← It Could Happen Here
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- [00:00]
Host/Moderator
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
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- [01:05]
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- [01:35]
Satya Vincent
High Key Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast. You better listen. Speaking of tanning, I was sunning my nether regions because I read that you're supposed to like get sun not only in your mouth but also in your other orifices. Wait, are you talking about you put your hole into the sun? I did. That's crazy. Downward dog mooning the sun. I was gonna say. Is it cheeks open?
- [01:57]
Mia Wong
It's cheeks open all the way wide.
- [01:59]
Satya Vincent
Is it cheeks open? Uh huh. Who's holding them? Enough of that nonsense. Now. Listen to High key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [02:10]
Danielle Fishel
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- [02:55]
Host/Moderator
Call Zone Media.
- [02:58]
Mia Wong
Welcome to Could Happen Here, 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 the 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 unhoused and disabled people in Alameda county. And Satya, who does support drink sweeps in Oakland when, yeah, this fucking unhinged shit happens. So both of you two, welcome to the show.
- [04:03]
Host/Moderator
Hi.
- [04:03]
Satya Vincent
Thanks for having us.
- [04:04]
Host/Moderator
Yeah, thank you.
- [04:05]
Satya Vincent
Appreciate the chance to talk with you.
- [04:08]
Mia Wong
Yeah. I always want to say that I'm excited and, like, it is true. However, I wish I ran a podcast that was about, like, good things so that when I could talk to people, it wasn't like, wasn't me being like, yeah, I'm excited to talk about, like, the worst of that's happened. So I think a place to start on this is. Let me 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.
- [04:37]
Host/Moderator
Yeah.
- [04:38]
Satya Vincent
Yeah. I think Satya, maybe you want to take this one.
- [04:42]
Host/Moderator
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 overtime 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, you know, 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 9am 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 our 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 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 10am 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. 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.
- [08:04]
Mia Wong
Yeah. So to just make this clear, the thing that they're doing is they show up and they fucking destroy all your property.
- [08:09]
Host/Moderator
Yep.
- [08:10]
Mia Wong
Like, the thing that it most closely resembles is like we're doing our own miniature ethnic cleansings. Like, that's just like what that is.
- [08:18]
Satya Vincent
Yep. Yes. And every suite, 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 sweep that Oakland. The sweet practices that Oakland has set up are, like, very kind of odd. And they are associated with different, like, lawsuits that have occurred in the past couple of. Actually since the 70s. But so there are certain requirements that the city of Oakland is obligated to follow and, like, certain provisions and offers that, like, homeless people are technically supposed to be receiving. And for a bunch of complicated reasons, like, rarely ever are. So, for instance, like the bag and tag policy that Satya was just discussing, like, they've 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 pads that were registered in the city system. And that was in that same period, there were, like, well over a hundred suites. You know, Jesus, don't have the exact number on me, but. Or, yeah, actually 537closure. Two instances of storing property. So, you know, that's people's. Their whole lives, all their possessions, like, precious items that they. They're able to hang on to are just. Yeah. Destroyed, and they never see them again.
- [10:19]
Host/Moderator
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 swee. 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 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, like, to be clear, most of the time, people are not actually being offered services. It's just not happening.
- [11:22]
Satya Vincent
Yeah, yeah.
- [11:23]
Mia Wong
This is a national discourse. You hear this all the time. You know, I think a lot of it kind of is concentrated in the most unhinged, like, tech sectors in the bay. But, like, you heard, like, for sure, like, 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.
- [11:47]
Host/Moderator
But what's funny is I've actually used the term homeless industrial complex myself. I didn't know that was. There is one that's hilarious. There is a homeless industrial complex. It's just that the people making money off of it are the people who are perpetrating the sweeps. The reason. 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.
- [12:14]
Satya Vincent
Yeah, there's so many things that I, like, want to pick up on, but I guess just on that point specifically, like, there was an audit into California's spending on homelessness. I believe it was over a period of time, 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 like 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. Right? So Elon Musk talks about it and people on the left will talk about it, but I think the experience that people on the street have is very different than any of these narratives that you tend to hear in the media.
- [13:59]
Mia Wong
Yes, unfortunately we need to take an ad break. 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.
- [14:15]
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- [15:15]
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- [16:52]
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- [17:29]
Satya Vincent
All of this money is being like, dedicated to these programs and homelessness is only rising. I think, like 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.
- [17:58]
Host/Moderator
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 nonprofit, 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 service must exist to get them off the street. In reality, that's not the case at all.
- [19:35]
Satya Vincent
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 satya Vincent mentioned earlier, called Operation Dignity, and they are required to check in with different, like, encampments that are scheduled to be closed at least a week before the sweep. And the purpose of that is to, like, notify people that it's happening. They're. 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, like, a site. So, yeah, this nonprofit provider is supposed to, like, notify people and try to get them connected with services. However, the services, for the most part, like housing for people who are unhoused, is largely funded through the federal government and through this very, like, complex and inaccessible system called Coordinated Entry. The Coordinated Entry System is not something that the city of Oakland or Operation Dignity, like, 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. Yeah. He gave this really, like, roundabout, deflecting, like, answer where he said basically that everyone who is at an encampment at the time of a sweep has, like, expressly refused services like shelter or housing or whatever. And that, like, 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, 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 tuft sheds.
- [23:06]
Host/Moderator
They're not even offering people that they're full. They're full.
- [23:08]
Satya Vincent
Yeah, that's what they say they offer.
- [23:10]
Host/Moderator
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. A 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 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's talking about of, like, 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 that 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 going to be closed down. Like, there's a sweep that's going to be happening, so you guys have to be out of here. So that was what they led with. And then I prompted him because 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, big room, 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 onto 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 sweeps 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 rol 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 gonna 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. 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 have anything.
- [26:42]
Satya Vincent
Yeah, I think it's super important to just emphasize that point. The city is telling the media, they're telling, like, businesses, anyone, that that comes to them with problems related to, like, 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 like a list of all of the encampment suites that they've, they do throughout the year. And in the commission on homelessness meetings will 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.
- [27:47]
Mia Wong
Jesus Christ.
- [27:48]
Satya Vincent
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 like 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 help 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.
- [29:14]
Mia Wong
Just run second ad break and then we will come back. More ads, I don't know. Buy them.
- [29:29]
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- [30:29]
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- [31:06]
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- [32:06]
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- [32:43]
Mia Wong
We are back. Yeah, so, yeah, let's talk about, I think what, what the city's policies are supposed to be versus, like, what they're actually doing on the ground.
- [32:52]
Host/Moderator
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 31 1, which is basically their tip line for like, oh, 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 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.
- [33:48]
Satya Vincent
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 I believe, 2020, but it's gone through like several evolutions over the past ten 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 bag and tag 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 storage space. And 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 it's just like nobody ever. I've never heard of anybody actually like getting their stuff stored and getting it back. But technically that is a possibility. 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 kind of had a similar policy framework that they were following until the grants passed ruling. And I guess like, maybe we don't need to get into that too much. But basically the, the whole idea of that policy was like, if somebody is outside living outside, and the city sweeps them, they have to provide them with some kind of alternative accommodation. Because according to like the 9th District Court, it was considered, like, cruel and unusual punishment to penalize somebody for being homeless without, you know, offering them some kind of temporary, like, 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, like, 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. You know, a lot of the time, for instance, there'll be people staying on city or like California state land, and the city will like, force them to move because of some development projects that they're planning to do. And so in those situations when the media has kind of narrowed their, their focus and begun like, discussing some of this stuff in the local press, then like, something like that became possible. But after the grants passed ruling this past year, the city was no longer, like, obligated to, under federal law to follow those policies. And in September of last year, the late Mayor Shang Tao, she issued an executive order that more or less like, just totally like, rendered that policy framework irrelevant. So she put forth a new framework that allows the city to, to sweep encampments under a tiered system of what are called emergency suites. So if, for instance, the encampment is blocking a roadway or a sidewalk, then it is a hazard to the public, quote, unquote. Or if it's 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 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 it, they're technically still supposed to follow that by their own city resolution. But there is this provision that like, if, for instance, they issue somebody like a no or a one hour notice to leave because of like a fire hazard, and like, 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. Right. So these policies have the effect of disempowering our ability to respond to, like, a scheduled operation. Then the city can. Can really just, like, do whatever they want because nobody's watching what they're. What they're doing.
- [40:42]
Mia Wong
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?
- [40:51]
Host/Moderator
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, Sweep's 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. It because they never show up with anything real and addressing housed people in particular.
- [41:50]
Satya Vincent
Right?
- [41:50]
Host/Moderator
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 route, 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 to yourself, I need to know that if any unhoused person within a mile radius of my home was disappeared, I would need to. I would need to know. You know what I mean? Like, I would want to 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. 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 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 dis. Hey, that guy used to be on that corner, you know, every couple days out 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 8am 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 check in 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, you know, what the city is counting on is that they're going to be able to successfully create a scapegoat. Right? They want to create, like, 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.
- [44:34]
Satya Vincent
Yeah, I really appreciate those sentiments. Up. Yeah, and I think, like, the Oakland, like, advocates doing, like, eviction defense for people who are living outside. It's grown in size and like capacity quite a bit in the past year. And like the city has noticed that. So they've actually like they've passed various resolutions and honestly a lot of their practices and their policies, like their encampment management team, they seem to be like 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 like modest social safety net that there was. And you know, before we end this conversation, I just want to emphasize that in Oakland, like a majority of the people 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 like west Oakland and the influx of high income tech workers that displaced the them and moved into their like family homes, they are the same people who are calling three one, one to like push the city to displace them again, but from a tent or a car this time. And I think it's, it's just so, so important that particularly like housed people try to tap into the networks of community defense that exist in their areas. And 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 unhoused people. So you can get $1,000 fine or up to six months in jail for aiding and abetting a homeless person. And you know, that's an extremely vague law.
- [47:31]
Host/Moderator
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.
- [47:40]
Satya Vincent
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.
- [47:58]
Host/Moderator
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, 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 imposing what you might have learned through other direct action organizing. Because this is not that I think, yeah, first of all, just making sure that you're being, your organizing is 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 gonna push back. There's gonna be this back and forth interplay that we've seen, you know, for example, in Oakland with the safe work zone ordinance, which we can probably get into another time. Cause 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 other piece. Yeah, yeah.
- [49:40]
Mia Wong
And, and like, and the rest of their policy is absolutely 100% evidence that if, 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 the sort of balance of forces here.
- [49:55]
Satya Vincent
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there is a lawsuit currently against that. And it sounds like, you know, the, 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, they do remove it, charges could still be brought against somebody. So like really the entire ordinance needs to be eliminated altogether.
- [50:31]
Mia Wong
Yeah, I guess. Do you have anything else that you want to make sure that, that you get in before we close this out?
- [50:38]
Satya Vincent
I don't think so. Not nothing that comes to mind. But yeah, again it's super appreciate you having us on to, 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 work in a way that's like constructive and helpful to others. So I would definitely suggest if you're feeling like any despair or like worried about becoming black pilled 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.
- [51:28]
Host/Moderator
Yeah, just seconding that. I think being able to tap in specifically with the types of unhoused organizing and underground economies that exist wherever unhoused people exist and being able to tap into that. And again, speaking from the perspective of a house person, really humble yourself and learn from that. You're gonna 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.
- [52:05]
Satya Vincent
So yes, reclaim the space.
- [52:08]
Mia Wong
Oh yeah, this has been it could happen here. Go loiter on street quarters and make the state's life miserable until it cannot do the things it is doing right now.
- [52:21]
Host/Moderator
It could happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio 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.
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Host/Moderator
Sleep.
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- [55:30]
Satya Vincent
Direct this is an I Heart podcast.