Activism

Tenants Protest Management Practices at New Oakland Veteran Housing

During visits this month, this reporter found the doors to common areas at Embark locked. When residents tried to open these doors, they were unsuccessful, with the exception of a second-floor balcony, which residents claim was recently reopened. That area was overgrown with weeds. Lyons stated the companies are now looking for a landscape vendor to clean up that area.

Published

4 years ago

June 27, 2022

Oakland Post

Tenants Deidre Robinson (left) and Sergeant First Class Rodney B. Burton (right) sit on the second-floor balcony of Embark Apartments, a recently opened affordable housing complex for veterans. The area is overgrown with weeds. Photo by Zack Haber.

By Zack Haber

Since March of last year, tenants at Embark, an affordable apartment complex for veterans in Downtown Oakland, have been demanding that the companies that oversee and own their buildings address safety and habitability issues and provide residents with respectful management that is free of harassment.

“It’s such a nice building,” said tenant Deidre Robinson. “But they’re actively destroying it, and I don’t understand why.”

Robinson, along with most of her neighbors living in the 63-unit Veterans Affairs (VA) subsidized apartment complex that opened in early 2020, is a Black veteran. While Embark is publicly funded, it is privately owned and operated.

The San Francisco-based John Stewart Company, which oversees 372 buildings in California, serves as property manager while the Berkeley based non-profit, Resources for Community Development (RCD), owns the building. In addition to Embark, RCD owns 59 other affordable Bay Area properties.

After a period of homelessness and struggling with severe depression, Robinson has used VA services to secure stable employment and what she calls her “forever home” at Embark. Her new apartment made her “super happy” at first, but she no longer feels safe there.

She says she regularly encounters people who don’t live at Embark but enter the complex without permission.

“I take mace when I go to the laundry room,” said Robinson, “because I find hostile people there who don’t want to let me wash my clothes when they’re sleeping there.”

According to Robinson, she often finds human feces and urine in halls and stairways and her packages often go missing. She suspects people who break in are responsible for these problems and says management won’t investigate to find who is responsible, even though the complex contains security cameras in all common areas.

In an email representing a collaborative response from John Stewart Company and RCD, Communications and Marketing Director Lauren Lyons wrote that the companies “are aware of some incidents of loitering, package theft and public urination,” but that their staff “confront non-residents, monitor our security systems to prevent theft as much as possible, and have frequent janitorial/cleaning schedules.”

She also wrote they “provide footage to the local police whenever they conduct an investigation.”

During a tour of Embark that a tenant named Sergeant First Class (SFC) Rodney B Burton hosted on a weekday afternoon of this month, this reporter encountered food scraps on sticky dusty hallway floors while what appeared to be human feces lay in a stairway. A person walked through Embark’s unlocked front door who apologized and immediately left when SFC Burton confirmed he wasn’t a resident.

During nighttime visits, this reporter found a side fire exit door unlocked at Embark, allowing easy entrance to the building from the street.

In late 2020 and early 2021, Embark tenants began to organize to collectively address problems. They’ve sent two letters to John Stewart Company and RCD to express their grievances and list demands. In the first letter, sent in March 2021, they announced the formation of the Embark Veterans Tenants Association and wrote that “though our building is new…profit is being put before us tenants.”

They demanded that “all outstanding rent be zeroed out” due to the COVID-19 pandemic and asked that management regularly give rent and utility receipts to tenants so they can better keep track of their finances and hold the companies accountable for any errors. The demands related to finances came, in part, due to residents receiving notices they felt constituted harassment and intimidation.

“I’ve been harassed by managers” said SFC Burton, “and they intimidated some other veterans that constructively evicted themselves, even though there’s a moratorium on evictions.”

This reporter obtained two Notice to Pay Rent or Quit letters that John Stewart Company had sent to residents in August and July of 2020 which stated, “If you fail to either pay the total amount of rent due in full or return possession of the premises…you may be evicted.”

According to SFC Burton, a few of his neighbors felt intimidated and left after receiving such notices demanding payment that they couldn’t pay. At that time though, as well as now, an Oakland based eviction moratorium would have prevented John Stewart Company or RCD from winning any eviction case at Embark against a tenant for nonpayment of rent.

In an email to this reporter, Lyons, the companies’ spokesperson, wrote that in 2020 “Property managers sent notices to all RCD residents who had an unpaid balance on their account,” and also stated such notices included information about rental assistance. None of the notices from 2020 this reporter saw contained such info, but one notice from summer of last year listed contact info for agencies that help with rental assistance.

According to Oliver Yan, who worked as Resident Services Coordinator at Embark from its opening till fall of last year, the companies weren’t helping tenants’ efforts to secure rent relief during his tenure.

“I would actually argue they were working against those efforts,” Yan said.

Yan claims that the bulk of his job had been trying to get Embark tenants rent relief funds, but the process was “extremely frustrating,” in large part due to John Stewart Company’s “bad accounting practices.” Yan needed accurate accounting information to help tenants secure rent relief but often couldn’t obtain it due to the management and ownership’s resistance.

“John Stewart Company was actively fighting me,” he said, “and RCD was not helping.”

According to Embark tenants, accounting problems persist. On March 31, 24 members of Embark’s tenant union sent another letter of demands to the companies. Residents asked for full rent and utility receipts from March 2020 till the present time, which they say they still haven’t received. California Code of Civil Procedure requires any property owner to provide receipts to tenants for rent payments.

Additionally, Embark tenants objected in their March 31 letter to “community spaces,” such as shared social rooms and balconies, being “inaccessible for residents for the last two years,” even though they’d seen management using them.

According to Lyons “common areas are not currently closed” but had been closed “during the height of the pandemic.”

Tenants at Embark had formed their union in early 202, affiliating with Bay Area Tenants and Neighborhood Councils, a tenant union with over 500 members, also known as Bay Area TANC.

TANC and Embark residents held BBQs to help spread the word about tenant organizing. According to SFC Burton, over 40 people are now meeting every month to organize about Embark tenant issues, and they’ve had success getting rent and utility relief for many Embark residents.

“It’s been really fun to work with TANC, and efficient,” said SFC Burton. “Without organizing, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened.”

Juleon Robinson, a TANC member who has been organizing at the complex, feels he’s learned a lot from Embark tenants.

“I’ve learned about patience,” he said. “[SFC Burton] knows everyone in that building, and he’s checking in with them all the time. Relationships are so important for organizing.”

Embark is not the only John Stewart Company/RCD building where tenants have been organizing. Tenants at Fox Courts, a nearby complex with 80 apartments for low-income tenants, which John Stewart Company manages, and RCD owns, have also unionized, affiliating last year with TANC and forming the Fox Courts Tenant Council.

Fox Courts tenant Annie Coffin was motivated to organize because, while she had been happy when she moved into the then new complex in 2009, she thinks conditions at Fox Courts have worsened.

“When I first moved in this place was nice,” said Coffin. “But now you have to argue with management to get the base minimum of upkeep.”

Some of Coffin’s complaints about Fox Courts echo those at Embark. She says people break in and defecate or vomit in common areas. Packages go missing, and she says management and ownership don’t do anything to stop it. She’s also complained that management harassed her neighbors and those who visit her. In November 2021, Fox Court Tenant Council wrote a letter, which 36 tenants signed, demanding “regular maintenance of common space, immediate habitability repairs” and “accountable available and respectful management.” In April of this year, the union made 15 specific demands in another letter.

Unlike at Embark, John Stewart Company and RCD did formally respond to the Fox Courts letters. Lyons says the company has also “recently met with 23 [Fox Courts] households who attended a resident meeting.” According to Fox Court tenants, the companies have corrected some, but not all, of their concerns.

Meanwhile, at Embark, Deidre Robinson hopes John Stewart Company and RCD address the problems there and treat the complex “like the blessing that it is.”

“We just want someone who cares who comes in and out of the building,” she said, “and why they can’t open up the community rooms is beyond me. It’s almost like John Stewart Company is unaware this is a complex full of veterans.”

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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 hour 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.

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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 hour 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.

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Stop the Hate Symposium Brings Oakland Together Through Dialogue, Partnership, and Community Healing

More than a meeting and panel discussion, the annual symposium serves as a powerful example of what can happen when neighbors, community leaders, and organizations choose conversation over division, and unity over silence.

Published

1 hour ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Speakers and guests at the annual ‘Stop the Hate Symposium posed with Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council ambassadors. Photo by Marcus Calloway.

By Dr. Maritony Jones, Special to The Post

With the purpose of creating safer, stronger, and more inclusive communities, and in partnership with the Oakland Private Industry Council and other community organizations, the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council (OCIC) hosted the ‘Stop the Hate Symposium’ on June 13 at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.

The free event featured keynote speakers, breakout sessions, cultural programming, creating a space where people from many backgrounds sat together with a shared purpose.

The turnout itself reflected the urgency and importance of the topic. The room was packed with community members eager not only to listen, but also to participate. Throughout the event, speakers shared data, personal experiences, research, and practical solutions designed to address hate, violence, social inequity, and community safety.

The keynote panel featured respected leaders and advocates, including Ray Bobbitt, founder of the African American Sports & Entertainment Group (AASEG); Ryan Takemiya from RAMA; Caheri Gutierrez from the Unity Council; honorary guest speaker Oakland City Councilmember at-Large Rowena Brown and City Councilmember Charlene Wang; representatives for Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee and U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon, with Gia Vang of NBC serving as moderator.

The symposium also offered multiple breakout sessions that addressed issues affecting communities across Oakland and Alameda County:

Session 1, 2, 3: Building Safer and More Inclusive Communities, led by Pastor Raymond Lankfort, CEO of Oakland Private Industry Council (OPIC), Jessica Kang, research manager for Stop AAPI Hate, Kara Guerra of The Unity Council, and Gabriela delaRiva of the Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation
Session 4: Talk Story: Collective Healing and Relationship Repair, presented by Ryan Takemiya, executive director of RAMA
Session 5: Sexual Violence Prevention, presented by Tunisia Owens, interim deputy director of Realized Potential
Session 6: Violent Attacks on Teens, presented by MaryAnn Alvarado, program manager of Youth Alive

Every session contributed to an important truth: meaningful change begins within communities, through honest dialogue and a willingness to work together.

One of the strongest themes to emerge from the day was the need to create more conversations and stronger partnerships—not just during times of crisis, but consistently and intentionally. Relationships among organizations, neighborhoods, and community leaders often operate behind the scenes but are not always highlighted or celebrated.

Bobbitt spoke powerfully about this issue, noting that partnerships and relationships often go unrecognized despite being essential to community progress. He pointed to examples such as the partnership between OPIC and OCHIC, emphasizing that these collaborations deserve more visibility, investment, and expansion.

Perhaps his most memorable message resonated deeply throughout the room. Bobbitt explained that when a grandparent is attacked or harmed, the impact extends beyond race or ethnicity because today’s families and communities are increasingly multicultural and interconnected.

“We are not going to see our grandparents as just Latino, Asian, Caucasian, or African American,” he shared in essence. “We are going to see them simply as our grandparents.”

Those words reflected the heart of the symposium. Hate may target one group, but pain and loss are felt by everyone. Likewise, healing and progress are shared responsibilities.

For more information about the Stop The Hate Program visit the website: https://www.oaklandchinatownchamber.org/stop-the-hate (or) https://oaklandpic.or