The Oakland, California Homeless Problem is Beyond Belief

oakland california sure does have a homeless problem driving around town there's homeless encampments all over the place they're on the sides of the roads and dirt lots there's long stretches of them on sidewalks some are intense some are in some are actual encampments with makeshift structures where hundreds of people gather into communities it's estimated there's about 5000 homeless individuals throughout the city of oakland but nobody really knows the exact answer and the number of people on the streets in oakland's nearly doubled in the last two years alone a lot of that has to do with the high cost of living in the bay area apartments that were once a thousand dollars a month now cost closer to three thousand dollars a month a lot of the homeless are addicts but there's no real one reason homelessness is so high in oakland if you ask 10 homeless people why they live on the streets you're going to get 10 different answers look at this one in west oakland this one is sort of sanctioned by the city meaning they don't run them off sometimes it's easier to keep them in one place so they can monitor them and provide support but this problem is impacting the community in a big way local businesses complain about losing customers i mean would you want to park near here to shop residents complain about homeless people stealing from them neighbors complain about loud noise and trash some say helping the homeless is backfiring and the oakland police are already stretched thin because of low numbers there's many reasons for that vaccine mandates early retirements and being defunded now i spent two days driving around oakland looking at how run down this once proud city's become and along the way i recorded all the homeless camps i saw but there was one particular homeless camp that i stumbled onto which put into perspective the state of homelessness here in oakland and actually changed my perspective on the homeless problem in general so i was driving around on the west side of town i came across a huge makeshift camp made up of rvs and improvised shelters something that looked like what you would see in a third world country it was under a freeway overpass across the street from a public park in an abandoned area of former warehouses that people had used to dump their crap for years as i learned the rvs parked here were actually the working poor people who had decent jobs but still couldn't afford a place to live in oakland some were even doctors who were new to the city and had to save up enough money to afford a down payment on their first apartments but many of the people outside of the homeless rv park were people who had been here for a long time some are trying to save money to change their situation despite the way it looks from the street this camp was well organized there's even leaders here who enforce rules and there's even camp security it's a camp with community and pride and progress and as i learned a lot of the people in this camp are actually trying to make this temporary homeless camp their permanent home their goal is to get caltrans to donate the land to a non-profit they had set up so they could raise money to build a permanent village of tiny homes where they would then live so they were squatting here until they could get agencies to help them with their goals as they would explain to me they'd be getting a job and a house at the same time since their jobs would be building their new homes and then after their village was built their jobs would be managing their village they're serious about it this man goes by ohio he founded this makeshift camp 15 years ago i was i first i started we started feeding people out of my house and then me and my wife ended up separated and i ended up in the streets that was about 15 years ago i ended up down here i was the first one down here the police ran me out of here you were the first one here first one here there was no tents no nothing i had a black dodge uh dodge uh dakota i was sleeping in i was scrapping metal at that time and then uh i got sick from being down here and all this stuff see these people get sick you get sick from not from the cove hit not from that it's from the garbage that people come down these aren't the people that's dumping this stuff yeah i mean look like yeah you can tell these aren't the people that's dumping this stuff cars are coming in here trucks are coming here loads coming here and dumping stuff here and so the rats are the red the rat problem that we have are from people that are dumping so i had a tent down here for a long time and then just about a couple of months ago they moved me into my uh apartment how long were you here i was here about 15 years 15 years living in a dakota yeah and you finally go and you finally got out of here after 15 years how did you how did you get out of here huh how did you get out of here focus focus i'm not a man i i could live on the street i could survive on the street but i don't belong on the street none of us went on the street a lot of these people on the street are productive members of society doctors lawyers dentists secretaries construction workers electricians plumbers mechanics all these people here have a trade and they're they've been pushed out by these dot-comers by how oakland has took the um took the um rent control and put it on stable so now the people that because they're unstable these guys come in here they build these places and now in the studio cost three grand who a studio come on who pays three grand for a studio a studio costs three grand so that's what happens when you get pushed out and there's no rent control and berkeley berkeley has rent control but we don't so what did you you saved up money and were able to get a cheap place is that how you go no the programs project dignity and backs is a good program to handle to hang with and these programs will help you get out of here as long as you stay focused as long as you stay on their backs they're going to help you get out of here and i stayed on them and i stayed on them i didn't want to survive and i didn't want to live here i didn't want to die here i didn't want to die on the streets that's what i didn't want to do and so i stayed on their backs project dignity got me into a program called safer ground safer ground put me in a days inn out there in east oakland i stayed out there for like four months then my housing came through bax helped me with housing and get into the program i got into a hot box program then they helped me get into a boat in a boat place me into a place these programs work if you know how to get into the system so given how much does it did you have to pay to get a place did the city pay for everything and you just the city basically paid for my first lasting deposit and i pay rent every month and the rent's cheaper than it would be if you what's a rent my rent is 276 a month and who's who pays for the rest of that i guess housing does like the city of oakland or something like that algae authority or something like that how long do you get to live cheap like that as long as i pay my rent and as long as i renew my lease as long as i do what they expect me to do there's hundreds of people here why don't they because they're still building places for these people yeah but you're not in a new you're like in a day's end are you in a new place i'm in a new apartment an affordable like that new one bedroom the arroyo apartment the aurora apartment like brand new the city built brand new this problem no this this no the city didn't build it a company came from out of state and built four so that the homeless people have a place to transition to now we just don't have enough cheap places for all these people though they're out there we do but we don't there's a system i'm gonna say this one more time with where there's a problem there's a solution there's a solution to every problem just like when you go fishing if that line breaks there's a solution to that line breaking you attach it to another line and once you attach it to the another line you throw it out there and catch the fish it's the same with the whole homelessness you attach it to another line and fish and catch them and send them somewhere else it's a solution to this problem we just don't we just don't use that solution there's a big solution oakland gets too much money for the homelessness for it not to be for for these people man all these vacant buildings open up a shelter open up many shelters like right here yeah you got all this stuff out here you got all these buildings you got all these lands you got all this abandoned stuff and you're talking about there's there there's a solution oakland has too much money for it not to be a solution there's a big solution i got a big solution for this problem you can help people you can get them you can get a medical you can get them back to the workforce you can do all that through these programs that they got it's no it's no way that these people should be homeless so a lot of people say homeless people they're they're addicts they made decisions that they need to if you want to create a situation where you can live like that then you deserve to live like that you made that choice like fortunately i don't know is that no shame that's all [ __ ] you you tell those people that think that 90 of these people are using dope using drugs that's a lie or like you did and then that's how they became homeless was no addictions no so what percentage of the people out here in this place probably five percent of people use drugs used or used use drugs use drugs use whatever situation so when one out of 20 is an addict the rest are people like yourself that they want to get out of here that want to get out of here yeah it's not in in this lifetime they were pushed to the streets these people wasn't addicts these people didn't use drugs some of these people worked in the city some some of these people work with the councilman somebody you you have no idea how much how much education is out here on the street so they could they could miss me with that [ __ ] about the drugs and all that [ __ ] that shit's a lot all that shit's alive don't believe the hype it's not it's not true it's not true at all so you think it's just a costly living problem yeah it's just too expensive for people to live you can pay three thousand dollars for a studio why don't they just leave oakland and go somewhere to oklahoma where it's seven hundred dollars you gotta understand you gotta understand this this is their home most of these people were raised here most of these people were born here they shouldn't have to leave where they wanna be i shouldn't have to leave and go to denver i should not i'm from ohio it's way cheaper in ohio than it is here but i love california i love california i love oakland california more than anything so why should i have to leave because you decide that you want to put rent control on hold and push us into the street it's not fair are they going to ever fix it or is it they're going to have to fix it but it seems like it's getting worse with the cost of living is not going down i mean i just want to say something to all you rich people that have money we're the poor people that need to make you rich so you really need to do something about us that are that are out here in the streets because without us you don't get no money you're going to go bankrupt because you don't have that poor person working into your warehouses and creating that money for you so you better really think about we all need each other and start doing this thing the right way because without the poor people you can't survive and that's reality and that's common sense this man that that that that runs your plumbing company that digs your hole and you want to get rid of him and hire some other cheap labor that don't do it right you better think about it all you call rocks people that own these clorox you got people that do that runs your lines that runs your warehouse that you don't throw in the street all you people that own these cereal companies you got people that need you need to work costcos you got people that need to run those forklifts you got you it's millions of jobs that you need these people to do but you push them in the street and now you're talking about there's no work there's there's no people to fill the jobs they're right here in front of you these people do you think all these hundreds of people here would go to work if there were um if they had a place to work yeah but they can't they they they're not going to go to work living here is what you're saying anyway they can't right who's going to hire a person that can't bathe every day yeah so a lot of these people that haven't shared their nutritionist isn't not right they're not bathing every day it's all that [ __ ] is is is real it's real in this life if you think it ain't real come live down here for a week and see what it's real it's real do you know is there anybody that i could that lives here now that i could go in and sit down with him and talk to him is that go down here and talk to moose moose go ask for moves ohio is going to take us to meet moose who lives in a shed and we might be able to go into his shed and see what's going on oh this must be moose inside the camp as you can imagine it smells really bad they have problems with rats and mud and everything else you think they'd struggle with some of these shelters in here are like little forts with rooms made of pallets and sheets and tarps some have living rooms and dining rooms and bedrooms i have to admit the kid in me would have thought they were cool forts when i was younger lots of the people who live here came out to talk to me when they realized i wasn't there to gawk or sneer at them to be honest they were just glad somebody would listen to their story yeah like you know it's like is that you is that sun's in your face let's go like over here like can you like stand like right here maybe and then it's not in your face a few questions yeah okay yeah yeah hold on um all right so um i talked to uh ohio and he said that i mean a misnomer that people have is that people on the streets it's our own problem and then he said that you come from a good background and how did you end up here uh the truth yeah uh uh drugs and being irresponsible honestly it's what landed me here after all these years uh sorry judy just a second um that's just the bottom line right there i got caught up in a lifestyle that i couldn't control and landed here but it's not as is i don't want to say as bad as it seems but it i met a lot of good people out here since i've been out here uh uh learned a lot about myself learned a lot about the community and society and how things really run and where the help is at um learn how to build a little bit uh i don't know it's i don't want to stay here uh but we're in the midst of doing something that could help lots tens of thousands of people uh across america honestly if things work out with us figuring out a way to help uh curb the homeless problem um and that's uh the biggest thing is housing being able to afford housing and stuff and really that's what we're fighting for on this piece of land that we're here right now we're fighting to keep this so we can build miniature homes affordable homes uh and for the homeless people uh there's other pieces of land around here that we want to try to uh try to get but caltrans owns most of that uh so we're fighting with caltrans and a couple of other little agencies and stuff to secure land and then develop it we architect that's going to map out plans for us and stuff and so this may be future homes small homes affordable for people that are homeless like maybe we want to start off with the homes because it's like ten thousand uh homeless in just in uh berkeley oakland alone if i'm not mistaken and then across america you can imagine how many people are really homeless and stuff no one can afford the uh well there are people who can't afford to live in a bay area but for the most part affordable housing is not minimum wage you know that's not going to get you affordable housing and the affordable housing they plan on building here out of 171 units only 13 units are deemed affordable housing and it's going to be for veterans and foster kids i'm not mistaken uh wednesday i've turned 18 though and we're for that we're happy to have a place to stay but nobody that lives on this site and this is not just from here it's from west street from this area all the way up around to target itself there's about i say roughly 200 people not in the front but there's a lot of them in the back still that none of the houses are going to go toward none of the apartments will go towards them we've got apartments across the street being built no one here can afford those and you know they were most of them are more than half of them are empty right now and they're building more of them but right across the street you have a bunch of people that are homeless and would love to be in a place a warm place but they're not being offered to them in any way so like there's a misnomer the homeless population is basically people that made very bad decisions a lot of addicts and stuff but you think it's it's an affordable housing thing more than anything so anybody watching this and stuff you tell me about when how covert affected you hopefully you're still in a home and maybe you're not and stuff but there's a lot of people that everybody knows this is not you know it's a fact that uh basically didn't work for two years almost uh and then uh some of half of them didn't go back to work because now the businesses they work for was out of business because they had no business because they weren't open majority of the time so anybody out there there's so many people out here that lost their jobs or couldn't afford their rent because their their job told them you can only work you know from home or half the hours you used to work and i have a mortgage though that you know so forth um no it's not because of uh it's a coveted thing more than anything it's it's a it's a commun it's an accumulation of a lot of things some of the people out here yes they made bad choices and stuff some people out here lost their jobs during the cobra time some of the people had other hardships and stuff it's not people that's the one that's another thing we're trying to um express to people it's not because of drugs and alcohol the majority of people out here things happen and if people out there can't understand or see that things happen to people in life uh that cause things and then you have a bigger thing that happens that we have no control over like covert add that to just daily life and daily living and daily situation stuff and then think about uh the bay area and how expensive 1800 if i'm not mistaken for oakland is that as the average one-bedroom apartment 18 a month so you're thinking uh 20 an hour is still on giving you 1600 before taxes take out your taxes you got maybe thirteen twelve hundred you still don't cover your rent in one check you have a car note if you have car insurance maybe you have just one kid goes to school your one parent works or what have you gotta wash clothes you gotta pay electricity you gotta pay uh garbage all this stuff maybe your morgan stuff so you tell me that you know if you who can really minimum wage won't allow people to so like the alternative thought is okay well you decided to drop out of school so that you can't get a good job so i don't feel bad for you because you made your own decisions so like that that's a theory that people have like how do you respond to that it's hard it's hard to explain stuff i tell people why don't you come down here and and and talk to some of us and find out what the stories are what's your story because you so like my good background right like you came from a really good background you didn't grow up on the streets and [ __ ] like middle class people make bad decisions i'm talking for myself with this i made bad decisions and stuff and got caught up in a little a lot of partying and and didn't want to take responsibility and by the time it was uh realized that i found out you know you know they jobs give you chances and stuff and luckily enough i'm a person that you know my job gave me uh numerous chances and stuff uh and i just [ __ ] it up that's me that's me i'm just one person just out of 200 on this out of this area that's my story so i'm not speaking for everybody i'm speaking in general what i've heard and what i know of but yeah i screwed up and now uh i'm lucky enough i found something in this group that we have come together to do something to sort of hopefully make amends with who we believe in up there you know and do something uh uh uh better than what we were doing before and stuff um that's all i can say is i'm trying to to make up for it anyone i've heard or anything by doing what we're doing and that's why it'd be great if more people come down here and and talk to us about what's going on here because i think they'd be sort of impressed about how far we've gotten with it and where we're going with it it's not what they see what's what's your plan how are you trying to get a job so you can get out of here um i'm hoping that all of this turns into uh some sort of uh paid job right now of course it's not paid we don't have but we want to create jobs along with the homes and stuff there's a lot so many talented people here that uh work on cars who uh uh uh paint who do like uh electrical work um um i'm a chef uh they do so many different things we wanna create jobs here and hopefully the outside community will solicit those jobs to to to promote more business and stuff um that's we want to keep it sort of here we don't want i can go out there and fight and go back to the hustle and bustle out there but why not try to create something here that can help other people in my situation and make it a little bit easier for them to get back into the workforce and work at a place where they're more comfortable and people accept them for who they are you know so like a non-profit kind of thing where you could work for that and build i'll be unaffordable uh uh uh machi monty okay see there's a lot of stuff going on and uh a lot of people here and that you could talk to that you get more insight from because every that everybody has a vision and then for the most part the vision is the same out here is to create a a small eco village tiny home with jobs affordable um through a land trust which people wouldn't have to pay a mortgage or rent they would have to work basically for their stay and i'm not the professional on this because i'm not the one who brought the land trust to us see this is where it gets bigger i was already here a guy named theo came and said and talk to us said he could he stay here he wanted to do a land trust secured land uh eco village uh uh smaller homes uh affordable and explain it to us we we loved it we liked it so we started moving forward we have talked to the uh people in higher positions um uh we're talking uh with caltran we talked with kyle trans the other day about uh slowing down with evicting people and how we could work together we were trying to talk reach a habitat for humanity because the other ones are supposed to uh build on this with uh uh a developer um we're trying to get in contact with them so that we could talk about negotiating maybe working together and doing something more positive because they want to build and we understand that on some land that they want to build on and things but you're you're displacing and putting out the you know 200 people and you're supposed to be helping house people not on housing in a sense you know what i mean so yeah how can you there's a hundred and something thousand homeless people in california alone la's got like fifty thousand dude deli county yeah um how do we build enough affordable i mean your plan is great how do we do that for talk uh if you a start talk to caltrans caltrans in california is the biggest land owner they have land everywhere um since i've been homeless the amount of different places that i've been kicked out up throughout oakland have all been cal trans land pieces of land uh like all in the back where the uh the freeway is yeah that's all transplant it goes all the way up to targeting so caltrans is holding on to if we can get caltrans to donate a lot of land or whatever they do then they can build who's going to pay for the construction of all that [ __ ] uh nonprofits uh i feel like if more people knew about it and came down and talked to different people about it and found out the the the bigger gist of it people would uh fund it it would help fund it no i get you so like a question would be okay so that happened yeah now you incentivize people to be [ __ ] homeless because they're like well [ __ ] if i'll get like cheap a cheap place to live if they're just going to build units for people no it's not just going to be units it's going to be a community smaller individual communities in a sense right that are self-sufficient yeah and and basically like our community here we don't have to go too far at groceries maybe at this point so to get too much of anything we help each other if this person needs this and he has it we get we talk to other little communities and stuff like that they help us out this is a monty uh can i show you can i record okay i'm just i'm just doing a documentary on this and stuff hey little dog is that your dog the eye thing you know it's just it's really a tooth infection now so i gotta go back to the emergency evicted and going all different places this has been going on for at least eight years of this build up of a they've been pushing and pulling us um for i've been out here seven years and um i came out here to die but instead of dying i found community i really did you mean you came out here to die like you had no hope in life i didn't i lost half my family members in one month same month um my brother he was violently murdered by the police um my father had seven strokes my grandmothers you know they both just old age but it was um devastating for me you know i didn't know how to cope and i made a bad decision that bad decision landed me out here seven years um but the last couple years not so much you know i'm trying to climb out now you're like nicely dressed and [ __ ] like are you what do you do during the day to try to get out of here um well so during the day i'm online i'm filling out resumes and applications speaking of folks and i'm getting like community side jobs like i do a lot of things my father instilled a lot of different skills in me so i can do mechanics i can do facility management and that's the inner workings of it as well like i can paint i can um fill the place up uh all those things so you're trying to get a job what do you need to earn in oakland to afford like the most basic place what do i need i get what is that what does a person in oakland need to make a month to afford um to live here like we need a team that's the only way that someone could sustain themselves here uh single income doing it you would have to make more than four thousand dollars well that's your rent it's about four thousand dollars it's two thousand dollars a month to live here anywhere between 25 and up starting you can't get anywhere you can't live here um for less than eight hundred dollars you can't it's there's no eight hundred dollars a month rent in oakland no it's like it starts fifteen sixteen seventeen hundred and like that's way more than the minimum wage i guess right yes you won't minimum wage you won't be able to pay your rent and eat right um i forget any any any other amenities right yeah so if you get a good job like you'll be will your problem be solved no um because i still won't be able to afford the cost of living here um but what i hope to do is um put that money the proceeds that i am earning from work into um a trust where we can buy like a lot yeah that's what love yeah i've already started uh 501c3 because people are going to have problems for a long time it just it's the way life the way of life and those individuals get caught up in the middle somewhere and they don't get the resources and the support that they really need to get over whatever the cause is whatever the problem is like if i would have been able to speak to someone at that time probably would have never quit my job you know um i probably really would not have given up my penthouse place to come here uh so here what we what we do is we meet people where they are with the encouragement to slow down their usage we don't force it we don't we just lead by example you know and um fortunately a lot of people have taken up that you know it's like they're claiming their lives they're the addicts or you guys are able to help them get off the [ __ ] they've moved on and we're still here what percentage of people that end up in a community like this are addicts or former addicts and that's why they're here um i would say probably about 20 percent okay so it's not as high as you might think yeah i would have guessed half yeah like one and five is probably former or current and that's the reason they're here the rest just bad luck decisions life choices whatever lost job just the majority is loss of jobs and the measure ee being replaced with measure aaa which meant that if you were paying 750 a month's brand now the landlord does not have a cap on how much well the rent control exactly allowed that to like yeah and that displaced so many people so rapidly that we had um some doctors out here you know fresh brand new doctors with doctors nonetheless couldn't afford to run so there were doctors living here when they first got here because they didn't earn enough to pay for rent until they worked for a few months and they could save up and so um a friend of mine is staying with uh another guy that i work with you know i do a lot of um handiwork like i said uh he's turning his homes into traveling nursing homes so the nurses come from abroad and they rent his space but there's like 3 500 a room a room that's less than 750 square feet it's not enough it's not enough so what do you guys do all day like you plan your future well yeah we do that and we we uh we really are trying to find them you guys oh you see what's going on here come on give us a break please don't worry about it it's all uh okay thank you um so we sorry guys it'll just be like another couple minutes and we'll be done um so we deal with that yeah okay what are the questions oh we're just we're just talking about like you know all the questions that people ask about being here and everything our youngsters we try because lot a lot of our youngsters um have not been given the things that they needed uh for survivors your counselors out here too for some of us of course yeah we have a lot of people it's a family right illness is here um and yeah we are we are family we look after whoever comes here um we don't ask them to leave unless they get violent um and then they can still come back you know but they come back without the violence the violence has to stay wherever or they have to figure out another way to deal with it yeah right now we're focusing on cleaning up the blight still when we got here we remediated a lot of it but there were piles as high as that camper over there of other people's garbage you know this was a dump site everyone came here and don't so we cleaned it up and now that we have now we're faced with the thought of eviction defense so now i mean the city might kick you out yeah well they might um they are highly i heard they in stockton they came in with bulldozers one day without a warning it wasn't as nice as this it was but it came in one day and it was leveled in the end of the day and everybody they're like you got 10 minutes to get your [ __ ] and they were like and then they rebuilt it but like you still lost yourself no warning right no they're not gonna do that [ __ ] here right no well it's possible do you know the damage that that causes i mean mentally well i know it said you're already barely hanging on and then that's you're starting over right it's yeah so okay let's think about you just moving period you got your job you and your wife you know you guys are now moving across country that process just that takes you know and you got everything together now you know you you could pay for the movers to it's still a daunting process so imagine someone just going in and ripping all that from under you and saying have a nice day which is what caltrans used to do they used to go to the encampments take what they wanted put it into their personal vehicles and chip everything else um the last car said have a happy happy day have a nice day and a big ass sign have the nice day the police sent us down here so with amnesty they said if we came down here we'd be okay they would not ask us to leave so we're gonna try to hold them accountable for them now before my trip i would have thought this camp is a bunch of vagabonds that you don't see very often but the day before i had witnessed the same thing at another makeshift camp in stockton here people were doing the same thing squatting on land in a cobbled together camp with the hopes that one day it might become their permanent residence too so you're going to live here for a long time no i don't plan a long time just enough to give myself a house man yeah i think these i'm 50 years old going to be next month down there i just want to uh be able to have mine try to get out of my house dealing with the women even the kids my kids can't have the house you get out of the house i'll get my own yeah you know so i was working job got hurt at work now it's time to just save you know me yeah it's easier here and sleeping in the parking lot you know okay so after spending a lot of time witnessing the homeless situation in california and talking to people on streets i realized a lot of stuff one thing i realized is there's a hierarchy on the streets at the bottom of the homeless class status are the people who sleep in doorways or in sleeping bags on sidewalks then you have the people in tents above that are those who live in their cars and rvs and at the top of the homeless pyramid are people like these folks in oakland who have constructed their own ramshackle communities they collect disability and government checks and use their money to improve their lives not to support a habit people i know i was shocked a lot of the homeless people i saw in oakland were people who i thought i would not see maybe i'm wrong but i thought most of the people i'd encountered were going to be tweakers and drunks and addicts who stole for a living to support their drug habits while i did see a lot of that i also saw a lot of community and progress and people with goals and ambitions many people in communities like this are far more self-sufficient than the crowd you see on sidewalks who can't form a sentence because of years of addiction i went to oakland with a preconceived notion of what i thought i'd see and came out with an enlightened story to tell who'd have thought however this would be far different than what i would see when i cross the bridge for san francisco the next day that video will tell a different story and by the way the people this homeless camp i showed you they wanted me to tell you they're having a holiday party on the first saturday in december come by and show your support it'll be at 1707 wood street in oakland if you want to reach out to them stop by the camp sometime i'm sure they'll welcome you my plan is to develop this into a campus where we can develop different types of housing and live together peacefully and you know be part of the neighborhood did you expect that when you arrived here that you were going to become so involved that you didn't want to leave um i didn't think that i would become an advocate in fact i didn't even really know what advocate was i just thought i was doing my duty as an american to you know defend people and talk about rights you know if you've got no place to be you've got to be able to pull up on a curb and sleep or whatever as long as you're kind of congruent with the neighbors it's important that you respect in everything that you come into and but it's also important that they respect you as just another american needing a place to stay i didn't anticipate being hard 13 years so i came here three years into my homelessness or living as a person experiencing an in-house condition and oakland has been very generous and reasonably understanding i know they have concerns and they do try to figure things out but you can't expect bureaucracy to go quickly and you can't expect bureaucracy to be rocket scientists you know if we go back and think about things we learned in history class or all the dumb songs that we learned when we were kids like this land is your land this land is my land yeah um is the main problem everyone seems to cost a living problem that's why everyone's yeah cost of living um in the bay area is out of control i mean i'm not a rampant capitalist but the reason why this country was started was to be able to prosper us live you know safe and free and you know respect each other and it's just too goddamn hard for for people especially in our neighborhoods and black neighborhoods you know in the 60s and 70s we had change starting to occur and it seems like we've been thrown back into a situational pit you know tech has been a new gold era and we just need to be able to figure out ways to to survive when i go buy food here at the safeway it's three times as expensive as going to a winco for 60 miles away so how do you get money every month i don't um i have ssdi i just started getting it so you just go pick up a check and yeah they don't mail it here no no i can live on a thousand dollars a month barely but uh if it wasn't a thousand dollars a month what do you spend like medical and food i don't have medical unless i you know fall down or something i gotta get my teeth done definitely no just little you know things like soap you know pet food um you know take myself to a movie maybe once stuff but i mean everything i'm wearing except well these i bought walmart go walmart but everything i'm wearing was found in a trash pile so if you eliminate those trash piles you're removing our economy and it's necessary to organize the piles i think rather than to say oh screw you poor people this is unsightly you know we don't mean to be unsightly and the trash piles are not made by us explicitly it's made by the community of oakland because people just keep buying stuff and it's like oh this couch is so last month like throw it out you know and you know also a lot of it has to do with the disparity of people not being able to afford to live here and their stuff goes in the streets so it's part of our sustainability unfortunately we're not really good at organizing at this point but we're working on it what nathan maeve okay nice to meet you nice to meet you nick nick what's the name of your chef nick johnson nick johnson yeah cool i'm carter griffin and as long as you don't alter what i said no i'm just going to leave this on my teeth i agree i'm just going to put a little little clip of that and then kind of show a little bit of this more and then i'm gonna be out of everything hey guys so if anything i just talked about upset you or made you sad or mad well then do something about it call your local leaders and demand change chip in and help those in need make your community better because communities don't get better without hard work and determination america is a great place it just needs some more love and pride this is sage nyx manager this has been a corner house entertainment production and are you looking to move and need advice i do consulting that's right i'll sit down and talk about where the next perfect place for you and your family should be i do it all the time together let's find you a new home that's safe and checks all your boxes you can get my email in the description to find out how i can help you find your perfect relocation

Channel: Nick Johnson

Views: 14,868,804

Keywords: the worst places to live in california, worst cities in california, california, moving to california, should i move to california, california realtor, california mortgage loan, california history, california facts, california news, california taxes, san francisco, los angeles, california homeless, homeless san francisco, oakland, oakland crime, oakland dangerous neighborhods, is oakland dangerous, oakland homeless, moving to oakland, oakland realtor, homelessness, homeless, crime

Id: yRWmKh13b50

Length: 41min 27sec (2487 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/joshuawah]

Tagging this in order to go back and watch later. I live about a 5 minute walk from the place in the very first shot. As much as this is an “Oakland problem” or a “CA problem” I’m hoping this video explores the national policies that contributed and imo caused this

[u/HIsince84]

Why the snark? He even mentions how people drive by and sneer at homeless people. The narrator ruined it and he asked twice the % of addicts reformed or otherwise living there. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice more than showing the hardships people go through. My heart goes out to the homeless. We lost our apartment during Covid and had to move in with in-laws. Still up to our ears in debt but thankful to have a home again. And for the opportunity to move in with a family member when we needed it. I hope the state of California works with these people.

[u/superniceguyOKAY]

What a disgusting narrator

[u/[deleted]]

Just checking in about half way through the video… anyone else find the overall tone to be extremely off putting? The narrator makes multiple attempts to cast judgement onto people living in these conditions… and sure it’s easy to say you would never live somewhere like this… but try living somewhere paycheck to paycheck with rent the way it is in Oakland and tell me you aren’t struggling when rent jumps beyond your capabilities.

This isn’t a video meant to highlight homelessness, it’s merely poking fun at it. If you want to break into the video journalism industry, a few tips:

Fix the tone of your voice and match it according to your videos main theme.

Having high inflections in your voice indicates that you have enthusiasm for the subject matter you are speaking about. Does wonders for topics you wish to keep viewers intrigued on… doesn’t do so well on a video about homeless encampments.

[u/stoobiedooby]

Billionaires and homelessness are symptoms of a rigged economy.

[u/schlongtheta]

Richest country in the world.

California is the 5th largest economy in the world.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=US&most_recent_value_desc=true

[u/Important-Banana8115]

Piss-poor video. Is the guy simply keeping to a script or just looking for some kind of social cred? According to current census estimates, there are roughly 31 abandoned/vacant houses for every homeless person. A figure around 17 million empty homes of which the vast majority are due to foreclosure and are now owned by banks. So, after watching as much of this pandering video as I could, I have stopped to fact check. The most recent figures available that I could dig up is there are almost as many homeless and vacant properties now as there were during the 2010 census. My opinion is nothing changes until it is forced to change. Lame videos such as this do not really help. This seems to be geared to incite but only if it follows the script. Instead of simply asking two people a few planned questions, how about an in-depth documentary with multiple interviews from both the hundreds of thousands of homeless, the government people who keep track of such things and those pathetic liars we have sitting in D.C. pretending to represent the people. I believe I would find it more informative than this pre-digested b.s. and perhaps enough legitimate public outrage could actually drive the right people to seriously work on resolving this definitely avoidable issue. Eh. What do I know? I'm just some poor slug who is perhaps a flat tire away from total financial ruin. I've been homeless before so it wouldn't be anything earth-shattering. I honestly believe this country should adopt Warren Buffet's suggestion for correcting the national debt...pass a law that stipulates the budget must be balanced and the debt eliminated or those in office removed and forbidden from ever holding a political position again. Perhaps if the azoles responsible for running this country had such a "Sword of Damocles" over their collective heads, there might actually be some real progress made. Between something like that and no outside influence or interference, this country might become whole again. Just guessing but something needs to change, that is certain!

[u/LawrenceFunderjerk]

This guy is a POS

[u/hansolemio]

Oakland, SF, LA,, Portland, Seattle, NY, and 60 other metros. Remember the shanty towns we all read about in History?