Residents at Peralta Park — which the city plans to landscape — said they hope they’ll get a chance to move indoors.
by Natalie Orenstein March 25, 2025 (Oaklandside.com)
City work crews plan to spend the entire month of April removing all of the homeless camps around Lake Merritt.
Bright pink notices went up last week on telephone polls, declaring “all parks, city assets and walkways” around the lake uninhabitable and ordering people living in tents and cars there to leave.
Some of the camp closures, at Peralta Park on either side of the Lake Merritt Channel, were scheduled in anticipation of a fencing and tree-planting project, according to the city. The entire park will be closed until the fall, said Oakland spokesperson Jean Walsh.
The work is required by regional and state water quality agencies, Walsh said in an email. “This…project protects water quality, improves habitat for wildlife and provides enhanced opportunities for active and passive recreational activities.”The Lake Merritt Channel connects the lake to the Oakland estuary and the San Francisco Bay.
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There are 15-20 people living in tents along the channel, under the Lake Merritt Boulevard overpass and further out. Some have been there for multiple years. Outreach workers are offering the residents services and shelter at city programs, including the St. Vincent de Paul group shelter in West Oakland and the Community Cabins tiny homes, Walsh said.
She could not provide information on how many days they’ll be offered at St. Vincent, a drop-in shelter that does not usually guarantee long-term residences.
Around noon on Tuesday, a few of the Peralta Park residents were sitting on couches by their tents, eating sandwiches dropped off by volunteers.
“It was fine, then all of a sudden it’s ‘we can’t be here anymore,’” said Trevonne Moore, who’s been unhoused and living by the lake for about a year.
Moore said that, counter to some assumptions from housed residents, he’s eager to accept any shelter the city offers him. But hardly anyone except occasional healthcare workers comes by, he said.
“I would go to a tiny home — it’s better than being outside,” said Moore. “Even if it’s a hotel room, it’s something. I just really hope they have the resources for us.”
Wherever he goes, it’ll have to be somewhere that can also house his dog Snow, a husky who’s been his loyal companion through a tumultuous year. On Tuesday, she was napping on the concrete underpass as the unseasonable temperature climbed toward 80 degrees.
When homeless people are made to leave their homes and reestablish somewhere else, it “sucks” for everyone, Moore said, since they often end up moving somewhere more public and visible.
Getting moved around “really fucks you up” mentally, said Annette Bussey, who’s lived at Peralta Park for three years. At 61, change is not easy, Bussey said, but she’s resigned to go along with what’s coming in April.
“I just do whatever they tell you to do, or you get in trouble,” Bussey said. Jail, she said, which some unhoused residents often cycle through, “is not an answer.”
Along with closing off Peralta Park, the city plans to clear the many other tents and vehicle residences around the lake.
Some housed neighbors and park visitors were pleased to see the pink notices go up.
“Hallelujah!” wrote Steve Heimoff, whose Coalition for a Better Oakland group has long pushed the city to take a more aggressive stance against homeless people. Writing in his newsletter, Heimoff said that encampments have led to a deterioration of conditions at Lakeside Park, on the opposite end from Peralta. He said he knows many neighbors who’ve repeatedly called city officials, asking them to clean up the area.
At Peralta Park, some cyclists have criticized both the city’s fencing plans and its allowance of encampments for obstructing bike and pedestrian commuter paths there.
An estimated 5,485 people lack permanent housing in Oakland, a majority previously housed in the city or elsewhere in Alameda County. There are thousands fewer shelter beds available in the city than there are homeless residents. And last week, Oakland announced that two prominent shelters in West Oakland will close at the end of June.
Oakland’s Encampment Management Policy, the city’s rules for how it deals with camps, declares most public space off-limits to habitation. But the policy requires the city to offer shelter to residents before clearing their encampments.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Grants Pass case found that it constitutional for local governments to ban camping — and to penalize people who violate those laws — regardless of whether there’s other shelter available. Some Bay Area cities have responded to the ruling with more aggressive sweeps and new anti-homeless laws. It remains to be seen whether the City Council will update Oakland’s encampment policy in response, loosening the shelter requirement. Already many homeless people criticize the type of shelter that Oakland offers.
Another recent ordinance permits city crews to establish “safe work zones” around encampments during closures, arresting anyone — residents, their advocates or journalists — who violate orders to stay out. However, it’s likely that April’s operation — encompassing the entirety of Lake Merritt and all the city infrastructure surrounding it — will demand a different approach.
NATALIE ORENSTEIN
Natalie Orenstein is a senior reporter covering City Hall, housing and homelessness for The Oaklandside. Her reporting on a flood of eviction cases following the end of the Alameda County pandemic moratorium won recognition from the Society of Professional Reporters NorCal in 2024. Natalie was previously on staff at Berkeleyside, where she covered education, including extensive, award-winning reporting on the legacy of school desegregation in Berkeley Unified. Natalie lives in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley, and has only left her beloved East Bay once, to attend Pomona College.More by Natalie Orenstein
