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Homeless ‘Streets Team’ Starts Trash Clean-up in North Richmond

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On Tuesday, June 16,  the Shields Reid Neighborhood Council, Davis Chapel CME Church and Robert Rogers of Supervisor John Gioia’s office invited a homeless “Streets Team” to begin trash cleanup and organizing of the homeless encampment in North Richmond.

Facilitated by Safe Organized Spaces (SOS!) in Richmond, the SOS! Streets Team employs unsheltered individuals to respond to homelessness at parks, freeways, train tracks, creeks and neighborhood streets impacted by dumping and encampments throughout West Contra Costa County.

The team conducts neighborhood outreach with debris removal, sanitation and hygiene interventions, and community-building processes that lead to improved encampment conditions where unsheltered individuals reside and are supported to shelter-in-place.

The effort started in Central Richmond and now expands across West County.

Each worker is paid a decent wage of $15 per hour for 12 hours or more per week. As the Streets Team builds its personnel – now eight unsheltered individuals – they rely on the support of community members to help meet the challenge of reaching all key encampments where people struggle to shelter themselves and find basic amenities.

While neighborhood beautification is an immediate benefit, the goals of the team’s work are to improve relationships between housed and unsheltered neighbors and to help everyone to recognize how solutions are possible to improve the problems associated with homelessness in our neighborhoods.

The Streets Team is facilitated by SOS!, a community-driven network. The projects of SOS! are fiscally sponsored by TentMakers and Richmond Friends of Recreation. Concerned Richmond community members and agencies continue to join the SOS! network so that housed and unsheltered neighbors may come together and bring about personal, neighborhood and institutional changes. Through the process of integrating encampments and their residents with public agencies, civic groups, neighbors and businesses, SOS! plans to make substantive changes in our responses to homelessness.

The Streets Team has partnered with City and County agencies to place toilet and handwashing portables in key encampment locations. Encampment residents will secure the portable stations and determine responsibilities for sanitation and hygiene. In partnership with Collaborising, a nonprofit that is dedicated to improving race equity and building cross-cultural relationships, the project works with unsheltered leaders in a train-the-trainer process to establish equitable ways to govern the encampments and support safe living conditions.

The Streets Team also distributes food, PPE, hand sanitizer, trash bags and basic amenities to support health hygiene, self-screening and sanitation. It works with Davis Chapel CME Church to provide face masks, gloves, food and water at these encampments. Some 175 lunches are delivered each weekday to encampments through Ephesians of Richmond Church of God in Christ and West Contra County Unified School District.

Richmond is at a critical moment regarding homelessness. Shelters and Warming Centers are closed for adults. The most vulnerable to COVID-19 have been temporarily sheltered in hotels.

Homelessness in Richmond is expected to increase substantially in the coming months as many renters will be unable to pay overdue rents. Temporary hotel stays will end later this year, releasing people back to the streets. Key to increasing Richmond’s capacity to provide interim sheltering before winter includes finding locations to host temporary, managed transitional villages.

Before the pandemic and economic recession, homelessness in Contra Costa County had increased by 43% in two years with more than 1,000 people living outdoors. County Health Services is seeing an alarming increase in the number of homeless seniors in their 70s and 80s. The need is urgent for safe spaces for homeless individuals who are unsheltered and without the resources to pay for housing.

Contributions to the SOS! Streets Team can be made at Venmo: SOS_Richmond. To join the SOS! network to make changes in response to homelessness, call Daniel Barth at 510-990-2686.

Join the Streets Team by showing up with gloves and wearing a mask to contribute to the North Richmond Community Cleanup on Saturday, June 27, 2020 from 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Meet the team at the end of Castro Street near Fred Jackson Way.

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Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 13 – 19, 2024

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Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of March 6 – 12, 2024

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Who are the Alameda County District 4 Supervisor Candidates’ Top Campaign Contributors?

Below, we’ve listed each candidate’s 10 highest campaign contributors. For Miley, two of his top campaign donors also bought their own advertisements to support him and/or oppose Esteen through independent expenditures. Such expenditures, though separate from campaign donations, are also public record, and we listed them. Additionally, the National Organization of Realtors has spent about $70,500 on their own independent expenditures to support Miley.

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Jennifer Esteen. (Campaign photo) and Supervisor Nate Miley. (Official photo).
Jennifer Esteen. (Campaign photo) and Supervisor Nate Miley. (Official photo).

By Zack Haber

Nate Miley, who has served on Alameda County’s Board of Supervisors since 2000, is running for reelection to the District 4 supervisor seat.

Jennifer Esteen, a nurse and activist, is seeking to unseat him and become one of the five members of the powerful board that sets the county’s budget, governs its unincorporated areas, and oversees the sheriff, Alameda Health System, and mental health system.

District 4 includes most of East Oakland’s hills and flatlands beyond Fruitvale, part of Pleasanton and unincorporated areas south of San Leandro like Ashland and Castro Valley.

Voting is open and will remain open until March 5.

In California, campaign donations of $100 or more are public record. The records show that Miley has received about $550,000 in total campaign donations since he won the previous District 4 election in March 2020. Esteen has raised about $255,000 in total campaign donations since she started collecting them last July. All figures are accurate through Feb. 20.

While Miley has raised more money, Esteen has received donations from more sources. Miley received donations of $100 or more from 439 different sources. Esteen received such donations from 507 different sources.

Below, we’ve listed each candidate’s 10 highest campaign contributors. For Miley, two of his top campaign donors also bought their own advertisements to support him and/or oppose Esteen through independent expenditures. Such expenditures, though separate from campaign donations, are also public record, and we listed them. Additionally, the National Organization of Realtors has spent about $70,500 on their own independent expenditures to support Miley.

Nate Miley’s top campaign contributors:

The California Apartment Association, a trade group representing landlords and investors in California’s rental housing business, has spent about $129,500 supporting Miley’s election bid through about $59,500 in ads against Esteen$55,000 in ads supporting Miley, and $15,000 in campaign donations.

The independent expenditure committee Preserve Agriculture in Alameda County has spent about $46,025 supporting Miley through about $27,200 in their own ads, and $18,825 in donations to his campaign. Preserve Agriculture has supported reelection efforts for former Alameda County DA Nancy O’Malley, and Sheriff Greg Ahern, a republican. It’s received funding from ChevronPG&E, and a the California Apartment Association.

Organizations associated with the Laborers’ International Union of North America, or LiUNA, have donated about $35,000 in total. Construction and General Laborers Local 304, a local chapter of the union representing which represents over 4,000 workers, donated $20,000.

Laborers Pacific Southwest Regional Organizing Coalition, which represents 70,000 LiUNA members in Arizona, California, Hawaii and New Mexico, donated $15,000.

William ‘Bill’ Crotinger and the East Oakland-based company Argent Materials have donated $26,000. Crotinger is the president and founder of Argent, a concrete and asphalt recycling yard. Argent’s website says it is an eco-friendly company that diverts materials from landfills. In 2018, Argent paid the EPA $27,000 under a settlement for committing Clean Water Act violations.

Michael Morgan of Hayward, owner of We Are Hemp, a marijuana dispensary in Ashland, has donated $21,500.

Alameda County District 1 Supervisor David Haubert has donated $21,250 from his 2024 reelection campaign. He’s running unopposed for the District 1 seat.

SEIU 1021which represents over 60,000 workers in local governments, non-profit agencies, healthcare programs, and schools in Northern California, has donated $20,000.

UA Local 342, which represents around 4,000 pipe trades industry workers in Contra Costa and Alameda counties, donated $20,000.

The union representing the county’s deputy sheriffs, Deputy Sheriff’s Association of Alameda County, has donated $17,000.

Becton Healthcare Resources and its managers have donated $14,625. Becton’s mission statement says it provides “behavioral health management services to organizations and groups that serve the serious and persistent mentally ill population.”

Jennifer Esteen’s top campaign contributors:

Mary Quinn Delaney of Piedmont, founder of Akonadi Foundation, has donated $20,000. Akonadi Foundation gives grants to nonprofit organizations, especially focusing on racial justice organizing,

Bridget Galli of Castro Valley has donated $7,000. Galli is a yoga instructor and a co-owner of Castro Valley Yoga.

Rachel Gelman of Oakland has donated $5,000. Gelman is an activist who has vowed to redistribute her inherited wealth to working class, Indigenous and Black communities.

California Worker Families Party has donated $5,000. The organization’s website describes itself as a “grassroots party for the multiracial working class.”

David Stern of Albany has donated $5,000. Stern is a retired UC Berkeley Professor of Education.

Oakland Rising Committee—a collaborative of racial, economic, and environmental justice organizations—has donated about $3,050.

Fredeke Von Bothmer-Goodyear, an unemployed resident of San Francisco, has donated $2,600.

Robert Britton of Castro Valley has donated $2,500. Britton is retired and worked in the labor movement for decades.

Progressive Era PAC has donated about $2,400. Its mission statement says it “exists to elect governing majorities of leaders in California committed to building a progressive era for people of color.”

East Bay Stonewall Democrats Club has donated $2,250. The club was founded in 1982 to give voice to the East Bay LGBTQIA+ communities.

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