Police Rousts Homeless Camp
$13,000 Spent on Boulder Field
City Hall Refuses to Explain
Accountability and Transparency Vacates Emeryville With the Homeless People
Humane Policies Out, Boulders and Secrecy In
News Analysis
Late in April, Emeryville's police quietly rousted a small group of homeless people camped on a City owned piece of land on 40th Street behind City Hall so it could place $13,000 worth of boulders there. The uprooted homeless people have not returned, probably because the taxpayer funded boulders are so tightly spaced that a human body cannot recline between them. We say ‘probably’ because all we've been able to get by way of an explanation from officials at City Hall about this lavishly funded public work is a 'no comment'. Are the boulders just dumped there, waiting to be assembled in some way? They're not saying. Is this field of boulders indicative of a new policy about how the City deals with homeless people? Again, they're not saying.
Even though the City refuses to say anything about it, the barren, seemingly inconsequential triangular shaped plot of public land along 40th Street at Hollis Street has become emblematic and revelatory of Emeryville’s real policy about homeless people. The City has long downplayed implications about the lack of homeless encampments within its borders, especially when compared with neighboring cities and they've even gone as far as to claim the lack of encampments here proves the efficacy and humaneness of its homeless policy. However the April homeless clearance on 40th Street and the accompanying $13,000 boulder field raises questions not easily dismissed by a button lipped City Hall.
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| Mohamed Alaoui Emeryville's Public Works Director "No comment" he says about the boulder field. The people don't have a right to know. |
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| Welcome to Emeryville: All are Welcome Here *except homeless people |
The questions persist. Why won’t the City be forthcoming about this? Is this reflective of a new anti-homeless policy or is it the City just got caught this time? Rubicon Landscaping charged Emeryville a lot of money for this. Were there other bids to supply the boulders? Did Rubicon get a sweetheart backroom deal? Is the City hiding something here? Where did the money to pay for this come from? Were federal Covid-19 funds or other such inappropriate funds used to purchase these boulders? How are these boulders placed on our land representative of Emeryville values? The answers to these questions about the people's business will not be answered by those doing the people’s business at City Hall. But the Tattler will keep trying to shed light into this and forcing them to account.
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| This is how you spent your $13,000. Just keep paying your taxes and stop asking questions. |
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| 'No comment' from Emeryville City government earns one smiling Nora Davis |
Clearing out homeless camps is what we SHOULD be doing. Shame on Oakland and Berkeley for not clearing them OUT. They keep drifting into Emeryville because O and B.
ReplyDeleteTo say the City council was not aware and or involved is suspicious !
ReplyDeleteWHY do they meet in " close session " with NO public participation
beside they said they do not meet in person even with mask and'
distancing and all that jazz its all by Yak Yak with scant if anything
done in writing conveniently blaming the c.v. 19 and as a result the
c.v 19 will become a perpetual disease.
The City paid $ 75 K for P.H. of San Carlos, Ca. for the annihilation
of our real estate asset at 1264 Ocean Av. and dumped dirt to make
us homeless instead of having our house on the lot
The City Council was well aware of that infamy and voted for EXCEPT
Scott Donahue refusing to go along with that inhumane operation
to put an 85 yrs old on the street or on the lot on 40 th and Hollis.
Patrick Carpiaux
I guess I'd just like to ask Anonymous where they think the homeless should go?
ReplyDeleteAnywhere but here..They bring crime and they are filthy. Not welcome whatever you and Brian says.
DeleteBrilliant. Some people say that very same thing about Californians coming to their states.
DeleteBrilliant idea at a decent cost too! Just a thought, but maybe the author should investigate how many calls for service the police have on a daily basis that can be linked to the homeless. Or how many times Falck ambulances have to respond and what those ambulance rides cost for every homeless person placed on a 5150 W&I hold that they run to John George Psychiatric Pavilion. Or how many thefts are committed by the homeless and what that costs retailers and consumers. Or how many times homeless are offered help but refuse because, you know…there are rules that accompany said help. I think the answers might surprise you. But I doubt the author cares much about the real issues facing Emeryville and this state…let’s instead focus how much the city spent on rocks and where they put them.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of resources, isn't it? Maybe they should just make being poor a crime and be done with it. Then the City wouldn't have to engage in all the soul-sucking subterfuge. The lack of accountability is toxic to democracy. The Tattler: we hate Emeryville and California.
DeleteWhat do you propose be done to solve homelessness? Most of those people are not even from Emeryville, let alone California. They are attracted to CA for many reasons. If this state stopped doing things to attract and enable homeless to flourish, maybe it wouldn’t be as prevalent. Have you opened up your home to these people?
DeleteIf your refrigerator is broken, you either get it fixed or you get a new one. Same with your economic system. If it’s broken (not supplying people with housing), we should either fix it or we get a new one. Laisse-fair capitalism isn’t up to the task anymore.
DeleteLate capitalism’s growing ranks of its losers, the poor, are attracted to California because the weather is good and because the local governments (mostly, Emeryville excepted) here don’t mistreat them. Your solution, for us to mistreat them like the red states do, is revealing of a very dark and misanthropic view of humanity that most of us don’t share (thankfully). Try as hard as capitalism might to dislodge it wholesale, most people here still have held on to their humanity.
Oh, and government has a role in creating civilization. I'll leave the space program and helping homelessness that capitalism forgot, to them.
Perhaps the California government should round up all "undesirables" and dump them in nearby states. Not just the homeless, but anyone who doesn't meet certain "acceptable" criteria.
DeleteThe is a really ugly “solution” to the problem. The tone of the comments here do not reflect solutions. I’d say why not tax the crypto companies more (for their violent levels of carbon footprint) and get extra money towards homeless solutions.
DeleteThere are two ways to fix the homeless problem: one, a bandaid that retains the capitalistic economic system and one that jettisons capitalism altogether. The capitalist way is to adopt the system as exists in Scandinavia that demonstrably works fairly well. That way leads to low rates of homelessness and high rates of happiness.
DeleteThe better solution is to get rid of the capitalist system and replace it with a different way of organizing work production that enables democracy in the workplace, as in the Mondragonian model as practiced in the Basque region of Spain.
The Scandinavian economic model largely uses taxes to make the society more equitable along the lines when America (to a lesser extent) also did that after WWII up until the 1970s. The idea driving taxation metrics back then was called the ‘ability to pay’, meaning those with the greater ability to pay, paid a greater amount. It seems pretty obvious and simple but it would involve pretty much getting rid of the entire Republican Party and its acolytes. The Mondragonian model even more so.
Communism is the solution to homelessness? Pathetic. How did that go in Venezuela? Capitalism is the best and ultimate economic solution for improving EVERYBODY and all you can talk about is communism. It's f'n pathetic.
DeleteTrickle down, eh? We're still waiting for that. Meanwhile, who said anything about state ownership of the means of production (in your binary worldview)?
DeleteOne simple solution would be for a group of billionaires who understand that you can't take it with you to set up a $
Deletedistribution cooperative to be administered by young idealistic people who don't want to sell their skills to corporatocracy.
Or we could just simply force every billionaire to pay, just like how our grandparents and great grandparents knew to do, back before we let trickle down or more recent neo-fascist Republicans control the narrative.
DeleteEisenhower understood that and he wasn't afraid to call out the military-industrial complex.
ReplyDeleteHomeless people always bring out those who would tax us more. Churches and volunteer organizations can take good care of homeless people. Everything is not for the government to solve.
ReplyDeleteThen why haven't they done it?
DeleteFor the City to create such ugliness for such an ignoble purpose. A heart of darkness. I've many times been proud to be an Emervillian, but seldom been so ashamed of it.
ReplyDeleteMayor Bauters and the Council please weigh in on this. You've done such a good job, we need your help.
Brian, thank you for your coverage! -