Longtime residents of the makeshift shelters at the sprawling Wood Street encampment have largely moved on since state and local officials razed it more than a year ago. Some ended up in tiny cabins provided by the city. A handful, like Janosko, have recently secured permanent housing with the help of nonprofits.
But many of the 200 or so regulars remain unhoused, according to Janosko. They sleep in cars, RVs and handmade dwellings erected behind a Target store up the road and other parts of West Oakland.
“The sad thing is most people on the street I came across don’t even understand,” the governor’s directive, said Janosko, 55, a chef and caterer before losing his apartment and ending up on the street for a decade. “It’s just somebody saying they’re going to make their lives even harder. It’s a hammer on the head day in and day out.”
The mallet dropped again on Thursday when the Democratic governor of the state with the nation’s largest homeless population ordered officials to begin dismantling thousands of encampments. The move came after the US Supreme Court ruled last month in favor of an Oregon city that ticketed homeless people for sleeping outside. The ruling rejected arguments that such “anti-camping” ordinances violated the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment.
“There are simply no more excuses. It’s time for everyone to do their part,” said Newsom, directing state agencies to “adopt humane and dignified policies” and “move urgently to address dangerous encampments while supporting and assisting the individuals living in them.”
Homeless advocates and some elected officials immediately voiced outrage, saying the crackdown – without providing adequate shelter and other services – would simply move people to other areas in a state where the cost of living is high and the number of shelter beds limited.
“Governor Newsom, where do you expect people to go? This is a shameful moment in California history,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the parent organization of the Housing is a Human Right initiative, accusing the governor of “criminalizing poverty” and “doubling down on failed policies.”
California has the largest homeless population in the nation, with more than 180,000 of the estimated 653,000 people experiencing homelessness nationwide residing in the Golden State, according to a 2023 report to Congress from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
An estimated 653,100 people were experiencing homelessness nationwide – a jump of around 12% since 2022, according to the report.
“A lot of my friends out there just sort of just shake their heads, like, ‘OK, well, how do I get through my next hour? How am I going to eat, you know? How am I going to get high or whatever it might be?’” Janosko said.
“It’s like, OK, I’m going to lose all my sh*t again. Nobody gives a f**k about us. You get so used to the sweeps. People are so beat down. What can they do?”
