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Homeless Moms Who Took Over West Oakland Home Gain Support From Lawmakers

The women, who took over the vacant home after struggling to find permanent housing in the costly Bay Area, said they're protesting real estate speculators who snap up distressed homes, then leave them empty.
Terence Chea and Juliet Williams
Associated Press
Members of the group Moms 4 Housing — Sharena Thomas, left, Carroll Fife, center, Dominique Walker, second from right, and Tolani KIng, right — outside a formerly vacant house on Magnolia Street in West Oakland, which they've occupied since November, despite an eviction order. (Kate Wolffe/KQED)

A handful of California lawmakers have recently voiced support for a small group of homeless women who have been illegally living in a vacant three-bedroom house in West Oakland since November.

With the help of Moms 4 Housing, a group recently formed to support them, the women took over the home after they said they were unable to find permanent housing in the Bay Area, where high-paying tech jobs have exacerbated income inequality and a housing shortage. The group says it's also protesting real estate developers who it blames for driving up home prices by snapping up distressed homes and leaving them empty.

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"I want to thank Moms 4 Housing for taking that house and for demonstrating that nowhere, nowhere should there be a vacant house anywhere in California when we have the housing crisis that we have," said Democratic state Sen. Nancy Skinner of Berkeley. "And it was totally legitimate for those homeless moms to take over that house."

The women are currently awaiting a final eviction ruling from a judge that will determine whether they can stay, though Alameda County Superior Court Judge Patrick McKinney has tentatively ruled in favor of the property owner, Wedgewood, a Redondo Beach-based real estate investment group that bought the home in a foreclosure auction last year.

On Tuesday, members of Moms 4 Housing and their allies shouted down state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf who stood on the steps of Oakland City Hall to introduce a new version of a sweeping state housing development measure. For nearly an hour, as officials touted the bill, protesters drowned them out with chants of “Hey hey, ho ho, luxury housing has got to go” and “Where’s the affordable housing?”

Schaaf has remained quiet on the women's eviction case, saying only that she hopes Wedgewood will sell the home to the group.

"I respect that the Moms 4 Housing are engaging in civil disobedience. And I applaud their bringing attention to the travesty of the fact that we, as a government, as a society, do not provide the basic human need of housing," Schaaf said after the press conference. She later asked for the group's contact information and said she planned to be in touch with its members.

Dominique Walker, 34, who has 1- and 5-year-old daughters, said she moved back to her native Oakland from Mississippi last year but could not find a place to live in the pricey market. She said many of the people who used to live in her neighborhood have been forced out by rising prices.

"Housing is a human right. I pay bills there. I pay water, PG&E, internet. We live there," Walker said. "We want to purchase the home. ... It needs to belong back in the hands of the community. It was stolen through the foreclosure crisis."

Wedgewood bought the home for $501,000 and took possession days after the women moved in, said Sam Singer, a spokesman for the company. The 1908 house has one bathroom and is about 1,500 square feet.

This "is a straightforward situation of illegal entry and illegal occupation," Singer said. "They broke into the home ... and they have no legal or ethical defense for their action."

Lawyers for the women argued in court last week that housing is a right and the court should allow the women to possess the house, particularly because of how long it stood vacant and that the alternative would be to send them to the streets.

Assemblyman Ash Kalra, a Democrat from San Jose, said Tuesday that elected officials need to ensure "opportunistic landlords and corporate landlords" don't "keep our homes vacant."

Many Oakland residents say they are being pushed to the fringes of the Bay Area as they struggle to keep pace with housing costs.

Federal officials said last month that an uptick in the country's homeless population was driven entirely by a 16% increase in California, where the median sales price of a home is $500,000.

The situation is so dire that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom approved a statewide rent cap on some properties.

Yet there are four vacant homes for every homeless person in Oakland, said Leah Simon-Weisberg, an attorney for Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, which is helping the mothers in court.

The empty eyesores are in devastated, predominantly minority neighborhoods, she said, adding that developers like Wedgewood "acquire the property, they kick the people out who are in it, and they sell it."

Singer said Wedgewood buys distressed properties, hires local workers to fix up the homes and sells them, hopefully to first-time homebuyers.

He said the company will continue with its eviction proceedings against the women if the judge rules in the company's favor, as expected.

This story includes reporting from Terence Chea and Juliet Williams of The Associated Press and KQED's Alice Woelfle

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