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City and Local Businesses Must Hire Oakland Now, Say Community Leaders

Published

10 years ago

October 10, 2015

A seemingly declining jobless rate masks the actual reality in Oakland where 19 percent of the city’s residents live in poverty, and many Oaklanders are being forced out of the city due to a lack of decent paying jobs, combined with out-of-control rent increases.

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The issue of joblessness and what city government and local businesses can do right now to hire Oakland was the subject of a recent Oakland Post Salon, where a panel of community leaders discussed how residents can push for solutions to the continuing unemployment crisis.

“We need to call on every employer in the city to hire people from Oakland – an Oakland opportunity challenge so every business can be proud to say, ‘We hire Oakland,” said Carroll Fife, a member of the OaklandWorks coalition and one of the speakers at the Sept. 27 Post salon.

The opportunity challenge, backed by a growing coalition of organizations, will encourage Oakland’s businesses and restaurants to hire Black and Latino residents and follow up with meetings with owners, as well as public protests, if necessary.

OaklandWorks also wants the city to enforce its local hiring policies on city-funded construction projects. Such a policy was passed during the administration of Mayor Ron Dellums but never implemented by city staff.

“We have a 50 percent local hire ordinance – We want contractors to recognize those proprieties,” said Fife.

Gay Plair Cobb, CEO of the Oakland Private Industry Council, moderated the panel and pointed out the realities of joblessness in Oakland.

“We’re talking about the lost, the last, the lonely and the left out – homeless people, the formerly incarcerated, the displaced workers, the younger and older workers who face age discrimination, those displaced by technology, those who face the barriers of physical limitations and immigrants,” said Cobb.

“All these groups represent the absolute urgency of what is happening and what is not happening,” she said.

Oakland’s official unemployment rate is 12.5 percent, higher than many other places, but the real unemployment rate is probably double that amount, because there are many people who stopped looking for work and are no longer counted, according to Cobb.

“Unemployment for African American youth and Latino youth is off the charts,” she said.

She said that federal funding for job training and placement has been declining, but Oakland, unlike nearby cities, fails to invest any funds from its budget to support the programs that are carried out solely by nonprofit service providers.

Compounding the problem, Cobb said, the city spends one-third of its federal job funding for administrative overhead – to pay for city staff instead of putting the money onto the street to help the unemployed.

Another speaker, City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, said creating jobs for Oakland residents needs to be a city priority.

“Our job is to lift up those who are struggling,” she said.

Kaplan said she authored resolution that requires a Disparity Study, which will show what companies are receiving City of Oakland contracts. Though the resolution was passed and funded a year ago, the study still has not been completed, she said.

“We still need the administration to actually complete the Disparity Study,” she said.

The last Disparity Study, completed over seven years ago, showed, “When contracts go out, they overwhelmingly go out to a handful of white-owned, male businesses, (not) anyone outside the favored few,” said Kaplan.

Kaplan supports removing the oversight of federal job funds from the city, to hire an outside agency that will carry out the oversight more effectively and efficiently.

“Federal money for job training needs to be used for job training, not for administrative overhead,” she said.

Speaker Alicia Contreras, executive director of the Spanish Speaking Citizens’ Foundation, emphasized the common fight of Blacks and Latinos, immigrants, people with disabilities and LGBT workers.

“We have to break barriers,” she said. “When we get all these minorities together, we are not a minority any more. We are a majority. We are all connected. That is the key for Oakland to move forward.”

Margaret Gordon, co-founder of West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP), said West Oakland residents had been promised jobs on the Oakland Army Base development, but they have not materialized.

“We still have to have a mechanism to connect the jobs to those who are most needy, most in need of those jobs,” said Gordon.

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Rest in Peace: A.M.E. Pastor and L.A Civil Rights Icon Cecil “Chip” Murray Passes

The Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray, former pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) in Los Angeles, died of natural causes April 6 at his Windsor Hills Home. He was 94. “Today, we lost a giant. Reverend Dr. Cecil Murray dedicated his life to service, community, and putting God first in all things. I had the absolute honor of working with him, worshiping with him, and seeking his counsel,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of the dynamic religious leader whose ministry inspired and attracted millionaires as well as former gang bangers and people dealing with substance use disorder (SUD).

Published

3 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

The Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray, former pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) in Los Angeles, died of natural causes April 6 at his Windsor Hills Home. He was 94.

“Today, we lost a giant. Reverend Dr. Cecil Murray dedicated his life to service, community, and putting God first in all things. I had the absolute honor of working with him, worshiping with him, and seeking his counsel,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of the dynamic religious leader whose ministry inspired and attracted millionaires as well as former gang bangers and people dealing with substance use disorder (SUD).

Murray oversaw the growth of FAME’s congregation from 250 members to 18,000.

“My heart is with the First AME congregation and community today as we reflect on a legacy that changed this city forever,” Bass continued.

Murray served as Senior Minister at FAME, the oldest Black congregation in the city, for 27 years. During that time, various dignitaries visited and he built strong relationships with political and civic leaders in the city and across the state, as well as a number of Hollywood figures. Several national political leaders also visited with Murray and his congregation at FAME, including Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Murray, a Florida native and U.S. Air Force vet, attended Florida A&M University, where he majored in history, worked on the school newspaper and pledged Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He later attended Claremont School of Theology in Los Angeles County, where he earned his doctorate in Divinity.

Murray is survived by his son Drew. His wife Bernadine, who was a committed member of the A.M.E. church and the daughter of his childhood pastor, died in 2013.

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Court Throws Out Law That Allowed Californians to Build Duplexes, Triplexes and RDUs on Their Properties

Charter cities in California won a lawsuit last week against the state that declared Senate Bill (SB) 9, a pro-housing bill, unconstitutional. Passed in 2021, SB 9 is also known as the California Housing Opportunity and More Efficiency Act (HOME). That law permits up to four residential units — counting individual units of duplexes, triplexes and residential dwelling units (RDUs) – to be built on properties in neighborhoods that were previously zoned for only single-family homes.

Published

3 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

Charter cities in California won a lawsuit last week against the state that declared Senate Bill (SB) 9, a pro-housing bill, unconstitutional.

Passed in 2021, SB 9 is also known as the California Housing Opportunity and More Efficiency Act (HOME). That law permits up to four residential units — counting individual units of duplexes, triplexes and residential dwelling units (RDUs) – to be built on properties in neighborhoods that were previously zoned for only single-family homes.

A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of the cities, pointing out that SB 9 discredited charter cities that were granted jurisdiction to create new governance systems and enact policy reforms. The court ruling affects 121 charter cities that have local constitutions.

Attorney Pam Lee represented five Southern California cities in the lawsuit against the state and Attorney General Rob Bonta.

“This is a monumental victory for all charter cities in California,” Lee said.

However, general law cities are excluded from the court ruling as state housing laws still apply in residential areas.

Attorney General Bonta and his team are working to review the decision and consider all options that will protect SB 9 as a state law. Bonta said the law has helped provide affordable housing for residents in California.

“Our statewide housing shortage and affordability crisis requires collaboration, innovation, and a good faith effort by local governments to increase the housing supply,” Bonta said.

“SB9 is an important tool in this effort, and we’re going to make sure homeowners have the opportunity to utilize it,” he said.

Charter cities remain adamant that the state should refrain from making land-use decisions on their behalf. In the lawsuit, city representatives argued that SB 9 eliminates local authority to create single-family zoning districts and approve housing developments.

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Funds for Down Payments and Credit Repair Given to Black First Time Homebuyers

The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) won a $10,000 fair housing settlement last November against a property management company, CIM Group LP, a global real estate company headquartered in Los Angeles, and property owner, RACR Sora, LLC, for implementing a blanket ban on renting to tenants with criminal histories at Sora Apartments in Inglewood. Three months earlier, the department, which enforces California’s civil rights laws, won another $20,000 civil rights settlement against a Lemon Grove property manager, who had targeted a Black tenant with a series of racist actions and threats of violence.

Published

3 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

By McKenzie Jackson, California Black Media

Three months earlier, the department, which enforces California’s civil rights laws, won another $20,000 civil rights settlement against a Lemon Grove property manager, who had targeted a Black tenant with a series of racist actions and threats of violence.

CRD Director Kevin Kish said the department investigates cases of apparent racial bias in housing and sometimes more subtle acts of prejudice like nuisance-free or crime-free housing policies or holding tenants to different standards based on their race.

Kish said, “People will get evicted if they call the police. This can negatively impact victims of domestic violence. We also see these no-crime ordinances, or no-crime policies, used in racially discriminatory ways. If there is some kind of incident, and the police are called and it involves a Black family, then they get evicted, but other folks aren’t necessarily evicted.”

On April 11,1968, a week after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, President Lydon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, and nationality.

Kish noted that William Byron Rumford, the first Black California State Assemblymember, who represented Berkley and Oakland, spearheaded the passing of the Rumford Act in 1963. That law sought to end discriminatory housing practices in the Golden State, five years before the Fair Housing Act became law.
Real estate agent and housing advocate Ashley Garner is the director of the CLTRE Keeper Home Ownership program. That organization gave 25 Black, indigenous, and people of color $17,500 each in down payment and credit repair support to purchase a home in Oak Park, a traditionally Black neighborhood in Sacramento, last fall. CLTRE obtained a $500,000 grant from the city of Sacramento to award the funds to the residents after they completed an eight-week homeownership program.

In 2021, the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) noted that around four in 10 Black California families owned homes, which trails that of White, Asian-American and Latinos.
According to Forbes, the median price for a home in California is over $500,000, which is double the cost of a home in the rest of the country.

Black lawmakers recently introduced their Reparations Priority Bill Package that includes support for Black first-time homebuyers, homeowners’ mortgage assistance and property tax relief for neighborhoods restricted by historic redlining.

California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) spokesperson Eric Johnson said CalHFA helps prospective low-income and moderate-income Californians purchase homes by offering down payment and closing cost aid. “There are lots of people who have steady jobs, good credit scores, constant income, but they haven’t been able to save up the money that traditional banks need or want to see for a down payment,” Johnson stated. “We help those folks out. We give a loan for the down payment to get them over that hurdle.”
CRD and the Department of Real Estate hosted “Fair Housing Protections for People with Criminal Histories” Zoom call on April 10.

On April 25, CRD will also hold Zoom seminars focused on advocating for fair housing for people with disabilities.