OAKLAND — Metropolis employees this week poured chilly water on an formidable proposal to construct a homeless shelter for as much as 1,000 folks on the positioning of a former Military base in West Oakland.
The shelter would value as a lot as $22.5 million per 12 months to function — an expenditure that may almost double what Oakland spends on homelessness in a given 12 months, Metropolis Administrator Edward Reiskin advised Metropolis Council. Even when the town had the cash for that, which Reiskin made clear isn’t the case, the positioning is contaminated with poisonous supplies and is simply too removed from any public transportation.
“Briefly, the positioning is remoted and contaminated,” he mentioned. “It’s not appropriate to accommodate susceptible residents for brief durations of time, and positively not for lengthy durations of time.”
Metropolis Council voted unanimously final month to direct employees to analysis the concept of the shelter and report again on its feasibility and projected value. Councilmember Carroll Fife, who launched the decision, argued the 22-acre parcel close to the town’s waterfront is likely one of the final massive, undeveloped items of publicly owned land within the metropolis — and one among Oakland’s final alternatives to construct one thing that would have a large-scale influence on the town’s homelessness disaster.
Oakland’s newest depend confirmed greater than 5,000 unhoused residents within the metropolis — up 24% from 2019.
Fife pushed again towards Reiskin’s characterization of the Military base website, and mentioned she is “deeply annoyed” with how slowly the town is transferring to deal with homelessness.
“I take challenge with how issues are being framed, as a result of we have now a disaster proper now and I don’t see any shelters being constructed,” she mentioned. “I don’t see any housing being constructed.”
However Reiskin advised Metropolis Council that the positioning is simply too contaminated for residential use, with unsafe ranges of poisons together with kerosine, arsenic and diesel within the floor water and soil. Getting a waiver from the state to permit them to construct there anyway might take as much as two years, he mentioned. And in the event that they have been profitable, the town would then should pay to wash up the toxins.
Fife mentioned she would by no means counsel anybody transfer right into a dwelling scenario that she wouldn’t really feel comfy dwelling in herself. However she mentioned she’s talked to environmentalists and different professionals who've advised it could be attainable to wash the positioning and make it liveable.
Metropolis Council first directed employees to arrange a homeless shelter on the Military base in 2020, however by no means allotted funding to the venture. It could value greater than $5 million to show the land right into a protected RV parking website, plus $18 million per 12 months to function this system, Reiskin mentioned.
Working cabins or tiny properties on the positioning for 1,000 folks would value much more — $22.5 million per 12 months.
“Evidently, we don’t have funds to do any of that,” Reiskin mentioned.
This 12 months, Oakland has allotted a complete of $28.8 million for all of its interim housing applications for homeless residents.
Reiskin additionally fearful concerning the dimension of the proposed shelter on the Military base, which might be bigger than any homeless intervention Oakland has tried up to now.
“We've important issues about our capability…to have the ability to help, handle, keep a protected, safe, well-functioning website with that many individuals,” he mentioned. “It’s greater than 10 instances bigger, I consider, than something we’ve performed earlier than, and we might have important issues about that.”