Oakland Council President Asks For State, Local Help In Sheltering Homeless In Hotel Rooms
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- Oakland city councilmember Rebecca Kaplan late Wednesday asked Governor Newsom, other city leaders and Alameda County officials to provide safe places for Oakland's homeless to shelter in place amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The request comes just a day after San Francisco supervisors passed an emergency ordinance to acquire about 7,000 hotel rooms for the homeless in their city to shelter in place.
Kaplan said that on March 27, the Oakland City Council passed a resolution requiring the city administrator to "acquire buildings, facilities and supplies" to provide aid and housing for the homeless to stop the spread of the coronavirus in homeless communities.
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"The COVID-19 pandemic puts our community at significant risk, and calls upon us to take important action to protect public health and human lives," Kaplan said in a statement.
Alameda County officials are working to move some of the homeless into 363 hotel rooms, which Kaplan said is well short of what's needed.
As of January 2019, when the last point-in-time count was done for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Alameda County's population included more than 8,000 homeless.
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