Activism

Oakland Group Seeks to Aid Pregnant Residents After Encampment Closure

According to residents and advocates present during the closure of the encampment on April 7, city public works staff and Oakland Police Department officers arrived around 9 a.m., asked residents to leave, and did not offer alternative shelter options. OPD confirmed one officer and two public service technicians were present. In the days before the closure, about 20 residents had lived in the area, mostly in RVs and trailers. The city posted pink signs informing residents of the closure several days before it occurred. While most residents left the encampment, a few remained.

Published

2 years ago

April 29, 2022

Zack Haber

Teela Hardy's RV sitting near 106 Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard in East Oakland on April 7, the morning she had to have it towed due to an encampment clearance. Photo by Zack Haber.

By Zack Haber

A recent closure of a homeless encampment near the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and 106th Avenue has prompted Homies Empowerment, an East Oakland-based grassroots organization, to call attention to and organize for improving the living conditions of two displaced pregnant women that lived in the encampment.

“We’re looking for a house to rent for them now,” said Rev. Harry Louis Williams II, an activist, author, and hip-hop artist who works as a Care Manager with Homies Empowerment. “Our long-term goal for these women is to get them into an affordable place to live. We don’t want their children to be like baby Jesus in the manger.”

After the closure, Homies Empowerment put the two women up in a hotel room. They want help from the community to house them and are encouraging those who have the means to offer aid to contact the organization.

“Sometimes people say things are bad, and they wish they could do something,” said Williams. “Well, this is a way to do something. This is urgent and we’re not sitting around and waiting for a grant.”

Two of those who remained were Teela Hardy and Tanya Andrade. Hardy had been working as a receptionist for a law firm but became homeless after she was laid off. Andrade said she was let go from her service industry job soon after she became pregnant. While she says she technically has access to her former home, it’s uninhabitable.

“I can’t stand my house because it’s full of mold,” said Andrade. “Living there is unsafe because I’m pregnant, and I have asthma.”

Both Hardy and Andrade are about seven months pregnant and had lived in RVs that no longer run but still provided them with shelter. In the days leading up to the closure, it was difficult to move their inoperable RVs and they did not expect the city to follow through with the eviction.

“They gave us a warning,” said Hardy. “But they’ve given us warnings before and not gone through with their word.”

According to Hardy, the City of Oakland had posted signs three separate times this year telling residents they planned to close the encampment on specific dates, but those dates came and passed without any closure enforcement. The Oakland Post emailed Oakland’s director of communications multiple times over three days seeking comments on this story. But the city ultimately did not provide comments before this story’s deadline.

Hardy and Andrade were able to keep their RVs after friends helped tow them to another location, but the women said they lost other possessions during the closure. For Hardy, the most important thing she lost was her car she had been using to do odd jobs and run errands, including getting to doctor’s appointments. According to Hardy, it was impounded because, although she had been trying to get it registered, she hadn’t yet been able to do so.

“It’s just hard,” Hardy said. “They didn’t give me a bus pass or anything, and I know I’m not going to be able to do the things I need to do in the amount of time I need to do them now that I don’t have a car.”

According to Williams of Homies Empowerment, the organization became aware of the closure because they have recently started renting land from the city that sits at 10451 MacArthur Blvd., which is next to where the encampment had been. Hardy said the organization had allowed her to use the land for her dogs to play and that she and Andrade, in turn, had helped to clean up the parcel. Homies Empowerment plans to use the land to set up a small community farm.

A statement on Homies Empowerment’s website says the organization “works alongside our community towards a world absent of whiteness, capitalism, and heteropatriarchy.” The organization started about 12 years ago to help quell gang violence and also address the city’s gang injunctions, which Homies Empowerment saw as harmful. They started a program called Loaves and Fishes during the pandemic, which is still in operation, that feeds East Oakland residents in need of food, including people experiencing homelessness. Williams says the organization offers “solidarity not charity.”

“We shared with the people in the encampment,” Williams said. “They became family. They were welcomed to eat with us.” The encampment closure “shocked and dismayed” members of Homies Empowerment and left them “disheartened.”

Hardy and Andrade said they suspected the city enforced the closure due to the encampment becoming messy. They also said the city provided no toilets, rarely offered trash pickup services, and that sometimes housed private citizens and businesses would dump trash in their encampment instead of disposing of their trash properly.

Williams feels the city is doing “all kinds of things to displace people,” while “people just want to live.” While the city slowed down closures of homeless encampments immediately following the initial COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, by 2021 encampment closures returned with over four occurring per month between January and August of that year. In 2022, several closures have been occurring per week.

Recently, Council Member Noel Gallo proposed an ordinance to the city’s public works committee that would explicitly ban RVs and trailers from streets that are 40 feet wide or narrower. The committee is scheduled to consider the ordinance on May 24. If the ordinance is put to vote and approved by the City Council as it is currently written, it would ban people from living in RVs on about 79% of Oakland’s streets.

“I love Oakland,” said Williams. “But I think Oakland could do more to show loving care to people who are experiencing these problems. If the leadership of the city could come work with us, we could avoid homelessness.”

Homies Empowerment currently sees Oakland’s community as the best avenue to help Hardy and Andrade.

“I am hopeful,” said Williams. “There’s a lot of fire in Oakland’s belly from just regular working people who are saying we want to feed and house people. I think enough people just need to come together and change will come.”

Zack Haber

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Activism

Lend A Hand Foundation Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Lend A Hand Foundation Celebrates 25th Anniversary at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland. On stage: KTVU Fox 2 Broadcasters Roberta Gonzales and Dave ClarkDance-A-Vision Founder, Carla Service, Vice Mayor Kimberly Mayfield-Lynch, California State Assemblymember Mia Bonta and Lend A Hand Foundation Executive Director Dee Johnson with the Dance-A-Vision Dancers. Photo By Carla Thomas

Published

4 days ago

May 18, 2024

Oakland Post

Lend A Hand Foundation Celebrates 25th Anniversary at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland. On stage: KTVU Fox 2 Broadcasters Roberta Gonzales and Dave ClarkDance-A-Vision Founder, Carla Service, Vice Mayor Kimberly Mayfield-Lynch, California State Assemlbymember Mia Bonta and Lend A Hand Foundation Executive Director Dee Johnson with the Dance-A-Vision Dancers. Photo By Carla Thomas

By Carla Thomas

The Lend A Hand Foundation (LAHF) celebrated the 25th anniversary of the organization’s Stay In School Program on May 9 at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland.

Themed “Together We Can Empower Our Youth to Stay in School,” the event featured a pre-event reception featuring Oakland’s Kev Choice Ensemble.

The ensemble featured Oakland School for the Arts student, Ayo Brame, a 16-year-old, up-and-coming tenor saxophone jazz musician. The master and mistress of ceremonies were local broadcasters Dave Clark and Roberta Gonzales of KTVU Fox 2. Clark’s wife, Lucretia also supported the program.

A special appearance featured Dwayne Wiggins of Tony! Toni! Toné! on guitar, performing the group’s hit song “Anniversary” as guests dined on salmon, chicken, beef and vegetarian entrees prepared by the Food Network “Chopped” Champion, Chef Rashad Armstead of Oakland. California State Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Oakland) provided the keynote address and the Carla Service Dance-A-Vision youth dancers energetically performed a hip hop routine throughout the audience in white leotards as attendees clapped along. An auction led by Auctioneer Franco Finn assisted in raising funds for the organization with prizes that included a luxury resort vacation and other items.

LAHF presented District 5 Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson and District 4 Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley with Lifetime Supporter Awards. LAHF presented the Trailblazer Award to Guy Richardson of Ernst and Young; Dante Green of Kaiser Permanente; Antioch Attorney Gordon Greenwood of the Kazan McClain Partner’s Foundation; and Sarah Yoell of PG&E.

Oakland Unified School District Superintendent, Dr. Kyla Trammel Johnson acknowledged LAHF’s impact.

“Each year, LAHF gives backpacks and school supplies to thousands of students across Oakland,” said Johnson. “In 2022 the effort topped 25,000 students. No matter the need, big or small, involving lots of students or just one, Lend A Hand is always there ready to make a difference in the lives of our young people.”

Founder and executive director of LAHF Dee Johnson took the stage as the DJ played the Sledge Sisters’ “We Are Family.”

Guests gave Johnson a standing ovation as she thanked supporters and presented many of them with gifts.

“It’s heartbreaking to know some children don’t have clothes or supplies for school,” said Johnson. “The babies really need our support and when we deliver supplies to them, it makes them really happy.”

Since the LAHF Annual Stay in School Program began in 1999, it has provided over 150,000 educational school supply kits to students throughout Alameda County, including Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, and San Leandro, among other cities.

“This past August, we provided for over 12,000 students with supplies, with the help and support of our very generous donors,” said Johnson. “This year, we aim to do all we can to match that amount or provide even more.”

For more information visit: www.LendaHandFoundation.org

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Activism

Chef Cleaz and Mistah F.A.B. Host “You Still Have A Son” Mother’s Day Dinner

Oakland Chef Cleaz and Bay Area rapper, author Stanley Cox, aka Mistah F.A.B., hosted a Mother’s Day dinner on Monday, May 13, at Pierre Pierre, a restaurant in the Tribune building in downtown Oakland. The restaurant was decorated with balloons and flowers for the event, and each mother received a bouquet of red roses.

Published

4 days ago

May 18, 2024

Oakland Post

Chef Cleaz, owner of Pierre Pierre Restaurant, and rapper and author Mistah F.A.B. announce special event "You Still Have Son" Mother's Day dinner. Photo Courtesy KTVU Channel 2.

By Carla Thomas

The restaurant was decorated with balloons and flowers for the event, and each mother received a bouquet of red roses.

Organized for mothers who have lost their children, for mothers in need of extra love on Mother’s Day, the event gave the hosts an opportunity to remember their own mothers while doing something special for over 100 mothers in the community.

Both men recounted the deep sense of grief they faced in the loss of their mothers and recognized the many mothers who have outlived their children.

“We were in my restaurant, and F.A.B. was having dinner and said he wanted to do something special but wasn’t sure what it would look like,” said Chef Cleaz. “We continued to brainstorm, and at first F.A.B. wanted to come up with ways to bring more business to my new restaurant and serve the community. But days later, F.A.B. came up with the idea for mothers.”

“In these tough times. we know life can get you down'” explained F.A.B. “And expect to lose a parent, but a parent should not lose their child, and with Mother’s Day around the corner, we decided to show moms in need of something special and extra love.”

F.A.B. also knew that Chef Cleaz had recently lost his mother, which made the idea even more appropriate to them.

So, the day after Mother’s Day, F.A.B. and Cleaz hosted “You Still Have A Son, Momma” at Pierre Pierre.

“We wanted moms to still feel appreciated under the covenant of family and love,” said F.A.B.

“I remember my mother being my rock,” said Cleaz. “My mom played a very important part in my life, and not having her anymore gave me the impetus to do something in her honor. She gave me a lot in her lifetime. F.A.B. offered to pay for the entire event, but I said, let’s collaborate.”

“My mom was my best friend, and on Mother’s Day I cry and listen to music so I can get the tears out. But I’m happy because I’m living my purpose, continuing to evolve as a man and father to Liberty and Legacy and continue making my mom proud.”

Initially, Cleaz and F.A.B. planned for 50 to 75 guests, but after they advertised the event via social media posts, the RSVP’s kept rolling in. At last count,120 mothers responded.

F.A.B. said he did not plan on turning anybody away if there were more guests. “If they’re coming, there is a void of love that they are coming for,” he said. Chef Cleaz’s staff donated their time, and entertainer Dyson the Voice brought his band and sang all night.

“We wanted to see all the beautiful women out there,” said F.A.B. “We wanted to see lots of beautiful smiles, faces, and we want the mothers to feel appreciated.”

F.A.B. said his sister Theresa lost her son and that he knows at a very personal level how deep the loss of a child is through her. “You never really get over the loss, you deal with it. You try to make life better for those around you.”

Pierre Pierre is located at 401 13th St. Owner Chef Cleaz is a renowned celebrity chef from the vibrant culinary scene of San Francisco. Born from humble beginnings, he has forged an extraordinary path to culinary stardom, exemplifying Black excellence with each delectable dish he creates.

A dedicated father and loving husband, his commitment to family values extends far beyond his home, as he tirelessly helps anyone he sees in need.

Chef Cleaz has built an empire rooted in his passion for food and a deep respect for cultural heritage. His vision is to establish a sanctuary of culinary artistry, where creole and soul food recipes take center stage. He aims to create a space that the community can proudly call its own, a place where shared meals become moments of togetherness and cultural celebration.

Through his culinary creations, he invites visitors to savor not just his delectable dishes but also the history, traditions, and stories that infuse every plate.

F.A.B. is an American songwriter, entrepreneur, community organizer, and activist whose music career began in the late 1990s when he was discovered by Jazzy Jim and Gary Archer. He was featured on a number of Mac Dre’s Thizz Nation mixtape compilations and quickly gained prominence in the San Francisco Bay Area Hyphy Movement.

F.A.B. is the owner of D.O.P.E. clothing store and other businesses. He is known for hosting community block parties, school supply giveaways, and holiday parties for the underserved. He also created Thug Therapy, a movement for men to receive mental health support, which inspired the work of another community organizer, the late Shantell Herndon, creator of FLY Girl Therapy and Healing Circles.