Here's the live reporting thread of the "Abatement" policy deliberation at the Special Public Safety Committee meeting on Wednesday, September 10.
Though the deliberations were important and reported in the very long searchable thread, the video clips of homeless Oakland residents speaking on their own experience is a uniquely valuable addition to the discourse on the City's homeless policies and worth viewing at length in the twitter-thread link here. You can right click the PDF to open it as a window in your browser.
Notes, Corrections, Clarifications:
—The redline edits and feedback letter from state were characterized in the OO reporting as coming from the state's Housing and Community Development [HCD] department, but that's somewhat misleading. The intervention came from the Interagency Homelessness Council [IHC], a state body made up of the Directors and Secretaries of various California state public facing social service and emergency bodies—which includes the Director of California HCD, among other principals. The Council does supervise the HCD's grading of the competitive grants for Homelessness Housing, Assistance and Prevention [HHAP] grant under discussion, and did note that the non-compliance with IHC standards would likely mean the City and County would lose out for the first on the latest round of funding, HHAP 6. Here is the letter that the ALCO BOS sent to the Council President and Mayor earlier this week highlighting concerns about the IHC's critiques. The City of Oakland and CMs have not had direct communications with HCD about the legislation.
—Council President Jenkins pushed back to this reporter on the claim that next Tuesday afternoon's Council meeting was cancelled and rescheduled as a Monday special meeting as a way of expediting the abatement policy. Jenkins told this publication that the meeting instead had to be rescheduled because several CMs will be in Washington—and only for that reason. It should be noted, however, that in the initial Rules meeting where Houston asked for special scheduling for his policy, co-written by Jenkins' Chief of Staff Patricia Brooks, Jenkins told Houston he would be willing not only to create a special committee meeting to hear it two weeks earlier than the first Committee meeting post-Summer break, but would also schedule it to the first Council meeting using Rule 28, which would have expedited the legislation outside of the usual noticing requirements and allowed it to be heard just days after its introduction in committee. The moves are now moot, regardless, because the committee members voted to hold the legislation in committee with no date specified for re-introduction.
—Council President Jenkins also disputed his involvement with the legislation during the meeting. But there appears to have been significant involvement from Jenkins' office with the legislation. Houston called Jenkins' Chief of Staff, the "mastermind" behind the legislation, and an Instagram promo that Jenkins posted on his District account on August 18 claiming "we are working on editing the encampment management plan" suggests meaningful involvement from his office was an official message to the public. One of Jenkins' former aides when Jenkins' briefly stewarded the Mayor's office publicly stated that he was in a meeting with Jenkins and Houston in which rewriting the City's policy on vehicle encampments was discussed. All of these factors point to Jenkins' significant involvement in Houston's legislative item, despite the fact that Jenkins is not an official co-author or sponsor. Going forward, this publication will continue to highlight these elements of involvement, but without characterizing the involvement as co-authorship, as was suggested in a previous OO report.
—To clarify what is only made clear at the end of a 7 hour meeting, Houston's Abatement Legislation is being held in committee while various CMs propose amendments and they are vetted by the City Attorney's Office. It's unclear when the legislation will return to another Special Committee meeting, but it's likely to happen by the end of September or early October. Several organizations including Moms 4 Housing, POOR Magazine / Homefulness, Wood Street Commons, Black Solutions Lab, and Care 4 Community Action will rally ahead of Monday's 9am Council meeting to protest the legislative changes.
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