are especially disheartening
when we look at kind of the racial disparities
that continue to force black Oaklanders
out of their homes.
And so I have a handful of questions and comments,
but would open it up to my colleagues first
to ask any questions.
Council Member Unger.
Thank you, I just had some questions
about Keep Oakland Housed.
I'm just curious to know more about how it works.
Do we predict people who are about to lose their homes
and then support them to stay housed
with financial support?
And it's a partnership, right?
I think we put in three and a half million dollars.
Who else is putting money in?
How much do they contribute?
Sort of how does the partnership and the program work?
Thank you, through the chair, excellent questions.
Let me start by sharing kind of the evidence space behind it.
So it's a model program because rental assistance
has existed for decades in our community.
But it's been generally available to all low-income folks,
certainly not skilled to meet the need.
And because resources are scarce,
there's that targeting imperative
that didn't really exist before Oakland's program.
So what Oakland's program does is
it uses those factors that are most predictive of homelessness.
For example, research finds that those
who have experienced homelessness in the past,
that's like the biggest predictor
of future homelessness.
But there are other risk factors.
For example, criminal legal system involvement,
extremely low income, severe rent burden.
So we, our program, developed an application
that asks pretty much those questions
and we can therefore collectively, as a whole,
determine the vulnerability of that applicant.
And so there has also been evaluation
that has found that there is a direct connection
in terms of preventing influenza homelessness.
So that's how the program works.
And that's what is meant by targeting,
in that it considers a variety of factors,
not just you must be low income
and you must have an eviction notice,
as had been the case for many years.
Oh, that's right.
And in addition to the financial assistance,
which is flexible and responsive,
it also provides support services
to help reduce or remove other barriers
that are barriers to housing stability.
So that's the program model.
In terms of the partnership, yes,
the city of Oakland actually was not the initial funder.
It was actually the philanthropic sector back in 2017,
I believe, but it did have kind of the political support
of city elected leaders.
And what is extraordinary about that partnership
is that the city has, because as you probably know,
the philanthropic model is that you kind of create
this proof of concept so that local governments
can then sustain it moving forward.
Continues to be a public-private partnership,
and for example, our partners at Bay Area Community Services
or BACS and that coalition of providers,
they've been able to leverage multiple times more
than what the city has contributed.
Additionally, in addition to leveraging philanthropic dollars
that they fundraise and that we support, of course,
they're also able to leverage additional resources
through Medi-Cal billing,
so very specific rental assistance and case management
because of that kind of core competency that they have.
So the city is able to leverage,
You know, in terms of cost reimbursement,
our grant making is cost reimbursement, right?
So we pay for the actual costs of these services.
But it's important to understand
that the City of Oakland's dollars
do not cover the costs of our providers
in serving their Oakland clientele.
They have to necessarily leverage other sources.
So the City is not the sole funder of these partnerships
in terms of the services that go to Oaklanders.
Excellent.
And I know that in 2025,
we talked at great length around the programs
of Oakland Housing Secure and Keep Oakland House.
And it's my understanding
that in the Housing Stabilization Program Report,
within that report, we will be able to learn more
about the overall impacts of how the funding
that we're able to provide for those programmings
and their impact on the community.
So really looking forward to that as well.
If so, if no immediate comments,
I'll, we can call the public speakers.
Calling in the names that signed up
to speak for item number four in no particular order,
you can come up to the podium.
Or if you're on Zoom, please raise your hand
to be easily identified.
Irene Farnsworth, David Boatwright, Asada Olabala,
Jennifer Findley, Jeff Levin,
Damien Scott, Greg Slaughter, Valerie Batchelor,
Alberto Barra, Marcus Romero Garcia, Isabelle, and Linda.
Please state your name before you begin.
This is David Boatwright, District Four.
It is referred to in the plan,
but there is a special group within housing
and community development that supports production
and preservation of affordable housing.
That sounds a lot like oversight and maintenance
and is something the city needs to work on.
The plan also indicates that these very important functions,
the oversight and maintenance aren't fully staffed
in Oakland and that's probably been apparent
from some of the projects.
As the city performed a post appraisal
of its historical funding of homeless
to identify ways to make this funding more effective.
Are there any city supported education
or skills development provided by the city
to aid the homeless in working toward improving
their wellbeing and self sufficiency?
Thank you.
Good afternoon city council members.
My name is Valerie Batchelor
and I'm the director of ACE Oakland.
We want every single Oaklander to have a safe
and habitable home to live in.
And that's why I wanna call your attention
to the Proactive Rental Inspection Program
that's attached in the anti-displacement work.
What we have seen throughout the city
is that tenants are facing horrendous habitability issues
and they are trapped in these homes
because there is no other place to go.
And that is unacceptable.
So we need to make sure that we have a program
that make sure that repairs are not only identified,
but they are done, that tenants are not displaced
or burdened with additional costs because of those issues
and mitigate disasters such as the building fire
that was referred to earlier.
This also calls the question the relocation ordinance.
Right now, it is not clear as to when
it is actually initiated, and so it leaves folks
with having to deal with figuring out
when their landlord is gonna provide them
any sort of information around a disaster
that happens in their community.
Again, it is unacceptable that folks have to deal
with these issues and landlords are not held accountable
to our state and local laws.
Again, we are a city that has a lot of tenant protections.
We now need that enforcement
and a proactive rental inspection program
like every other major city in California
would allow us to have that.
And so I really want to call your attention to that part of the presentation and it's
a real mandate that that needs to be part of the discussion when dealing with anti-displacement.
Thank you.
Okay.
My name is Gregory Slaughter.
I'm a resident of district 7 and I'm also an ACE member.
I just want to quickly talk about two places.
One place where I live, another place where I'm assisted by organizing with right now.
This place is called Northgate Terrace.
This is, you know, Telegraph, North Oakland.
It's a city facility, okay?
It's run by, not by the management,
it's run by the roaches and pests and the criminals
that's outside coming inside to where people around there
don't feel safe in their own place.
Management doesn't do anything about it.
They just turn their head to everything that's going on.
It's the same thing with this place called Oakland Station.
If you're aware of that, it's on 150, it's 14th.
The building's been there for five years, and it's a mess.
It's dirty, it's filthy.
You have criminals, you have pills, you have prostitutes,
drugs, it's ridiculous in that building right there.
You okay?
And I'm gonna say this here, that's why we need a proactive
rental inspection program.
Instead of waiting for the tenant to complain,
the city must regularly inspect rental homes
make sure landlords are following the law in basic health and safety standards.
If they aren't then the city then we need to hold landlords accountable in
order to prevent small problems from becoming dangerous ones. I've been in
Oakland for over 70 years okay I'm not a baby and I want to go from good real
good to be in terrible right now I never seen homeless like it is right now
but one person I want to say something to and that's council one is five you
have been supporting with us with AIDS for a long time and I want people need
to recognize that you do a hell of a good job okay and I want to thank you
is because repress, repressalia desa lojos o me entos de alquiler, esto significa que los
problemas permanes en occultos esta que se converten en emergencies por eso necesitamos un programa de
inspectión productiva de alquiler en lugar, en lugar desperar a quere los inquilinos de queijin,
Good afternoon council members, my name is Alberto Parra.
I'm a tenant who lives in District 5 and a member of ACE.
I'm here today because the place I rent has serious problems that have not been fixed.
In my home, we are dealing with mold, pests, and other issues.
These problems make it hard for me and my family to feel safe and healthy in our home.
I've reported these issues many times when nothing has changed.
No tenant should have to live like this.
Many renters are afraid to speak up because they worry about retaliation, eviction, or
rent increases.
This means problems stay hidden until they become emergencies.
why we need a proactive rental inspection program instead of waiting
for tenants to complain. The city must regularly inspect homes to ensure
landlords following the law and basic health and safety standards are met. If
they aren't, the city needs to hold these landlords accountable to prevent small
problems from becoming dangerous ones. Everyone deserves a safe place to live.
I urge you to support a strong rental inspection program so tenants like me
don't have to fight alone just to have safe housing. Good afternoon, my name is
Marcus and I'm an organizer with ACE. I'm calling for an immediate
implementation of the proactive rental inspection program as outlined in the
anti-displacement presentation. It forces the vulnerable tenants to choose
between their health and their housing. We need a proactive rental inspection
program that ensures landlords are following the law and maintaining
habitable conditions. Habitability in Oakland looks like children breathing in
toxic mold while their parents please for repairs are ignored. It looks like
seniors wrapping themselves in blankets for years because he has not been
restored. These residents are choosing to live like this. They have been held
hostage by a system that rewards landlord neglect and punishes tenant complaints.
I urge this committee to implement a proactive rental inspection program that
inspects units on a regular landlord cycle and to hold landlords accountable
to the law not just when they get caught but as a condition of doing business in
Oakland. Thank you. Good afternoon my name is Irene Farnsworth and I'm the
director of regional homelessness prevention with All Home. All Home has
been at the forefront of helping scale homelessness prevention programs
throughout the Bay Area and has been a member of the partnership supporting
Keep People Housed Oakland for the past five years. I'm thrilled to see the
continued inclusion of this program both as part of the city's
anti-displacement strategy as well as its homelessness action plan. As the
anti-displacement strategy writes in Oakland specifically, black residents
represent 22% of the population, yet 59% of the new incidences of homelessness. We
also see the largest displacement rates out of the county for low income and
black residents. Keep People Housed Oakland uses both census tracts and
evidence-based risk factors to focus on these communities to ensure those who
are most impacted are able to stay housed. We also know that the need
outstrips resources available and that many more people need support than our
programs are able to deliver. This is not just an issue in Oakland but one that we
at all home throughout our entire region and we will continue to advocate for
more resources at all levels of public investment and from the philanthropic
sector to ensure these programs are able to continue to scale. Thank you for
your ongoing support of this critical program and for the thoughtful work that
went into developing this plan. Chair Brown we have Isabella here who's a
little bit shy. This is our first City Council meeting so she would like me to
speak a little bit about her story is that if that's okay? Thank you. So this is
This is Isabella, she's a senior that lives in Oakland Station.
She's had many issues with her apartment.
So much so that she's even hurt herself in her own apartment and has not been able to get those issues remediated.
She has received multiple three day or
quit notices even though she has been dedicated in paying her rent and
has shown multiple times what her rent looks like.
Every time she goes into the office she's scared that she's going to get evicted.
And she is one of the many seniors in our community that is dealing with these habitability and harassment issues.
She also, as folks talked about earlier, does not feel safe in her building.
There have been folks that multiple times have broken into the units, have broken into the mail in her building, and she does not feel safe.
I believe that as Oakland, we want to keep seniors like Isabella safe, and we want to keep them here.
And that's why we need the Proactive Rental Inspection Program to make sure that she
is not the one that has to deal with a landlord that is a corporate landlord, but that the
city can support them in making sure that the landlord is fixing issues and remediating
the property.
Thank you.
So this dog and pony show about displacement under the banner that you looking at the displacement
of black people. That's a lie. If you were serious about the displacement of black people,
you would have to look at gentrification. You would have to look at your sanctuary
city status and how when illegal immigrants come into this city, they have taken spots
that had been traditionally African American housing spaces. So, East Oakland was 60%
American, now it's 60% Hispanic. West Oakland was 60% black, now it's mostly white and Hispanic
and some Asians, I'm sorry, Arabs. You don't discuss that. But all over, not here, all
over this country, Harlem, gone. Compton, gone. Tremaine, New Orleans, traditionally
African-American, Washington DC, uh, chocolate city, no more chocolate city because of gentrification
and the fact that illegal immigrants have been successful with getting housing. They're
not on the street homeless. They're not 9% unemployed. And the OUSD, we got newcomers,
newcomers, 19 people assigned for newcomers and refugees.
We got newcomers schools, newcomer curriculum,
newcomer wellness program, nothing for African Americans.
So don't come in here and put the title,
oh we dealing with black, it's not displacement,
it's push out.
Some black people have chosen to leave the city
because of safety issues,
because they can't get housing the way they want to.
But other people are coming in and they're getting housing.
I'm talking about these illegal immigrants.
Yes, thank you for your comments, Mrs. Sada.
If your name was called
and you would still like to speak on this item,
please raise your hand on Zoom or come up to the podium.
Switching to Zoom user Jeff Levin,
you can unmute yourself and begin your comments.
Thank you, good afternoon.
Jeff Levin with East Bay Housing Organizations.
I would first just like to commend staff
for the great work that has gone into this strategy.
EBO has long supported a three P's approach
to the housing prices, production preservation
and protection.
And this report clearly focuses on one of those three P's
but understands the way it is situated
within those three P's.
I wanna call out a few things that we have noted here.
We think this is an excellent example of developing a plan
through a racial equity lens
that starts with a disparity analysis
and then develops a strategy aimed
at addressing those disparities.
A lot of community engagement.
EPPO was one of the participants
in the many subject matter consultations,
but that included participation
and listening to impacted people and communities.
An analysis and strategy
that is evidence-based and grounded in data,
one that speaks to issues of both individual displacement
and community stabilization,
a comprehensive approach across a wide range
of programs and policies,
detailed metrics and procedures for monitoring
and evaluating these programs on an ongoing basis
to make sure that what we're doing is actually working.
We strongly support the strategies
and priorities identified in the report
and we urge the city to fully utilize its own resources
and seek out new funding sources
to fully implement this strategy.
we endorse an approach that seeks to prioritize impact for those with the greatest needs and the
most risk for displacement. Finally, with respect to proactive inspection to ensure that properties
meet basic standards of habitability, when owners fail to maintain these standards the cost of
correcting those conditions must be borne by the property owners and not pass through to renters.
We must make sure when we are improving habitability that we are doing so
the current residents without increasing rents. Thank you. Thank you for your
comments. Last call for Jennifer Finley and Damian Scott. Chair at this time all
names have been called. Excellent thank you so much to the public speakers.
Councilmember Fife. Yes through the chair I wanted to ask just a quick
question of staff because I'm headed to Washington in a few weeks for a housing
conference with some other elected officials from across the country and
one of the things that was mentioned in our, what is the general plan or the
housing element or potentially both, was utilizing social housing to address some
of these issues and it's something that I know we don't have the capacity to do
and I think, yep, I thought I saw our director over there. Where, if at all, would
a social housing policy fall into the framework that you've put forward, particularly since
it probably doesn't address homelessness, but in your framework, would it fit in anywhere
possibly?
Thank you.
Through the chair, Emily Weinstein, director of housing and community development.
I think the first question we'd have to ask ourselves is what do we mean by social housing?
There's, I think, pretty much anybody who asks probably has their own definition of
social housing.
I'd be the first, we'd have to discuss what you mean.
I think for the most part though when we think about social housing,
it generally falls into kind of the production side of the strategies.
And so oftentimes it's kind of a mixed income model that allows for
cross subsidization between higher income units and lower income units.
So that would be a strategy that we would need to look at from kind of a production perspective.
There aren't a lot of funding sources that allow for that kind of cross subsidization.
But it is very much a topic that many people are discussing.
I know BAFA is talking about it.
There was the bill at the state that is now Turner Center as well as
and the generation are combining together to do the study of social housing within California.
I think that's going to be released sometime in the next few months.
And so I think everybody is watching to see whether the intended strategies come along with funding sources.
Yeah, yeah, that's fair.
And you said it would be more closely tied to production,
how do we make sure that there
are existing spaces that are
city-owned and particularly my
district I know we were talking
years ago about the malonga
center which I thought would be
ideal to help facilitate a
social housing project.
But couldn't there be
non-construction or
non-production based projects?
Yeah, through the chair to
Councilmember Fife.
I think that's right.
There could also be a model for
So ownership structure and then funding structure.
Something like the Molonga obviously has a significant amount of rehab needs.
And then you'd need to determine how you would operate the building.
And so what would be the different income levels that would be in the building to allow for
the cross-subsidization and ensure that the operating costs and service costs are being met.
And we would have, one of the things we discussed in the past was also a social housing oversight
body or mechanism.
Would we still have to do something like that outside if that is something that we would
bring to the city of Oakland, something that we would have to bring outside of the city,
a completely different department or completely different institution?
I don't think so.
I think it really depends on the funding structure.
The places where social housing is being experimented, like in Seattle or in D.C., they've created
additional bodies that have the ability to issue bonds or they're basically like a quasi-governmental
entity that can raise capital so that they have funding sources.
Which is why it's being discussed at BAFA.
Yeah.
Well, I want to say while you're there, I have been working very closely with the housing
community development department in the city of Oakland for years before you were in the position
that you're in, before Chris was in the position he was in, and I've seen the department grow leaps
and bounds and become more structured and more organized and more efficient and effective at
getting outside grants and doing all of this work and bringing us together. I think this report is
another indication of how clear and concise it is and how direct it is, easy to understand,
And it gives us a roadmap for how we're gonna move forward
and something to measure against.
So I wanna thank you for your leadership in HCD
because I noticed the difference.
Thank you.
And I will make a motion to accept this report.
I'm not sure if we, do you wanna send it
to the full council?
Cause if so, I would like to do that on consent.
I think that we should.
So I'll make that motion.
Okay, perfect.
And then I guess just to kind of continue
councilmember five we were kind of on the same wavelength on this because as I was reading through the
Report one of the first things that came to my mind was around
Social housing and so you're absolutely right that I think it's SB
555
Is gonna supposed to be completed by December 2026?
And then there's currently a bill going through the I think it passed through this the assembly already
and it's on the senate side, for it to actually place a ballot measure to support a social
housing bond.
So I think that that is definitely something we could serve to benefit from.
And then I guess kind of my initial thoughts on the report, I think as I was reading through,
I'm just going to start with just some of the things that I wanted to highlight here.
So on page 18, the report mentions some
of the common characteristics of Oaklanders
experiencing homelessness and kind of lays out
black men between the ages of 35 and 55,
folks who experienced prior homelessness,
potentially involved in the criminal legal system,
substance abuse and behavioral challenges,
as well as just generational and deep poverty and trauma.
But one of the things that I really wanted
that really stood out to me was actually this bullet point
around on general assistance.
And that's actually something that when you think about
and you compare it to how many Oaklanders
are extremely rent-burtened,
I've found that just the amount of folks who,
you know, the amount of money that, you know,
community members may receive on general assistance.
It's nowhere near what the cost of rent is, right?
I think some of our seniors may get
at minimum $1,000 a month.
And so one of the larger questions
that I believe that we need to answer
is what could be our plan to help
lower the costs of rents in our city
And then also I know in the past we did do a pilot around guaranteed income.
Because I think that that would also help to support those who are on general assistance.
Just wanted to I know the towards the bottom of the report is pages 50 through the end.
It walks us through where we are in the process of implementing some of these things.
So I just wanted to get your thoughts around like how if we have any plans around you know working under that bullet point around those who are rent burdened and also this linkage to those who just genuinely don't make bring in enough money monthly.
Hello to the chair, Emily Weinstein, Director of Housing and Community Development.
So I think part of the reason for providing all of that data is to sort of deconstruct where the needs are and
what strategies are needed for different populations.
At this point, we have such limited funding that where we have targeted, as you know,
is really at that, those people that are at most at risk of becoming homelessness.
With the $3.5 million that we provide annually, it's only a drop in the bucket.
And so we know based on the homelessness strategic plan and the modeling that we need to try to increase that to about $25 million per year.
So as it relates to how we provide funding for other populations,
I think it really depends on where we can leverage other resources.
At the county level, if we're able to build a county wide homeless prevention program,
then that could free up some Oakland funds for other demographics that may not be most at risk, but are still at risk.
So when we look at impact that's really what we are trying to balance.
Obviously there's such a great need when we think about that pyramid we could keep going down and
provide funding all the way down that pyramid and right now we're just at the tip of the spear.
I think the other thing is in a back there has been a shallow subsidy study and we can look at that impact.
One of the things that I'll note is because people are within the shallow subsidy are not
if they are not in the right at
risk of becoming homeless the
impact is not as big as the
impact would be for the keep
Oakland house population so
that was one in talking to
backs that's one of the it
still has an impact but it's
not going to be as impactful
because they're not most at
risk of becoming homeless it
can help stabilize a family but
it wouldn't necessarily have
the the impact of preventing
homelessness because those
people would not be
Yeah, thank you.
I think I continue to be focused on our seniors,
and so I guess we can,
I would be interested in what,
who is studying at this moment that data as well
to make sure that we're,
because when we think of, it's not only rent,
but it's also just the overall cost of living, right?
And to just live not only in Oakland,
but in the East Bay as well.
Oh, sorry.
To add one more point, the benefit of the Keep People
House is the infrastructure that we
have in place in terms of the administration of the program
as well as the community partners.
And so there is the ability to iterate on that program.
And we are talking right now with the Department
of Violence Prevention if that kind of similar approach
could be used to focus on a population,
the clients that DVP serves.
So we could explore the idea of having
a different population that is targeted
with a similar infrastructure.
We just need to identify funding.
Thank you.
I was delighted to read that in the report as well,
that the partnership between the DVP
and the study that you all are gonna initiate as well.
I guess maybe just for the sake of time,
And the last question that I'll ask was around the neighborhood revitalization strategy areas,
page 26 of the report.
Of course I did read towards the bottom kind of what that implementation would look like.
But I was curious around, I guess, like the equity, like when we're saying, you know,
these revitalization strategies, would we be piecing together because as I was looking
at the map around I think it said 80,000 units built before 1978 and then the map was showing
the areas in dark purple that could benefit from the proactive rental inspection. So just
was curious if the revitalization strategy areas would be kind of linked to that data
as a road map.
I'm gonna hand it over to Hugo,
who knows a lot more about the NERSA.
Thank you for your question, Chair Brown.
NERSA's Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Areas
are a term and a construct of HUD,
the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
And you might recall, and in fact,
HCD staff will be presenting on our next annual action plan,
which will detail our spending plan
for CDBG, Home, and other formula grant dollars
in the coming months, so stay tuned for that.
You might recall that CDBG has pretty significant
constraints, one of which is a cap on public services.
It's capped at 15%, and this anti-displacement
strategic action plan is essentially a services plan,
whereas our capital plan really addresses
the production and preservation.
So one way to kind of reduce some of those constraints
is for the city of Oakland to establish
neighborhood revitalization strategy areas
and to certify certain community-based organizations
as community-based development organizations or CBDOs.
Again, it's very bureaucratic, huddies kind of stuff,
But what can be advantageous about that
is that by establishing nurses and certifying CBDOs,
we might, we, the city of Oakland,
might be able to increase the funding for services,
which is one of kind of the advantages
of a CBDO within a NERSA.
So it's just kind of like regulatory flexibility
and the city of Oakland, you know, as you can imagine,
and it's a neighborhood specific plan.
So it would take staffing capacity to do that analysis
and to devise kind of the strategies,
but that's something that we are considering
or endeavoring to do as I've had two vacant management
positions in my CD&D unit.
So I'm hoping to fill those positions
so that we can take on that work
that we hadn't done before in Oakland.
Excellent. Thank you. I think I think these are revived the neighborhood revitalization strategy areas it sounds like a good idea. And so look forward to hearing more about that. And the community base. Is it district boards or development or is that a development organizations CBDOs.
Excellent, just wanted to make sure I had the acronym right.
Okay, I believe, oh okay, one more thing
that I wanted to bring up in the report.
So page 26, which there's,
I think it was under the high recommendation
around connect residents at risk of homelessness
to employment and training programs,
and just kind of flagging that there are a handful
of organizations that are doing that good work
I think it's really important
for us to think around employment and training,
one being roots community health,
and they have a great kind of pipeline
to providing housing and the employment in the training.
And so my note here is continue to support programs like that,
right, which is really outlined in the plan as high.
And we already have community-based groups
doing that amazing work as well.
And so hopefully we're able to continue to partner with them.
say quickly because I think I said everything I need to say about the
report. This is not about HCD. I want to say to the members of the public,
particularly the organized members of the public who are supporting each
other to come out here in the middle of the day, keep doing what you're doing,
keep speaking up, keep showing out and all of the things that you do most
importantly, keep supporting each other because when this doesn't work, you
will and you will work for each other because some of the greatest impacts
that I've had around housing and justice
and all of those things didn't happen here.
They happen because of the organizing
that you all are doing.
So coming in the middle of the day
when you could do anything else means everything.
So get more people to do what you're doing,
keep taking care of each other,
and that's how we will win.
We're gonna do this too.
I'm gonna keep fighting for this too,
but you keep doing what you're doing.
Keep coming.
All right, thank you so much.
Councilmember Unger, Ramachandran.
Well, I'll second, I think there was a motion already,
so I'll second.
Thank you, we have a motion made by Councilmember Fyfe,
seconded by Chair Brown,
to receive and forward this informational report
to the March 16th Special City Council Agenda
on Roll Councilmembers Fyfe?
Aye.
Ramachandran?
Aye.
Unger?
Aye.
And Chair Brown?
Aye.
Thank you, item number four passes with four ayes
to receive and forward this informational report
to the March 16th, 2026 City Council agenda on consent.
Moving on to open forum
and calling in the names that signed up to speak
in no particular order, you can come up to the podium
or raise your hand on Zoom to be easily identified.
David Boatwright, Jennifer Finley, and Asada Olobala.
So I found this.
Cesar Chavez position on illegal immigration.
Cesar Chavez, farm worker in 1960 and 1970s,
showed strong opposition to illegal immigration,
viewing undocumented workers as a strike breakers, who
undermined union efforts, depressed wages,
and were exploited by growers.
Chavez campaigned for strict immigration enforcement,
reported that he reported undocumented workers
to authorities and sometimes physically blocked them
from coming across the border.
Well, go ahead, Cesar Chavez.
Come on now.
What y'all got to say about him?
I know you have something to say about me
when I say illegal immigrants,
you want me to say undocumented,
but if Cesar can say it, I can say it too.
Switching to Zoom user, Jennifer,
you can unmute yourself and begin your comment.
Hi, everyone.
I missed my chance to comment on the last item.
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone
who is involved in it and who showed up today
and who's moving this work forward.
We desperately need it.
So thanks.
Thank you for your comments.
Mr. Boatwright, would you still like to comment or?
Okay, at this time.
David Bowry in District 4.
Question, is the city's recently constructed Dignity Village
modular project on Eads Avenue now being occupied?
It's been under construction for a little over a year.
Any learnings from this 41-unit, $350,000 per unit project
that can support more modular housing?
This project was estimated to cost about a third
of the cost per unit as the refurbishing
cost of the 2,700 international and 34th and San Pablo projects whose costs were
about 1.1 million per unit. Thank you for your comments. Chair, that concludes all
speakers. Excellent. Thank you so much. This meeting is adjourned.