Fiscal Year 2013-2015 Special Budget Meeting

HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL Subject: Proposed FY 13-15 Proposed Policy Budget Date: June 7, 2013 Page 7 5) Explain the Housing Encampment Abatement Services that are provided by the City. History of Encampment Outreach and Abatement According to the 2011 Homeless Count, there are an estimated 953 unsheltered homeless individuals in Oakland. Many of these individuals cluster together at overpasses and other areas for shelter and companionship creating encampments that can lead to public health hazards and commimity nuisances. Responding to this situation, in 2005, the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Public Works Agency (PWA) developed a strategy to conduct joint operations around the cleanup of encampments, the removal of homeless persons and their property from public rights of way, and providing connections to services for those who are interested. During FY 2011, the PWA Call Center reported 185 work orders issued for homeless encampment calls, and this has expanded in 2012 to 278, a 73% increase. Although not all encampments are occupied at the time of clean up, a substantial number were occupied and required human services outreach, public works cleanup, and OPD intervention. The outreach and legally required posting to conduct this work, which is described in more detail below, was funded through a grant of $50,000 from the Oakland Redevelopment Agency (ORA). This funding was distributed in January 2012 when the State took action to dissolve Redevelopment Agencies. Operation Dignity, a non-profit, was contracted to do the outreach work. Operation Dignity was already imder contract with DHS to provide harm reduction and housing outreach under a grant. Because of this, Operation Dignity was able to do the work with a modest increase in their budget of $50,000 annually. The following summarizes the activities that take place: • Foi" encampments identified through the Call Center, Operation Dignity visits and makes an assessment of the needs of individuals and offers services as appropriate; • Operation Dignity provides the legally required 72 hour postings of encampment sites for notification of impending property removal in accordance with State law; • After the required signage has been duly posted, PWA,is then free to clean up the sites and provide the legally required storage of whatever personal property is present; and, • Operation Dignity also provides light cleanup to relatively small encampments, which eliminates the need for PWA action in many cases. Current Status of Encampment Abatement The dissolution of the Redevelopment Agency in early 2012 resulted in the funding for the Operation Dignity contract being eliminated and thus ending this joint effort. In the absence of this funding, there was no posting or encampment clean up capacity available from October 2012 to January 2013, resulting in a backlog of service calls and a large number of complaints from