End of an Era: Last Remaining Unhoused Residents at Oakland's Wood Street Commons Getting Evicted

Around 60 people living in RVs and trailers at the Wood Street Commons — a settlement of unhoused people in West Oakland — will soon have to leave. The city plans to begin evictions April 10.

Many residents, some of whom have lived there for more than a decade, described it as a profound loss for Oakland’s unhoused community. Residents at the Commons have built the space into a resource hub, complete with a communal kitchen, outdoor meeting areas, a free store and storage facilities, among other amenities.

“I'm afraid of what's going to happen to people if we're not here to provide this sanctuary,” said Masoud Saberi, one of the Commons’ earliest residents.

After losing his home to foreclosure a decade ago, he found himself living in his car in North Oakland, and later moved to the vacant, city-owned plot of land across from Raimondi Park at 1707 Wood Street, where the Commons is now. He helped build a community there.

“I'm thinking back to when I was lost, and when I was looking for that foundation, that comfort,” he said, choking back tears. “I was lucky enough to experience it. So, I pray it's not lost.”

The Commons is the last remaining vestige of the much larger Wood Street settlement, which, until last year, was home to around 300 people. It stretched for more than a mile under Interstate 880 on land owned by Caltrans, BNSF railway, private individuals and the city of Oakland. In September, Caltrans evicted residents from the land it owns, citing safety concerns, after a fire on July 11 sent plumes of black smoke onto the freeway above, stopping traffic.

The Commons was spared because it sits on city-owned land. But residents knew their days there were limited. City officials have long planned to build 171 affordable for-sale and rental housing units at 1707 Wood Street.

The city purchased the lot in 2007 as part of a larger redevelopment that authorized around 1,500 new homes and apartments in the surrounding area. The 2008 foreclosure crisis slowed the city’s plans to build affordable housing there, and it wasn’t until 2018 that officials entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement with a developer for the lot.

Then, last year, the city secured two grants from the state, totaling $8.3 million, to relocate residents of the Commons to a new temporary shelter a few blocks away. The site, which will ultimately consist of 70 "tuff sheds," opened in February. City officials have also said residents are being offered spots at a safe RV parking site in East Oakland.

But many residents said they didn’t want to live in East Oakland, so far from the community they’ve built at the Commons.

“People here have already been pushed out of so many other places,” said Lydia Blumberg, a resident of the Commons. “It's given us a common kind of passion for community and being part of community.”

Other residents expressed concern about going into the tuff sheds, where typical stays are limited to no more than six months. An audit last year of the city’s homelessness services found fewer than a third of the people who went into these tuff sheds got into permanent housing. The majority remained unhoused.

And, going into the tuff sheds means giving up the one stable home many of the residents have come to rely on — their RVs and trailers.

“I could be kicked out, back on the street with a tent,” said Ramona Choyce, who’s lived at Wood Street for around six years. “If I got my trailer, then I’ll be sheltered. I don’t know if they understand that clearly, but it’s important because I hate the cold.”

Choyce said that doesn’t mean she would turn down permanent housing; it’s the uncertainty she fears. And, it’s a big reason people don’t want to leave the Commons — they’ve found stability there.

“We need stability,” said John Janosko, a resident of the Commons and one of its leaders. “Once you get stability, then you get everything else that comes along with it.”

It took residents here a decade to build that stability, he said.

“They're destroying something that took so long [to build],” Janosko said. “All this stuff — these resources, these connections, these people, this caring, this love — that took time.”