
Mama D, President Matt, and the rest of the group are finally seeing their experiment in co-governance take shape. They built their security sheds and saw their tiny homes for the first time. But when Nino Parker stepped onto the sidewalk in a neck brace, on crutches, it was clear that the group was about to face a whole new level of chaos.
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From KQED's Snap Studios. This is a Tiny Plot. This episode contains strong language and graphic imagery. Sensitive listeners, please be advised. Welcome back to A Tiny Plot, a story told in five parts. I'm your host, Shayna Shealy, and this is chapter four. When we left off, Momma Dee and President Matt and the rest of the group were finally seeing their experiment in co governance take shape. They built their security shed and saw their tiny homes for the first time.
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Yeah, you can move in today, man. Wow. Yeah, you could. Let's see. I mean, I don't know if you guys can tell. No whites on one side, blacks on the other side. We ain't gonna have it. Take down the goddamn fence.
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But when I saw Nino Parker in a neck brace on crutches, it was clear that the group was about to face a whole new level of chaos.
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Thanks to your won. Adam Garrett Clark assaulting me.
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From kqed Snap Studios, I'm Shana Shealy. This is a Tiny Plot. Chapter four rocked that day. I saw Nino on crutches. Everyone knew something had happened, but none of us were sure what until Adam told us about this hectic moment at the site a few days ago.
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I just had three people yelling at me. And Nino cleverly saunters up to right here and says, you know what I'm gonna tell you. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah. I was thinking about COVID I was thinking about going to my wife's parents house, who was 70, later that night. And so I pushed him out of my face. So I've been preaching to you guys. Ignore it, hold your cool. And then I fucked up. I lost my cool.
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The city did an investigation into the incident, and then they took Adam off the project. They canceled his contract. That's it. He was out.
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So in the name of full disclosure journalism, I guess I'm gonna record some of my initial thoughts on this situation.
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He sent me this voice note after he got the news.
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I feel pretty chewed up, spit out, feel pretty raw. And I feel a lot of shame and guilt around giving the city a chance to pull the plug on this. Yeah, I just feel like a big punch in my gut.
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If I'm honest. This is the point in my reporting. I thought this story would end. I couldn't see a way in which this group would move themselves out of the motel and onto their new site, all without Adam. So I get ready to head over to the Travel Inn for one last meeting where Adam's been asked to try to facilitate a sort of handoff of leadership. Then I get a call. A manager at the city's homelessness services department, Laura Tenenbaum, is asking me not to record the meeting or even attend it. Adam said he told her that wouldn't be possible. He'd be recording regardless. It's what the residents want and that I would be there, too. Recording.
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We got some name tags today, baby.
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When I show up at the motel, Mama Dee is making name tags for everyone. There are a lot of people here that I don't recognize. Adam pulls his pickup truck into the Travelin parking lot and walks up to the balcony with a hard smile. Laura begins to unload a bag of fried chicken. And I realize what's about to happen. City staff are here to gently make a handoff from Adam to the new people they've chosen to run the experiment. Momma Dee knows what's up.
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Ain't nobody coming and running shit for us.
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I take a seat with the residents next to Mama Dee in the circle of benches and chairs. Momma Dee raises her hand.
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Would anybody in our community like to know why Adam's contract is being canceled? Yeah.
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Laura says she doesn't have to give a reason why they cancel a contract. And for the last time, Adam tries to save this meeting from erupting.
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You know, I'm proud of the work that we've done. I think there was a lot of beautiful visions that we worked on. It's sad that we don't get to fulfill them, but you guys are what makes this a community. It's not me. And there's a possibility that if you guys work together, you can still realize the vision. I'll be here for questions, but yeah, I'll let you know. Laura, take it over.
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Adam sits down and turns the meeting back to Laura.
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Oh, hey, Laura. This is. This is our meeting. It's not. So.
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Yeah.
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We'Re very pleased to have you here. Thank you.
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Thank you. And then Laura makes an announcement that changes all the rules, all the agreements. She says they're replacing Adam with a nonprofit that runs Lakeview Village next door, which is not at all co governed.
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Which is the agen.
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See that Shell and Kevin worker is.
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Going to take over in the role.
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The writing is on the wall. I see Matt's face harden as Laura explains.
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Temporarily or what's because. Because in the my understanding with the co governed model, this is the critical issue is the. The governing age. I'd like to ask a question. I just want to know, does anyone know the definition of a co governed community? Yeah, I actually have a definition which.
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I can't quote from memory, but I.
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Can email it to you guys. But it's basically. It says when a community comes together and decides kind of how they want.
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To live together in community and then.
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It lists a bunch of aspects of that that the residents would come up with. Okay, so we're actually treated like we're just idiots that sit there because we always need somebody to speak up for us. Like we're not able body people to speak for ourselves. Okay, I've got a college education. He does too. And so does a few other people here. It's not that we're just a bunch of zombies here following instructions from other people that have nothing to do with our community. Okay, you guys are officials that. That have the pull the strings. But still we are the ones that are supposed to be co governed. We're the ones that stood up and blockaded the city from coming in there taking our. And they did anyway, but we blocked them. Okay, but I'm really, really getting sick and tired of this word co govern. Because co government to the city is basically run like a dictatorship. You got to do what they say or you don't get. You know what I'm saying? Excuse my language, but I'm fed up. I was working two days over there still two days busting my ass over there, but yet we still don't have any water. We still don't have no. I don't understand what to see because I.
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There's still no running water at the site, something they thought they had agreed on. No toilets, no showers. All of these agreements that are foundational to co governance are falling through. And now they're about to lose Adam, their one advocate who had the ear of city staff. There's just so much uncertainty. Tim says he's out and walks out of the meeting.
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You know, it's like we're children, we're stand ins. We're just here and it's not the way it was supposed to be.
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As the meeting ends and people file out, Adam stays behind. He folds up the chairs and brings the whiteboard back to the motel storage room. And then he gets into his truck at the Travelin parking lot and drives away. And I think if this project is going anywhere, it's entirely up to the residents alone.
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And now we're weakened because everybody's unsure about everything and unsure about our standing and unsure about what's going to happen.
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What is going to happen. Stay tuned to find out.
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Welcome back to A Tiny Plot, Chapter four. I'm your host, Shayna Shealy. We left off in a moment of uncertainty. With mere weeks left before the city cuts off their motel room funding, I show up at the site and start talking to a woman from the group, Tammy. And I see again why it seems like the control over their lives that this experiment might offer the group from Union Point is so precious and precarious. Tammy, what are you up to over here?
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There's hella good rocks right here.
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Tammy's squatting over the rock covered ground behind Tim's pallet shelter, collecting something I've seen her do over and over again.
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When I got things on my mind, I like to like pick rocks.
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She set like over 50 gravel rocks on top of an Electric meter next to where she's squatting down.
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These rocks are so badass.
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She shows me a rock that kind of shimmers.
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I'm going to put him in my little garden area that I make in front of my house.
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Her hands are arthritic and knobby, coated in rock dust. Tammy's 55. She started collecting rocks, hoarding all sorts of things when she became homeless years ago. She was in an abusive relationship and needed to disappear, get off the grid.
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I came to Oakland. I didn't have nothing. I had a bag of stuff because I just lost everything. So that's when it started.
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She started picking things up off the street.
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I got a hand mixer, I got phone chargers, you know, chainsaw, you know, table saw, A big barbecue that we could, like, smoke with. Bags and bags of clothes, bags of clothes, bags of clothes. I have a blanket fetish.
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And how many blankets do you have?
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Million.
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How many blankets do you. You really have?
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Oh, probably 50 easy. I have. I like comforters down comforters. So I probably have 12 of those, 15 of those.
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She eventually moved into a shelter. Within months, the shelter caught on fire and burned down. Tammy was back to owning nothing.
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Your shed always gets taken, so you use. When you see something, you want to keep it.
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But here at East 12th, so far, her space looks tidy. She's had to get rid of boxes and boxes of things from her motel room in order to fit into her 8x8 tiny home.
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Oh, I threw away. Hell of shit. That's almost.
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Has it been hard?
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Fuck, yeah, it's been hard. It's been a haul, let me tell you.
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And now with Adam gone, Tammy wonders if all her hard work has been worth it, if this little village she's been building for the past year will be taken over, made into another typical city housing intervention. No say so for the residents, no community agreements.
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I'm going to give up everything that I have to come down here, and what if it fails? What if it was made to fail?
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She told me she's getting toothaches from stress, eating candy.
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Everything we've worked and planned and scheduled and everything all these months is we can't even practice it. You know when you're counting on something to be a certain way for a whole year and you work towards that, and then all of a sudden, everything's rocked. Some people can't function like that.
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Tammy doesn't know if next month she'll be living in a motel, a pallet shelter, or back on the street. She's seen heaps of her Curb found blankets and bins swept away in city trucks. And Tammy knows that this experiment in co governance can be shut down in minutes.
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Right now, everything's out of my control.
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You really feel that nothing's in your control?
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Not at this moment, no. Because we don't, we don't really know anything. Nobody's told us anything. We don't know anything more than we did before.
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Do you think the co governance mission has failed?
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Oh, no. We're not going to let it fail. We're not going to let it fail.
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Though Tammy seems terrified that this experiment might unravel, she and the others keep showing up at East 12th to fight for their community. In the next week. I watch the residents travel between the motel and the site, bringing succulents and posters and potted plants to spruce up their pallet shelters. And then literal hours before the move out deadline. I'm in the parking lot of the Travel Inn and it's happening.
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If you guys need anything, you let me know, okay?
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Bags or anything. People are loading bags and boxes of stuff into one of the residents RVs. The hotel manager, Sweetie, is handing out the garbage bags.
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Oh God.
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Mama Dee is cleaning out her fridge. A few residents, they're already gone. Their site at East 12th is incomplete. There are still no showers, no toilets. And still people are handing in their key cards and making their way to East 12th.
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Good morning.
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Your hair looks good pink. The next time I come back to the site, Mama Dee opens the gate for me. There's a hand drawn sign on the outside. It says Union Point on the rise around a gold painting of an anchor. The group made it out of the motel and onto their site.
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Yeah, completely. We're like family here, you know. It's nice.
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Is this new co governed site really the paradise Mama Dee and her fellow residents have hoped for? Stay tuned to find out. Welcome back to A Tiny Plot Chapter four. I'm your host Shayna Shealy. We've just arrived at Union Point on the Rise, the new co governed site at East 12th Street. Momma Dee and another woman, Lucy, show me around. They've been living here in their new homes for about a week. They both put up fences around their pallet shelter. Tiny homes.
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You know how all little girls, they want that white house with the white picket pants she got. It may have taken a little longer, but she has it now.
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Do you think this is tall enough for her dogs?
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Yeah.
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We walk towards the kitchen. President Matt built it out of an old 9 by 12 tuff shed. He painted the walls white Inside, Papa Eddie's pouring himself a glass of Merlot and then mixing it with white sugar.
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It's a full body, but it's so dry, you pour sugar in it and it softens it out a little bit. He's been preaching to me about the wine and chocolate. Wine and chocolate solution.
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What's the wine and chocolate solution.
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For a print. It feels a brain endorphin thing. Getting off drugs.
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Matt's been working on getting clean.
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It's like drug replacement. And I like sweet stuff.
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Anyway, there are shelves stocked with boxes of donated fresh lemons and limes, three bags of popcorn as tall as my legs, stacks and stacks of vegetable broth and grapefruit juice. This room looks great. There's even a little couch in there that Matt found on the street, and.
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I have a little mini speaker.
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Matt tells me he's been spending time at the site next door, Lakeview Village, meeting the neighbors. He shared their site's WI Fi password with them.
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Yeah, I was really upset about, like, those people that came by and were not happy with us being white and, like, coming here and, like, from. From another district and taking this. Taking up space that shouldn't be for black people. The way, like, they put their arguments, which was much more eloquent than what I just said, was hard for me to dispute. I've kind of gone back and it's ultimately, it's what we've been given, and so we're going to do the best that we can with. It involves uplifting the community around us. And our plan from the beginning has been to use this as an opportunity to do good, not just for ourselves, but for other people, just because we think there's a better way that this lot has.
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President Matt then walks me to the security shed where one resident is watching surveillance footage wearing a puffy jacket with a patch on the sleeve that says private security. I'm honestly stunned. They're here decorating their pallet shelters with succulents like they're actually homes, borrowing equipment from neighbors on the other side of the fence, running their own security.
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It's kind of nice, you know, we feel comfortable and we feel safe.
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And over the next month and a half, the residents continue working to prove themselves. Momma Dee keeps the porta potties clean. There's no real sink, no place to wash dishes or brush teeth. But Momma Dee has a camping shower, and she's brought it into the empty shower stalls they built. Other residents put security uniforms on and watch the security monitor. The experiment is working. This is the first city sponsored homeless encampment in Oakland to be led by homeless folks themselves. And it becomes clear to me that this whole time they've been trenching and painting, despite all the roadblocks, they were never going to let this project fail. Their belief in this experiment is an action in itself. Still, they wake up most mornings to Nino calling over his bullhorn for the fence to come down to put an end to what he sees as a visible sign of racism. But Union Point, people keep telling me that taking down the fence would be the end of co governance.
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Why?
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Like help me understand why taking down the fence was so such like the ultimate affront to the co governance model.
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We fought for to have our area.
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I love how you just fed DNS Strawberry, right?
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Because they want, they want us to join with them as one. But you can't do that because it's too weight. They're way too big. It is going to mess with our community.
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Okay. So the thing that I'm having trouble with is, you know, in the beginning of this whole thing, thing you guys said ultimate success of this model is spreading it to other homeless communities and being able to replicate it with other people. And it sort of seems like taking down the fence is a chance to do just that.
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But we haven't even had the opportunity to live in our co governance. We don't want somebody from over there coming over here getting bit by my dog because they want to pet my dogs or, or getting hurt because, because this place is not, it's not safe. They don't want our shit down, we don't want their shit down. We don't want, we don't want none of us. Have you ever heard of one of these? Neither side wants and wants it.
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I couldn't go into Lakeview Village to talk to people, so I had to try to have conversations with residents there through the fence. I managed at least three. The truth is they all had so much going on that the fence wasn't really much of a concern, including for this one woman, Harriet. You know, there are people outside protesting and saying that, you know, there's segregation here.
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Daddy. In here? Uh huh.
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Between these two communities.
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That's all over the goddamn place. See, that's, that's what you call a stupid ass. That's everywhere.
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And what do you think about this fence coming down or going up?
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You know what? They have dogs. They have dogs. And because the dogs haven't jumped the fence and bit anybody, which they seem to like to do out here, I've been taking care of my own situation. So I didn't know what the hell was going on with anybody else. All I want to know right now is how can I get the fuck out of here? So until this area is just as complete as that area, it's stupid to try to combine them together. The guide pills, the guys over there too, they feel the same way.
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Mama D and Lucy told me that they just want a chance to really do this experiment in co governance and that taking the fence down would interfere with that. While they haven't gotten really any of the amenities they've asked for, like toilets, they have, for the most part, been able to decide on the rules, who runs security and who comes into their space. They invite activists and photographers to their meetings. I've been following them for over a year. At Lakeview Village. If you leave for over 72 hours, you lose. Your house guests have to be approved by security. The Union Point people don't want the fence down because it means they'll be absorbed by the rules next door.
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Once we. Once they take that down, it constitutes failure, really, with us CO and cap.
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But it seems like they won't have to take it down. Besides Nino, no one is requiring that. And then on a Monday morning in March, I hear helicopters above my apartment about a mile from the site. And that's when I check my phone. There's been a fire. You just listened to the fourth chapter of A Tiny Plot. There's more. Five chapters total. Tune in for the grand finale here Thursday on the Snap Judgment feed. You won't want to miss it. Next up on A Tiny Plot.
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None of this shit is safe for none of us. I just want to leave before another explosion. We are co government. We ain't supposed to have nobody tell us what to do. We're supposed to be running this.
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A Tiny Plot is a production of KQED SNAP Studios hosted and produced by Shayna Shealy Edited by Anna Sussman Original music by Renzo Gorio Made possible by the entire SNAP team and everyone who lived at Union Point Park. Thank you for sharing your stories. Extra special thanks to Jen Chen, Catherine Winter the City of Oakland Sweetie at the Travel Inn Ryan Finnegan, Will Craft, JP Jobran, Thomas Browns, Suki Lewis, Alastair Boone and the street spirit Odd House Audio the entire cast from Union Point park and KQED Legal engineering by Pat Mesiti Miller Director of Production Marissa Dodge Executive producers Glass, Glenn Washington and Mark Ristich. On Team Snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of broadcast employees and technicians, Communications workers of America, AFL CIO Local 51. And this is not the news. No way is it the news, because this is snap judgment. Get your ears ready and keep your hearts open because this is prx.
Host: Shayna Shealy
Release Date: September 2, 2025
In this fourth chapter of "A Tiny Plot," host Shayna Shealy chronicles the pivotal and turbulent phase of a groundbreaking, city-sponsored, co-governed homeless encampment experiment in Oakland. Tensions explode after a physical altercation leads to the project's key advocate, Adam, being removed. With mere weeks before residents are forced to move out of their temporary motel housing, the group faces a crisis of leadership, community cohesion, and their very vision of self-determination. The episode intimately explores the toll of instability, the push-pull of authority and autonomy, and the stamina of a community fighting for control of their future.
Adam’s shame and disappointment:
“I feel pretty chewed up, spit out, feel pretty raw. And I feel a lot of shame and guilt around giving the city a chance to pull the plug on this.” (04:02)
Resident’s frustration with city’s definition of co-governance:
“I’m really, really getting sick and tired of this word co-govern... To the city it’s basically run like a dictatorship.” (08:32)
Tammy on the day-to-day struggle:
“What if it fails? What if it was made to fail?” (14:29)
“Everything’s out of my control.” (15:18)
President Matt on community purpose:
“Our plan from the beginning has been to use this as an opportunity to do good, not just for ourselves, but for other people…” (20:05)
Harriet on the “segregation” debate and immediate concerns:
“That’s everywhere... All I want to know right now is how can I get the fuck out of here?” (24:02)
Snap Judgment’s trademark vivid, musical, and immersive storytelling is present throughout. Shayna Shealy’s narration is empathetic and candid, blending raw participant voices with her own reflective insights. The language is frank, sometimes graphic, grounding the story in both the pain of instability and the stubborn hope of a beleaguered community.
Episode 4 of "A Tiny Plot" delivers a gripping portrayal of democracy and dignity on the margins. As the residents of Union Point fight for their right to self-determination, against city bureaucracy and the limitations of “co-governance,” their experiment hangs by a thread—demonstrating both the depths of institutional failure and the power of collective resilience. The sudden fire at the end leaves the community, and listeners, braced for what comes next.
Next Up: The finale promises further revelations and a decisive moment for co-governance at Union Point.