Community

Homeless Census Rises by 47 Percent in Oakland

Published

7 years ago

July 27, 2019

Ken Epstein

Vann: “Mayor Schaaf has never taken the homeless issue seriously.”

Schaaf finally says, “We now need to act with a sense of urgency”

The number of homeless people in Oakland has grown by 47 percent in the past two years, faster than in San Francisco and Berkeley, according to a county survey released this week.

Following federal guidelines, officials organized volunteers who conducted a one-day, “point-in-time” count, which found 4,071 homeless people in Oakland living in vehicles, on the street or in shelters, compared with 2,761 in 2017 and 2,191 people in 2015.

Of those counted, 861 were living in shelters, and 3,210 were unsheltered.

The homeless rate in Oakland has reached 940 per 100,000 residents, compared with San Francisco’s rate of 906 and Berkeley’s rate of 898.

“Of course, it is disappointing … that we’ve had the highest increase, at least in the Bay Area,” said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf in an interview with the S.F. Chronicle. “It shows that we need to do things differently, and we need to act with a sense of urgency that is greater than anything we’ve done in the past.”

“These increases are not unique to Oakland, they’re throughout this county, they’re throughout this state and throughout the entire West Coast,” she said in an interview on KPIX Channel 5. Nearby counties need to look at this crisis as “an all hands on deck situation,” she said.

According to the survey, 47 percent of Alameda County’s homeless are African American, while African Americans only make up 11 percent of the county’s population. Thirty percent of the county’s homeless are white, while 17 percent are Latino.

The survey also found that 57 percent of the homeless in Alameda County have lived in the county for 10 years or more. Forty percent said they are natives, while 12 percent said they moved to the area in the past year.

Thirty-four percent of the county’s homeless residents live in tents, and 23 percent live in vehicles.

The results of this new survey do not come as a surprise to the people who are working on the ground working with the homeless and advocating the solutions to the crisis.

“It didn’t come as a shock to us,” said James Vann of the Oakland-based Homeless Advocacy Working Group (HAWG) in an interview with the Oakland Post. “There were about 70 homeless encampments, and now it’s between 90 and 100 encampments, and each of those encampments has grown.”

Criticizing the Mayor Schaaf’s policies, Vann said, “This report should not have been a shock. The reason it’s a shock is that (Mayor Schaaf) never took the homeless issue seriously.” Last year, the city only added $1.5 million to the budget for homelessness, “which only pays the administrative costs for one and half of the Tuff Shed villages,” he said.

Seeing some hope on the horizon, he said that that $10 million or more may be coming into Oakland due to initiatives of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Additionally, new money for homeless programs will begin entering city coffers late next year as result of Measure W, a tax on vacant properties and buildings, which local homeless advocates worked to pass with the support of Council President Rebecca Kaplan.

Margaretta Lin, executive director of Just Cities/ the Dellums Institute, told the Oakland Post that the “point-in-time” survey indicates the rapid grow of homelessness in Oakland but does not reflect the true numbers of those who do not have a place to live, which is over 10,000 people.

“Based on a comprehensive Alameda County report conducted in 2014-2015, there were more than 9,000 homeless people in Oakland, and we know on that basis the number is much more today,” she said.

We’re seeing a new homelessness phenomenon, where the homeless population is not just made up of people with mental health or substance abuse problems, said Lin.

“There are people who are working who have lost their homes because they can’t afford the crazy rent. We have people who have minimum wages jobs who are homeless, children who are homeless and even childcare workers who are homeless.”

Because this is a crisis, she said, the city needs to adopt “less expensive, immediate solutions” such as tiny homes, repurposed containers and mobile homes,” dignified, aesthetically pleasing housing models similar to what other cities have done.”

These kinds of homes can cost about $10,000 and be put up in a month, compared with traditional housing, which costs about $600,000 and takes three-to-five years to build, she said. Much of Oakland’s homeless housing strategies, so far, has been transitional housing, only meant for temporary stays of up to six months or building permanent housing which is expensive and takes several years.

State funding can make difference, “depending on how the money is deployed,” Lin said. “People need housing. It can’t be a shelter bed for one night or transitional housing for six months. They need to be able to live in a dignified place for several years until we get more permanent housing built.”

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Ken Epstein

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Activism

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses. The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Toks Omishakin, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, was one of the speakers at the event. Photo by Shellee Fisher Photography and Design.

By Calvin Naito, Special to The Post

On June 4, a national nonprofit named the Equity in Infrastructure Project (EIP) – which aims to increase public construction contracting opportunities for small and historically underutilized businesses – held a day-long event in downtown San Francisco to rally supporters and build momentum to its cause.

It was attended by more than 100 individuals from public agencies, private firms, and other organizations committed to increasing contracting opportunities with governmental agencies, thereby creating more competition and lowering public costs.

The EIP event was held the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in conjunction with BuildIT, which aims to increase contracting opportunities for LGBT-owned businesses.

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses.

The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Following the workshop, BuildIT hosted a VIP evening reception honoring EIP, whose principals – Phil Washington, John Procari, and Rick Jacobs – accepted the award.

The event also set in motion the coalition’s efforts to implement recommendations from EIP’s “Procurement for Prosperity: A Playbook.”

The Playbook is a practical guide for public agency leaders and procurement and contracting practitioners to grow the capacity of small and first-time contractors, strengthen competition, and deliver better value for taxpayers.

Toks Omishakin, Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), a long-time EIP supporter, also told attendees, “This is about commitment. This has been a life’s work. This is a tailwind moment.”

The event’s presenting sponsor was Hub International, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the nation, which was joined by partners Travelers Insurance and the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

After the pledge-signing ceremony, attendees participated in a workshop in which they examined the policies, practices, and programs needed to meet EIP goals, learned from practitioners, and identified next steps toward utilizing the Playbook.

Ingrid Meriwether, formerly of Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services (MWIS) and current president of Hub International’s Aligned Risk Management, MWIS, described the hard-fought lessons she and her MWIS team have learned over the last three decades administering contractor development programs (CDPs) for the City and County of San Francisco, Alameda County, City of Los Angeles, LA Metro, and other municipalities.

The CDPs help small and local construction firms win public infrastructure contracts with these government agencies. The program provides bonding assistance, contract financing, technical support, training, and other services to underrepresented businesses funded by public agencies who seek greater contracting participation with these firms.

Merriwether said programs like these “break down systemic barriers, create greater fairness, and save taxpayers money by enabling more competition. The contractor development programs have, cumulatively, over two decades, helped contractors access over $1 billion in bonding, supporting over $380 million in awarded contracts, and maintaining a loss ratio 250 times lower than the industry average – while saving participating municipalities more than $27 million in contracting costs as a result of enabling more competition.”

Rick Jacobs, EIP co-founder and co-chair urged attendees make plans to meet again in the near future “to continue building on this work, share progress on organizational commitments, and discuss how we can collectively advance the goals of the EIP pledge.”

For more information on the EIP and to access a copy of the Playbook, go online to https://equityininfrastructure.org/

Calvin Naito is communications manager for Equity in Infrastructure Project.

Oakland Post

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Oakland Museum Presents Landmark Retrospective Celebrating Beloved Bay Area Artist Mildred Howard

“Poetics of Memory” coincides with a year of major recognition for Howard. In 2026, she received the California Arts Council’s 50th Anniversary Award, honoring artists whose work has shaped California’s cultural and civic life, as well as the Museum of the African Diaspora’s Artist Impact Award. In 2025, she was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of her transformative contributions to American cultural life.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Mildred Howard. Photo by Christine Cueto for the Oakland Museum of California, 2025.

Special to The Post

The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) opened “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory,” the first major museum survey of Bay Area artist Mildred Howard, on June 12.

The exhibition spans five decades of Howard’s influential work, bringing together immersive installations, found-object sculptures, archival materials, and new commissions that explore memory, identity, and power in American life.

Howard was born in San Francisco in 1945 and raised in the East Bay, where she went on to study Afro-Haitian dance, make and sell clothing, and experiment with collage and sculpture.

Her multimedia art practice emerged from these experiences, later becoming associated with West Coast conceptual art, San Francisco funk, and a vibrant community of artists like Oliver Jackson, Betye Saar, and Raymond Saunders. Since the 1970s, she has used found materials and family stories to explore memory—both individual and collective.

At OMCA, visitors enter “Poetics of Memory” through a series of intimate galleries featuring Howard’s early mixed-media pieces and sculptures, along with a large video projection of a number of her public artworks.

Together, they emphasize Howard’s interest in everyday objects as powerful carriers of individual and shared stories. Highlights include collages that remix images of the artist herself; found-object sculptures like The History of the United States with a few Parts Missing (2007) that address omissions in dominant narratives; and public works like “Locks and Keys for Harry Bridges” (2001) that transform urban space into a meditation on access and labor.

This culminates in a richly detailed “studio” environment, where works in progress, archival exhibition flyers, historic photographs of Howard and her community, postcards from fellow artists, and other materials offer insight into her creative process and daily life.

The exhibition then opens into a high-ceilinged, dramatically lit space that brings together Howard’s signature immersive installations. On one end, “Crossings” (1997/2026) – a field of hundreds of ceramic eggs leading to an ornate mirror – suggests cycles of birth, motherhood, and transition, while drawing on the emotional echoes of the Middle Passage. On the other end, “Blackbird in a Red Sky” (a.k.a. “Fall of the Blood House”) (2002) – a red glass shack bordered by a pond – also uses reflection and transparency to draw viewers into the work and prompt consideration of themes of identity and home.

Howard’s newest video installation, “Moving Stills” (2026), repurposes never-before-seen family footage she took as a teenager on a train trip to the American South. Projected onto cascading layers of translucent fabric that stretch across an entire gallery wall, the piece immerses viewers in a layered meditation on memory, migration, and time.

The “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory” exhibit will be on display through Oct. 11 at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland, CA 94612. Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Fridays to 9 p.m.

This story is sourced from the Oakland Museum of California press office.

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

Ferry Fares to Increase July 1 as Ridership Hits Record Highs

The Oakland and Alameda routes will increase from $4.90 to $5.10, the South San Francisco route will go up from $7.40 to $7.60, and the Vallejo route will increase from $9.90 to $10.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Courtesy photo.

By Mike Aldax, The Richmond Standard

Starting July 1, the standard adult fare for the San Francisco Bay Ferry route between Richmond and San Francisco will increase to $5.20, up from the current $4.90.

Discounted fares for eligible passengers, including youth, seniors, people with disabilities, and Clipper START users, will rise to $2.60 from the current $2.40. Children under 5 will continue to ride for free.

The Oakland and Alameda routes will increase from $4.90 to $5.10, the South San Francisco route will go up from $7.40 to $7.60, and the Vallejo route will increase from $9.90 to $10.

The adjustments are part of a systemwide fare update approved by the agency’s Board of Directors, which is moving away from a flat 3% annual increase to route-specific pricing for the 2027 and 2028 fiscal years.

This fare update arrives as San Francisco Bay Ferry celebrates a historic May, transporting 301,270 passengers. The record-breaking figure represents an 8% increase over May 2025 and marks the third consecutive month of record-setting ridership.

Furthermore, it is the sixth month in a row that passenger numbers have exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Weekend travel has been a primary driver of this growth, with average weekend ridership seeing a 56% increase compared to pre-pandemic trends.

The agency states that the fare adjustments are necessary to ensure the long-term fiscal sustainability of public ferry services. By shifting to route-specific adjustments, the agency aims to offset rising operating costs while maintaining the high levels of service frequency and reliability.