Live From Wood Street: What’s Next for Oakland’s Unhoused After Northern California’s Largest Encampment Closed?

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Until recently Wood Street in West Oakland was the site of the largest homeless encampment in Northern California. To launch our new series on homelessness in the Bay Area, Forum broadcasts live from Wood Street. We’ll talk with people who lived in the encampment before it was cleared by the city in April, and with city and county officials, about alternatives to encampments for unhoused people and Oakland’s strategy for addressing the homelessness crisis. Guests: Erin Baldassari, housing affordability reporter, KQED LaTonda Simmons, interim homeless administrator, city of Oakland Lucy Kasdin, director, Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless Moose, former resident, Wood Street encampment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for Key QBD Podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport. At SFO, you can shop,
0:06.7	dine, and unwind before your flight. Go ahead, treat yourself. Learn more about SFO restaurants and
0:12.7	shops at flysfo.com. Support for forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a true story.
0:23.4	From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:29.6	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an
0:35.3	unspeakable crime, it propels them into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and devotion.
0:43.4	The riveting and gloriously hopeful parade plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th.
0:51.7	Tickets on sale now at Broadwaysf.com.
0:56.6	From KQD in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. Today, as you can probably already hear,
1:16.6	is an unusual show. We're joining you live from Wood Street near the former site of the largest
1:21.5	homeless encampment in Northern California. Until April, the Wood Street encampment provided
1:26.2	some stability and community to hundreds of unhoused residents,
1:29.3	then after a lengthy battle in the courts the camp was cleared by Caltrans and the city.
1:34.3	So what happens now?
1:36.3	The encampment may be gone, but the people still need help and the opportunities and structural problems remain.
1:40.3	We'll talk with former encampment residents and government officials about the lessons they've learned trying to help people better their situations amidst widespread anger but street homelessness.
1:50.0	We'll be live from Wood former site of the largest homeless encampment in Northern California off Wood Street in West Oakland, right up against the infrastructure of the Industrial East Bay, as I'm sure you can hear all around me. We were supposed to be joined by former residents of Wood Street, but just a couple minutes ago,
2:22.3	we got into a dispute over the structure of the show, and they walked.
2:27.3	So that's what happened. It's unfortunate. We're going ahead with the show with our other guests.
2:32.3	The encampments that unhoused residents of our cities have built are one of the most controversial topics in local life.
2:40.0	Talking with people out there, people say to me, why do people want to live there?
2:44.0	Is the government not offering people shelter or are people not taking it?
	...

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