Oakland to Consider 1,000-Room Homeless Shelter

“Oakland will look into opening a massive homeless shelter for up to 1,000 people on the former army base,” reports Sarah Ravani for the San Francisco Chronicle.

“The Oakland City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to direct the city to study whether it can house up to 1,000 unsheltered people at a 22-acre site that would become the city’s largest shelter,” adds Ravani.

According to public officials quoted in the article, the city is looking for new resources for an increasing number of people experiencing homelessness—the city had a pre-existing shortage of shelter beds and supportive housing even before the pandemic increased the number of people experiencing homelessness on the city’s streets.

“In the last official count in 2019, the city recorded more than 4,000 homeless people living on the streets and saw the largest increase of any city in the Bay Area,” explains Ravani.

In addition to the political opposition a shelter of this size might expect to encounter on its way to approval, the final project will face several large approval hurdles. The property is deed restricted to prohibit residential use without approval from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and the city-owned site would also require some environmental remediation.