The Housing Crisis In Oakland
By: Rene Ramirez
Tags: Housing, News, Oakland, Crisis

Eng 214

Housing Crisis In Oakland

By Rene Ramirez

San Francisco State University

There are questions that arise when you think about the topic of “The Housing Crisis in Oakland” But a couple of questions that came up when I was researching this topic were: What caused the housing crisis in Oakland? How does the Housing Crisis in Oakland affect the people of color in West and East Oakland? And are there any Health Problems that are caused by the stress of being displaced or being homeless because of the Housing Crisis? These 3 are the questions that I focused on when I was researching, I wanted to get answers to why this problem was even happening and what causes it. But also to see and look at who is affected by this problem and what health problems are caused by the Housing Crisis. I was able to get answers for all of them but it also raises more questions for me to research, Who is causing this problem ? and why?. In this essay I am going to be explaining how the housing crisis even got this bad in the first place and why it affects mostly people of color in low income neighborhoods. I want to make it clear that my topic is The Housing Crisis in Oakland, And to fully gather as much information that I can, I have to compare and contrast other problems and how they relate to one another, That is why I am looking at how the Housing Crisis even began.

First we have to look at some of the history behind this crisis and overall look at why it has started. Oakland has had lower home and rent prices than San Francisco and Berkeley. But now, high prices and low vacancy rates in those cities are encouraging higher-income households to move into Oakland, driving up the cost of real estate and forcing longtime residents out of their neighborhoods.” Pretty much showing that compared to today in 2020 and back then in 2000. The Housing Crisis has been a crisis for a long time. One area, overall changed the face of Oakland and the bay area overall, That area is the silicon valley. You may ask how silicon valley plays a part in changing the bay area. Well, with the huge rise and boom of tech corporations like apple and google having their main development and headquarters in the silicon valley, A rise and boom of workers looking for a new home also comes with it. Investors and home-owners alike know about this boom going on and as any owner or investor would, They would want to make more money, But how do they go about doing this? An author Jean Tepperman explains that, “Whether flipping or renting, the new owners have put a higher sometimes much higher price tag on living in traditionally low-cost West and East Oakland, home to large black and Latino populations. And the investors have found eager renters and buyers streaming across the bay as housing costs in San Francisco continue to soar. The result, said Steve King, a researcher for the nonprofit Urban Strategies Council, is “wholesale neighborhood change.” Overall, It’s the large scale investors that are the ones who are raising the prices for these homes and are causing and forcing people to leave and move out.” Overall, these investors have taken advantage of the low income communities to make a quick buck to a person who isn’t from the neighborhood. This is where we introduce the term “Gentrification” a term that means “the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.” Although that is what is causing the housing crisis, We are not here to learn and talk about gentrification and the process of it. We are here to humanize and remember that people are a part of this in a bad way. It is always seen back in history that the areas with mostly people of color usually get taken advantage of and this isn’t just in Oakland, There are many other cities around the United states that are going through this same crisis and change. But history repeats itself, We’ve seen this in the past and there is nothing else to do but try to fight it.

Another cause of the housing crisis that has been stirring in the pot for a long time has been this thing called “Gentrification”. It has really taken a toll on the whole Bay Area as a whole but has affected the city of Oakland more than ever. For those who haven’t heard of this term. Let me explain. Gentrification is a complicated issue. Taking a rundown house and making it nice isn’t inherently bad. What we struggle with is, what should we do as a society to provide reasonable housing options for renters who get priced out of their neighborhoods? When the area gentrifies, rents that were now $800/may jump up to $1,000, then to, $1200, eventually $1500/mo, pushing out renters who work various jobs in the area. These are the people who nobody really cares about during the gentrification process. Once these neighborhoods have $500,000 houses in them, the community and investors stop thinking about the guy paying $800/month because they can make more money servicing wealthier people to purchase or rent out these properties. I myself have had family move out because of this. They were forced to find a new home because the original home owner raised the rent on them. At the end of the day the Owner also needs to make money so when he sees other home owners around him also raising the rent its pretty much expected for him or her to do the same as well. It’s a sad reality that we as renters just have to deal with. There’s really nothing we can do unless we get some laws passed but even that is a process. But with gentrification comes with racial formations and dispossession. And authors McElroy, Erin and Werth, Alex explain how racial formations and dispossession come with gentrification and they state, “in cities like Oakland, longstanding racial formations and dispossessions are alive and well, making it vital to refuse comparisons that flatten Thinking urban displacement from Oakland this necessitates approaching spatial politics from within a global geography of race and empire in which the location of praxis is just as much a matter of one’s coordinates within the structures of coloniality as cartography (Mignolo [48]). And this means divesting from deracinated accounts of the

In conclusion, The Housing crisis is nothing new in terms of what we have seen in the past, Except this one is even harder to get through with the rise in rent all across Oakland and the Bay Area. With this rise comes with great struggle. From dealing with homelessness to stress and anxiety, This is the hardest thing some people have had to go through when it comes to displacement and trying to find a home for themselves or for their kids and family. We do see people chiming in and wanting to help with the city council even pitching in to help those that are being displaced due to the Housing Crisis. People are getting tired, Anxious, and Impatient so I guess the real question I want to end off on. Will we see a change in the future or will this become an ongoing crisis for generations to further deal with in Oakland and across the United States for years to come. It will probably be a long time before we see any type of change knowing how long it takes to pass laws. There have been propositions and protests but it seems as if nothing is working but that’s where the government and city officials and homeowners want us. They want us to stop caring so they can keep making money while another person gets thrown into homelessness because of the raise of rent and gentrification. If this keeps going on Oakland won’t be Oakland anymore which is something that I don’t want to see.

(Larry, Taylor 2000) “Easing Oakland’s Housing Crisis” Post, May 10, 2000, Vol.36(91), p.4 https://search-proquest-com.jp…

\(Rachel, Swan 2016) “Public Health Problems in Oakland linked to the Housing Crisis” https://www.cityofberkeley.inf…

(NA 2018) “Housing Oakland’s Unhoused: Connecting Yesterday’s Racist Housing Covenants to Today’s Homeless Crisis” Oakland Post, Nov 14-Nov 20, 2018, Vol.55(21), p.10 https://search-proquest-com.jp…

(Dennis Tanya 2018) “Oakland’s Housing Crisis Outpacing Solutions” Oakland Post, Jun 6-Jun 12, 2018, Vol.54(50), p.1 https://search-proquest-com.jp…

https://sfstate-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/153kjhr/TN_cdi_gale_infotracacademiconefile_A583941301

https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Proposition?number=21&year=2020