Homelessness
Advocates worked Tuesday to weatherproof recreational vehicles at an encampment in Richmond in preparation for heavy rainfall this week. Two Bay Area advocacy organizations — NeighborAid and Safe Organized Spaces! Richmond — spent the afternoon at Castro and Hensley streets, sealing cracks to protect as many of the nearly 30 parked vehicles there as they could. Richmond City Council has debated how to better serve the many people living in vehicles. In January 2020, 1,750 people in Richmond were without…
FILE PHOTO: An RV resident and her dog on North Castro Street in Richmond.
Richmond City Council on Tuesday bowed to pressure from residents in the Hilltop area, selecting the Civic Center instead of the larger mall lot for a safe parking pilot program.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Richmond City Council is expected to revisit a plan it favored earlier this month to establish a pilot safe parking program at Hilltop Mall for people without housing.
It was a warm day in August when Gloria Schroeder received a panicked call from her roommate that they were being evicted. She had barely arrived for work after dropping off her 8-month-old daughter, Davina, at daycare. The 22-year-old relied on public transport to get everywhere. Once she got closer to the house, she saw police outside. They told her she had five minutes to pack what she could and leave. If she didn’t, they would arrest her. Panic and…
In Richmond, which has the highest number of shelter beds and the highest number of unhoused individuals in the county, officials leased the Courtyard by Marriott and a second hotel. GRIP is managing the people staying at the Marriott.
But state funding for Homekey is set to end on Dec. 30
While advocates in Richmond are working to establish a city-sanctioned parking location with electricity, water and sewage access, issues at existing encampments are growing as more and more people move in.
“Four,” came the shout as another car filed into Richmond Police Activities League’s parking lot on September 22. This was passed down the line to a platoon of volunteers who rushed to assemble four food bundles as the car approached. Every Tuesday and Thursday since early September, thousands of these bundles, prepared by a variety of Oakland restaurants, are distributed to pedestrians and motorists – no questions asked. “The first time, we handed out 500 meals. Then it was 750….
Richmond is notorious for illegal dumping and litter, a decades-long problem driven by private and commercial interests looking for places to offload their trash for free. A group of unhoused people are working to tackle the problem while creating better living spaces at local encampments.