Uncategorized

OP-ED: Separate and Impoverished

Published

10 years ago

October 21, 2015

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic candidate for president, shocked people when he noted that 51 percent of African-Americans aged 17 through 20 who have graduated high school or dropped out of high school are unemployed.

PolitiFact.com confirmed the statement as “mostly true,” suggesting that the numbers might even be worse than Sanders suggested.

This level of unemployment is a death sentence for a generation — representing for too many the dying of hope, of potential and even, in an age of mass incarceration, of freedom.

The figure is shocking, but the reality cannot be denied. For all the progress we have made on race in this country, there is still a stark difference between Black and white poverty.

As Emily Badger reports in the Washington Post, “The poverty that poor African-Americans experience is often different from the poverty of poor whites.” A poor Black family is much more likely to live in an impoverished neighborhood. The concentrated poverty, as Badger writes, “extends out the door of a family’s home and occupies the entire neighborhood around it, touching the streets, the schools, the grocery stores.”

A new report on the “Architecture of Segregation” by Paul Jargowsky for the New Century Foundation details the stark differences that exist in cities across the country.

In metropolitan Chicago, for example, more than one in three poor African-Americans live in what are called high-poverty census tracts (neighborhoods where the poverty rate is above 40 percent). That is 10 times the rate for poor whites.

And it has gotten worse, not better, in cities across the country over the course of this century.

Separate and impoverished. We know the effects. Infants suffer bad nutrition, grow up surrounded by lead paint. Children navigate mean streets to go to impoverished schools.

They lack after-school and summer programs. Families break apart. Guns and drugs come in; jobs go out. There’s no affordable transportation to get to where the jobs are. Houses are abandoned. Hospitals close. Decent grocery stores are nowhere to be found.

As Jargowsky says, this isn’t really an accident. It is the product of systemic discrimination, of zoning laws that shield off wealthy areas from the poor, of public housing that is concentrated in a few neighborhoods. Isolation in poor neighborhoods is an imposition, not a choice.

This could be different. In London, for example, every region must have some social housing for poor and working class people.

Imagine if every suburb were required to provide a proportionate amount of housing for the poor and the lower-wage workers. Suddenly the poor would have access to better schools, better health care, safer streets, more role models and healthier (and less expensive) food stores.

This takes a plan, a plan that will meet great resistance. Dozens of Chicago’s wealthy suburbs, Badger notes, have ignored state deadlines to produce affordable housing plans.

Poor African-Americans are penned up, in poor neighborhoods and too often literally in jails and prisons.

This is an imposition, not a fate, a policy choice that is morally indefensible and socially explosive.

Oakland Post

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Uncategorized

Oakland Housing and Community Development Department Awards $80.5 Million to Affordable Housing Developments

Published

7 months ago

June 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Special to The Post

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department (Oakland HCD) announced its awardees for the 2024-2025 New Construction of Multifamily Affordable Housing Notice of Funding Availability (New Construction NOFA) today Five permanently affordable housing developments received awards out of 24 applications received by the Department, with award amounts ranging from $7 million to $28 million.

In a statement released on Jan. 16, Oakland’s HCD stated, “Five New Construction Multifamily Affordable Housing Development projects awarded a total of $80.5 million to develop 583 affordable rental homes throughout Oakland. Awardees will leverage the City’s investments to apply for funding from the state and private entities.”

In December, the office of Rebecca Kaplan, interim District 2 City Councilmember, worked with HCD to allocate an additional $10 Million from Measure U to the funding pool. The legislation also readopted various capital improvement projects including street paving and upgrades to public facilities.

The following Oakland affordable housing developments have been awarded in the current round:

Mandela Station Affordable

238 Affordable Units including 60 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $15 million + previously awarded $18 million
Developer: Mandela Station LP (Pacific West Communities, Inc. and Strategic Urban Development Alliance, LLC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 1451 7th St.

Liberation Park Residences

118 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $28 million
Developer: Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone
City Council District: 6
Address: 7101 Foothill Blvd.

34th & San Pablo

59 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $7 million
Developer: 34SP Development LP (EBALDC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 3419-3431 San Pablo Ave.

The Eliza

96 Affordable Units including 20 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $20 million
Developer: Mercy Housing California
City Council District: 3
Address: 2125 Telegraph Ave.

3135 San Pablo

72 Affordable Units including 36 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $10.5 million
Developer: SAHA and St. Mary’s Center
City Council District: 3
Address: 3515 San Pablo Ave.

The source of this story is the media reltations office of District 2 City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Oakland Housing and Community Development Department Awards $80.5 Million to Affordable Housing Developments

Published

12 months ago

January 30, 2025

Oakland Post

Rebecca Kaplan, interim District 2 city councilmember. File photo.

Special to The Post

The following Oakland affordable housing developments have been awarded in the current round:

Mandela Station Affordable

238 Affordable Units including 60 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $15 million + previously awarded $18 million
Developer: Mandela Station LP (Pacific West Communities, Inc. and Strategic Urban Development Alliance, LLC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 1451 7th St.

Liberation Park Residences

118 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $28 million
Developer: Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone
City Council District: 6
Address: 7101 Foothill Blvd.

34th & San Pablo

59 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $7 million
Developer: 34SP Development LP (EBALDC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 3419-3431 San Pablo Ave.

The Eliza

96 Affordable Units, including 20 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $20 million
Developer: Mercy Housing California
City Council District: 3
Address: 2125 Telegraph Ave.

3135 San Pablo

72 Affordable Units including 36 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $10.5 million
Developer: SAHA and St. Mary’s Center
City Council District: 3
Address: 3515 San Pablo Ave.

The source of this story is media reltations office of District 2 City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

Oakland Acquisition Company’s Acquisition of County’s Interest in Coliseum Property on the Verge of Completion

The Board of Supervisors is committed to closing the deal expeditiously, and County staff have worked tirelessly to move the deal forward on mutually agreeable terms. The parties are down to the final details and, with the cooperation of OAC and Coliseum Way Partners, LLC, the Board will take a public vote at an upcoming meeting to seal this transaction.

Published

1 year ago

January 11, 2025

Oakland Post

Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Haubert. Official photo.

Special to The Post

The County of Alameda announced this week that a deal allowing the Oakland Acquisition Company, LLC, (“OAC”) to acquire the County’s 50% undivided interest in the Oakland- Alameda County Coliseum complex is in the final stages of completion.

Oakland has already finalized a purchase and sale agreement with OAC for its interest in the property. OAC’s acquisition of the County’s property interest will achieve two longstanding goals of the County:

The Oakland-Alameda Coliseum complex will finally be under the control of a sole owner with capacity to make unilateral decisions regarding the property; and
The County will be out of the sports and entertainment business, free to focus and rededicate resources to its core safety net

In an October 2024 press release from the City of Oakland, the former Oakland mayor described the sale of its 50% interest in the property as an “historic achievement” stating that the transaction will “continue to pay dividends for generations to come.”

The Board of Supervisors is pleased to facilitate single-entity ownership of this property uniquely centered in a corridor of East Oakland that has amazing potential.

“The County is committed to bringing its negotiations with OAC to a close,” said Board President David Haubert.