seven years in prison if convicted After months of delays and legal battles. Eviction day is here. The city of Oakland is clearing out the sprawling wood street homeless encampment so the city can make way for a new, affordable housing project at that site Abuse Brooks Jarocz Joining us now live from our newsroom and Brooks as expected , city workers and police officers were met with resistance to today's sweep. And to break it down Alex COVID winter storms and a lack of shelter space delayed this eviction from happening for months and months.
Just hours ago, we saw a group of very vocal on house residents and advocates yelling and city officials because they're unhappy. The city hasn't provided a permanent place for wood Street residents to call home. Each day one for city crews clearing, cleaning and closing Oakland's largest homeless encampment. Com. It's gonna be okay. Some would. Street residents were already kicked off of state property months ago. Now the city plans to remove everything and everyone from this area over the next two weeks tends to accomplish very important goals . First would be the transition the house into available shelter and to convey the property over to developers for the development of 170. Permanently affordable housing units that housing is still a long way off . City officials say. There's enough shelter space for the 70 plus people still here on Wood Street, but many are refusing to leave. They can't get rid of us were dug in like ticks were part of the spine of the tree of Oakland. And we're very deeply invested in our neighborhood fees.
One has already started. Scooping up trash cleaning up the streets and sidewalks and hauling off stolen and dumped cars and trucks. Evictions will be next. I hope they just take time and poses and just don't bulldoze everybody out like that. These large scale in camp mint sweeps have been a point of contention and left the encampment in legal limbo for years. I don't like to stress it's bringing to my neighbors and friends and family here. City officials say they're pushing transitional housing for took up the offer.
Today We will continue that outreach to ensure that we are engaged with everyone, providing them the opportunity to accept city shelter and shelter and other city programs. Advocates argue the city shelters missed. The mark is a solution. Those are what they call glorified prisons. They're they're inadequate to meet the needs. The basic human needs The basic human rights of a person, creating a cat and mouse game with some unhappy housed, planning to relocate to another encampment as Oakland tries to get a handle on a housing crisis. The city opened a new 100 bed community cabin site A couple of months ago, It was funded by an $8.3 million grant from the state. There's also a new safe RV site for up to 100, RVs and 66th Avenue advocates say it's not a permanent solution for now live in the newsroom. Brooks Jarocz KTVU Fox two news. I heard one of the demonstrators there in your piece, saying that this city shelters in Oakland are not adequate.
What what are they lacking? One of the things that they lack is water and electricity. Some people there say that's not a permanent place . That's just something like a tough shed. But the city has said before that these are supposed to be transitional housing programs, something to get them into more permanent housing, of course, will have to wait and see what that sort of housing may look like in the future bridge to .
