Government

Candidates For Oakland’s District 5 Share Their Platforms

Published

4 years ago

September 25, 2020

Incumbent Noel Gallo

East Oakland native and District 5 incumbent Noel Gallo touts his Oakland public education with pride. He’s been holding his city council position since 2013 and before that, he served 20 years as a member of the Oakland Board of Education.

In his time on the City Council, Gallo helped create the Police Commission and is committed to reducing the police department budget by 50%. He says he is committed to reimagining public safety and believes in providing a model of counseling for youth that is from the school level to street level as a form of violence prevention.

Gallo supports affordable housing, currently working with the Unity Council to continue Phase 2 development for housing in transit areas that includes 30 units of housing for the homeless. He has helped the Native American Health Center develop 110 units on International Boulevard next to the health center. He is also working with the Agnes Memorial Church to create senior housing.

Gallo is open to negotiating the leasing of the Coliseum land that is publicly owned in order to maintain control of how it is used by the city, rather than sell it or sell the Oakland Port to private entities.

To learn more about Noel Gallo’s campaign go to https://www.noelgalloforoakland.com/

Zoe Lopez-Meraz

Zoe Lopez-Meraz has worked in the medical fields of physical therapy, transplant, and urology and volunteers at the Berkeley Free Clinics. She puts a high value on supporting teachers and education. She wants to decriminalize homelessness, sex work, and drugs as she says on her website all three disproportionately affect people of color and create a revolving door of criminalization.

Since 80% of calls to OPD are non-violent, Lopez-Meraz says reinvesting into the community from the money saved in the 50% decrease in OPD’s budget would make sense. She sees a great need for addressing mental health in the community so that police are not the first responders to mental health crises.

On sheltering and housing issues, Lopez-Meraz holds a straight-forward stance. If it’s vacant, take the property, repurpose vacant lots, warehouses, empty hotel rooms and vacant units using state emergency funding that is already available. She said the city creates policies with no real plan for execution.

Lopez-Meraz does not support the project proposed to build 3,000 units of high-end housing and a ballpark on the Oakland Port property. She thinks more support should be placed in existing infrastructure and more should be done to boost business in East Oakland.

To learn more about Zoe Lopez-Meraz’s campaign go to https://www.zlm4oak.org/

Richard Santos Raya

Long-time Bay Area resident Richard Santos Raya has a background as a classroom educator and lawyer. He says he wants to connect with those who are looking to work on labor, racial, housing, and economic justice.

Regarding OPD, Raya says one of the first things that can be done is to curb police spending and police injustice is to address rampant overtime funding. A huge drain on city coffers, it also incentivizes police to make arrests near the end of their shift in order to rack up overtime pay. He also says malpractice or brutality cases should not be paid out of taxpayer money, instead possibly from the police pension fund.

On homelessness, Raya says that in addition to the construction that has already been undertaken and Tuff sheds, he believes Oakland needs to convert existing housing to deeply affordable housing.

He says there should be a partnership with local land trusts and recommends removing housing from the unstable, untenable rental market into a more sustainable holding pattern. Small landlords need incentives to maintain their housing at below affordable rates.

Raya does not support a new ballpark at the Oakland Port. He wants to keep the public land at Oakland Coliseum and says it’s important to retain the Oakland A’s at that site.

To learn more about Richard Raya Santos’ campaign go to https://www.santosraya.com/

Michelle Snider

Associate Editor for The Post News Group. Writer, Photographer, Videographer, Copy Editor, and website editor documenting local events in the Oakland-Bay Area California area.

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Michelle Snider

Associate Editor for The Post News Group. Writer, Photographer, Videographer, Copy Editor, and website editor documenting local events in the Oakland-Bay Area California area.

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Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

Published

2 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Alameda County

DA Pamela Price Stands by Mom Who Lost Son to Gun Violence in Oakland

Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018.

Published

4 days ago

April 22, 2024

Oakland Post

District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones

Publisher’s note: Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018. The photo was too small for readers to see where the women were and what they were doing. Here we show Price and Jones as they complete a walk in memory of Scott. For more information and to contribute, please contact Carol Jones at 510-978-5517 at morefoundation.help@gmail.com. Courtesy photo.

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Bay Area

MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

Published

6 days ago

April 20, 2024

Oakland Post

Mayor London Breed

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications, mayorspressoffice@sfgov.org

***PRESS RELEASE***

MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

HUD’s Continuum of Care grant will support the City’s range of critical services and programs, including permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and improved access to housing for survivors of domestic violence

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program is designed to support local programs with the goal of ending homelessness for individuals, families, and Transitional Age Youth.

This funding supports the city’s ongoing efforts that have helped more than 15,000 people exit homelessness since 2018 through City programs including direct housing placements and relocation assistance. During that time San Francisco has also increased housing slots by 50%. San Francisco has the most permanent supportive housing of any county in the Bay Area, and the second most slots per capita than any city in the country.

“In San Francisco, we have worked aggressively to increase housing, shelter, and services for people experiencing homelessness, and we are building on these efforts every day,” said Mayor London Breed. “Every day our encampment outreach workers are going out to bring people indoors and our City workers are connecting people to housing and shelter. This support from the federal government is critical and will allow us to serve people in need and address encampments in our neighborhoods.”

The funding towards supporting the renewal projects in San Francisco include financial support for a mix of permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and transitional housing projects. In addition, the CoC award will support Coordinated Entry projects to centralize the City’s various efforts to address homelessness. This includes $2.1 million in funding for the Coordinated Entry system to improve access to housing for youth and survivors of domestic violence.

“This is a good day for San Francisco,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “HUD’s Continuum of Care funding provides vital resources to a diversity of programs and projects that have helped people to stabilize in our community. This funding is a testament to our work and the work of our nonprofit partners.”

The 2024 Continuum of Care Renewal Awards Include:

$42.2 million for 29 renewal PSH projects that serve chronically homeless, veterans, and youth
$318,000 for one new PSH project, which will provide 98 affordable homes for low-income seniors in the Richmond District
$445,00 for one Transitional Housing (TH) project serving youth
$6.4 million dedicated to four Rapid Rehousing (RRH) projects that serve families, youth, and survivors of domestic violence
$750,00 for two Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) projects
$2.1 million for three Coordinated Entry projects that serve families, youth, chronically homeless, and survivors of domestic violence

In addition, the 2023 CoC Planning Grant, now increased to $1,500,000 from $1,250,000, was also approved. Planning grants are submitted non-competitively and may be used to carry out the duties of operating a CoC, such as system evaluation and planning, monitoring, project and system performance improvement, providing trainings, partner collaborations, and conducting the PIT Count.

“We are very appreciative of HUD’s support in fulfilling our funding request for these critically important projects for San Francisco that help so many people trying to exit homelessness,” said Del Seymour, co-chair of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board. “This funding will make a real difference to people seeking services and support in their journey out of homelessness.”

In comparison to last year’s competition, this represents a $770,000 increase in funding, due to a new PSH project that was funded, an increase in some unit type Fair Market Rents (FMRs) and the larger CoC Planning Grant. In a year where more projects had to compete nationally against other communities, this represents a significant increase.

Nationally, HUD awarded nearly $3.16 billion for over 7,000 local homeless housing and service programs including new projects and renewals across the United States.