Housing is a human right

With no proper census of the homeless population, the streets of Oakland are supposedly home to around 4000 people. Based on our own experience on the streets, this number is considerably higher. The solution the city came up with is the single number 2-1-1, where a homeless person (most of the time with no working phone) needs to call, wait for someone to answer almost 1 hour and then undergo a short interview. At the end of this interview, the person is given an expired list of resources for housing that require an internet connection in order to apply for. In other cases, the people are directed to overnight homeless shelters. Most of time, the shelters are full, or far from being fit for human living conditions.

There are, however, some working programs that rarely are able to offer temporary housing, while also providing case workers to help people into permanent housing.

We’ve been lucky to build a relationship with these programs and refer people to them. However, between the time of the referral and the intake time, several days, and sometimes weeks pass. This is where we come in, by offering emergency motel stays for our clients. Entire families, single women, disabled individuals. The street is unforgiving to everyone, but especially to those who are at their weakest.

So far we’ve helped transition over 30 people off the street this year. Each individual requires at last $400 for his/her motel stays.

Motels are expensive and our funding limited. Please contribute to the emergency hotel fund by clicking below.