The Advocate

  Sonia Reed found her first home ever in the hills of San Leandro. After winning a lottery through a local program to support first-time homebuyers, she couldn't believe her luck in finding a place in the Bay Area's competitive housing market. As someone who was formerly homeless, she was very excited to then become a first-time homeowner.  As a peer support and recovery specialist and Narcotics Anonymous volunteer for Alameda County, she is used to helping others. In fact, after struggling against hardship most of her life, Sonia has dedicated her career to fighting for others, including serving as a member of Alameda County Health Care for the Homeless Commission and a program manager at Bonita House.  But now she's the one in need of help. Upon coming to visit her new home in the unincorporated Hillcrest Knolls neighborhood , she was immediately met with racist slurs and hate from a couple of her neighbors. Insults were hurled about her race and her body. The co...

The Big Tent has just released its proposed Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protection Ordinance (RS&TPO). A copy is available here for everyone to read freely. This critical legislation would provide the following: 1. Rent stabilization to cap annual increases and keep housing affordable. 2. Just cause requirements for evictions to protect tenants and property owners. 3. A rent registry to track rental housing in the city to help enforce the ordinance and evaluate the market. 4. A review board that is representative and has authority to resolve disputes or violations. 5. A diversity, equity, and inclusion provision for broad-based applicability to ensure that the ordinance serves all residents of San Leandro. 6. Sufficient funding and staffing to support the ordinance. 7. An anti-harassment clause to protect renters when exercising their rights. 8. A private right of action so that individuals can hold violators and the city accountable. 9. Improved noticing requirements so that ev...

Do you believe everyone deserves a safe place to call home? It's a simple question really, but for some people, the answer isn't. As far back as 1944 , we've known that housing is a human right. Even now, when we think of the "American Dream" we think of housing. We imagine a place to live and call our own. So much of our identity and community is intertwined with the place we think of as home. But for many people in San Leandro that's impossible. The minimum wage here is $15.50 per hour . Assuming you are getting shifts full-time, your annual earnings before taxes are $32,240. Meanwhile, the median rent for a studio apartment is $1,849 per month. That's $22,188 per year. You now have $10,052 left for everything else . Oh, but wait, taxes are actually $5,408! Now you only have $4,644 for groceries, utilities, internet, transportation, health insurance, and maybe some clothes to wear. For the entire year. After rent and taxes, you have to live on $387 pe...

(Image credit: City of Long Beach ) We have over 400 unhoused San Leandrans, many of whom live in their vehicles — trailers, RVs, trucks, or even sedans and SUVs. If complaints from residents are any indication, many of our neighbors are parking their vehicles at the Marina and other mostly empty large parking lots. The results are difficult but unsurprising, with trash, waste, and domestic disturbances. Meanwhile, SLPD has stepped up enforcement efforts without thought for the fact that these members of our community cannot afford the fines or arrests and, more importantly, they have nowhere to go. But there's a solution we can take that might alleviate this problem without undue COVID-19 risks: safe parking programs. As these individuals and families work to lift themselves up out of a difficult situation, many are making daily and nightly choices between having a safe space to sleep and crippling penalties just for existing. Creating further barriers to stability are the isolati...

 *CONTENT NOTICE/TRIGGER WARNING: this post discussed racist police violence and contains links to images/videos of that content.* (“Stop Police Brutality” by Icy and Sot) On November 21, at around 11:10 AM, an unnamed SLPD officer tased an innocent and mentally ill member of our city's unsheltered community in another act of police brutality in our city. This happened within less than 30 seconds from when the officer first made contact with the victim. The officer was ostensibly responding to a complaint from a local business, the Downtown McDonald's, about an allegation of someone "acting crazy" and "throwing punches." However, no one was hurt. No property was destroyed. No one was armed. There was no reason or basis to assume the victim posed a danger to themselves or others. Even worse, despite assertions to the contrary by SLPD, the officer did not engage in deescalation or crisis intervention tactics. There is no evidence that the CATT program was call...

On November 16, the San Leandro City Council is set to vote on changes to our municipal code “relating to standing or sitting on traffic medians or near curbs.” While the city has tried to present this as a change to increase traffic safety and relieve road congestin, the reality is that it is merely another attempt at anti-panhandling laws that criminalize poverty and infringe free speech. In fact, some members of the City Council said exactly as much at their September 8 meeting, specifically the mayor and vice mayor! You can look up the relevant information on their website at https://sanleandro.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=754137&GUID=35FDF636-2AE8-48FE-8AF2-E18471022DD3&Options=info|&Search= , beginning at Item 10.C. The older meeting records are available at https://sanleandro.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=754132&GUID=7A8CE643-C818-4D9B-AECE-55D23C7C71CC&Options=info|&Search= , beginning at Item 8.M. Notably, the Supreme Court ruled in Norton v....