Oakland’s Mayor Claims Being Homeless Isn’t a Crime — But the Laws Tell a Different Story
In a recent October 2024 interview, Democratic Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao claimed that “being unhoused is not a crime in Oakland, but it doesn’t give individuals the right to break other laws.”
She made this statement in an attempt to gain public support for dismantling a nearby homeless encampment, an action that costs taxpayers millions while costing encampment residents their freedoms and allotting them little else.
This is an exceptionally disingenuous statement because the “other laws” that Mayor Thao is referencing are the very laws that make being homeless a crime. Drafted under the banner of “quality of life,” the ordinances referred to in this speech make it illegal for homeless people to:
- Sit
- Stand
- Walk
- Sleep
- Store belongings and most other things that people have to do to survive
If you cannot legally engage in life-sustaining activities, then your mere existence is, in fact, a crime. There is no honest way to avoid saying that.
Political Smokescreens: When City Leaders Spew Hate from Behind Podiums, Everybody Pays a Price
This kind of loaded language is dangerous on many fronts. Firstly, it shifts the blame from the system that is causing homelessness to the individuals who are enduring it by making it appear as though these individuals are breaking reasonable laws as opposed to laws that make it illegal for them to set up makeshift housing in most public spaces. The insinuation that these laws do not target homeless people directly is also untrue. Housed people are not attempting to erect makeshift shelters near parks, schools, businesses, highways, or playgrounds. Homeless people are doing that because they have no other choice.
This deceptive language is convenient for city leaders alone. It is detrimental to homeless people and housed residents across the nation.
Enforcing anti-camping ordinances that most certainly do criminalize homeless people rarely leads to permanent housing situations. Even in the most optimistic instances, millions of tax dollars get spent, and perhaps a handful of people become housed. Meanwhile, the general public is led to believe that homeless people are breaking laws that are not directly related to their homelessness, which is a lie that skews public perception and encourages misinformed people to vote in favor of more laws that criminalize homelessness.
These laws do absolutely nothing to curb homelessness. In fact, the redirection of funds from affordable housing and services to law enforcement and junk removal is counterproductive and can exacerbate homelessness and cause it to increase.
Calling It Like We Don’t See It: Deceptive Speech Makes Homeless People Even Less Visible
If we can’t see homeless people as victims of a systematic failure, are we even really seeing them at all?
This kind of political rhetoric dangerously borders on dehumanization, a tactic that has long been used to vilify unsheltered residents for the systemic issues they face. In an exclusive interview with Invisible People, Senior Vice President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Sarah Saadian, weighed in on that topic, stating, “From my perspective, homelessness is a life-or-death issue. And therefore, what we’re seeing is leading to greater dehumanization of people experiencing homelessness.”
“When we dehumanize unhoused people, it results in or leads to more violence against unhoused people and more policies that seek to punish them rather than to help them,” Saadian continued. “So, there’s a deep connection between unhoused people and the harm that we’re seeing directed at them.”
“It’s a lot easier once we dehumanize somebody to pretend that there’s no solution to homelessness or to blame somebody who’s unhoused for being homeless when, in reality, we need to be leaning into the fact that we have the power to end homelessness as long as we’re all working together to scale up the solutions that work,” Saadian concluded.
Words and Actions: Deconstructing the Destruction of Homeless Encampments
These anti-camping ordinances that are used to target and imprison unsheltered homeless people are primarily useful when conducting sweeps. This refers to the act of dismantling homeless encampments, often with little or no warning and without presenting permanent solutions.
Mayor Thao’s speech was intended to rally public support behind evicting encampment residents living in makeshift shelters along Martin Luther King Jr. Way. This notorious encampment was removed shortly after, along with at least 537 others since 2021. It is estimated that about 100 unsheltered residents were removed from the area, their belongings and lives destroyed.
The sweep was hailed a massive success after just 16 of those 100 residents were transitioned to a temporary shelter. However, further investigations reveal that most of the residents who went to the shelter were back out on the streets in less than a week.
There has been no mention of anyone being permanently housed after these anti-camping ordinances were enforced against the people they were written to target – people sleeping outside in spaces unfit for human habitation because, again, being unhoused is classified as a crime in the United States of America, all the way across the board.
Homeless Encampments Are Not the Solution to Homelessness. Housing Is. Alert Your Representatives.
Dismantling homeless encampments and criminalizing people living outside or forcing them into temporary places only to roll them back out onto the streets is an expensive and ineffective approach to the raging housing crisis. However, we must remember that tent encampments are not the solution either. To truly move forward with words that matter, we must begin drafting legislation prioritizing the right to housing and services for all. Let your legislators know how you feel about this issue today.
