A group of homeless mothers have been occupying a vacant 3-bedroom house in Oakland owned by a house-flipping firm with aggressive eviction tactics. On Tuesday, police showed up with riot gear, armored vehicles, and guns to forcibly evict them
Photo: Kate Wolffe/AP It’s no secret that Oakland is being gentrified at a brutal rate, but the mechanisms that drive the ever-growing wedge between rich and poor in the city are often intentionally opaque, elided by a swarm of legal precedents and loopholes that benefit private property owners.
Last week, the mothers lost their legal case against real-estate investment firm Wedgewood Properties; on Monday, hundreds of supporters rallied outside the home they’d been occupying. On Tuesday afternoon police showed up with riot gear, armored vehicles, battering rams, and guns drawn to forcibly evict them, along with their families. Two of the mothers were arrested at the scene, as were two of the protesters.
“The goal of our organization is to reclaim houses back into the hands of the community and to house unsheltered mothers and children,” said Dominique Walker, one of the cofounders of Moms 4 Housing and a lifetime community organizer, in a November press conference. “There’s four vacant houses for every one homeless person in Oakland.” The house at Magnolia Street, which she occupied with her two children, had stood vacant for two years beforehand.
The New York Times reports that Wedgewood Properties, the owner of the now vacant Magnolia Street residence, said in a news release, “The solution to Oakland’s housing crisis is not the redistribution of citizen’s homes through illegal break-ins and seizures by squatters.”
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