In East Oakland, a Store Where 1 Item Is Always Free

This story is part of How We Get By, a KQED series exploring how people are coping with rising costs in the Bay Area and California. Find the full series here.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, people moved shoulder to shoulder through a small shop in East Oakland, pausing at tables, lifting objects, and deciding what to take with them.

The space resembled a grandmother’s attic, crowded with mismatched objects: glassware stacked beside old electronics, knitted hats next to typewriters and rotary phones.

One elementary school-aged girl gripped a lock-and-key set, turning it over in her hands as if testing its purpose.

“I guess I could put it on my suitcase,” she said. When asked who wouldn’t be allowed to open it, she didn’t hesitate: “Anybody!”

Moments later, she walked out of the store without paying.

That’s how it works here.

In a city grappling with rising costs and displacement, Free Oakland UP offers a hybrid model of mutual aid and art: a storefront where goods circulate freely, customers pay what they can and community interaction is as central as the items themselves.

“The ‘UP’ stands for Utopian Project,” said Jocelyn Meggait, an artist and the founder of Free Oakland UP. “Wouldn’t it be great if everything was free — your housing, your medical, everything?”

From art experiment to Oakland storefront

The store reflects Meggait’s background as a social practice artist — someone who builds experiences rather than physical art pieces. The idea first took shape nearly 15 years ago, when she was pursuing her Master of Fine Arts at Mills College in Oakland.

“I did start it out as a response to the economy,” she said. “After the crash in 2008, everyone was freaking out.”

For her master’s thesis, she created a “free pile” inside the school’s art museum — a curated installation where visitors could take one item, no more.

“I liked the idea of it being in a gallery or museum where you’re not allowed to touch anything,” she said, “let alone take something for free.”

That one-item limit was intentional. It forced visitors to weigh their choices and needs — whether they wanted to walk away with a piece of art or a mug. For Meggait, the project extends beyond that single choice.

“It’s about the economy, and it’s about the environment — keeping stuff out of the landfill, reusing, upcycling, the whole circular economy of it,” she said.

After graduate school, Meggait expanded the concept into pop-ups across California, bringing the free-store model to places like Lake Tahoe and Venice Beach. In 2014, she settled on a permanent storefront in Oakland.

“When I found it, I was so excited,” she said. “The neighborhood is great because [this area] needs something to get the community out and get people talking to each other.”

A third space in a city under pressure

Free Oakland UP sits in a quiet strip mall near an ice cream shop, an auto repair shop and a bodega. Meggait’s operation runs on small donations from customers, arts grants and plant sales, but she said it’s been hard to maintain.

“The business model has changed just because I’ve had to adapt to paying rent and my rent has just been raised,” she said, adding that now the shop is open an extra day in order to afford the rent.

Oakland has faced a deepening affordability crisis for years, with its unhoused population doubling over the past decade.

A 2021 Stanford report found that East Oakland experiences some of the highest levels of financial instability and disinvestment in the region.

Here, Free Oakland UP stands out — a quirky, kooky, joyful space where people can find objects and community.

“It’s like an intersection between three or four different neighborhoods,” said Jacques Lafontant, a longtime Oakland resident. “People from different communities and socioeconomic environments come here and mix.”

What draws people in may be the objects, but what lingers is something less tangible — the conversations that form around them.

“[I asked] someone last week …‘what are you going to do with those 20 Pez dispensers?’” said Angie Fryer, who lives two blocks away. “That’s not a conversation you’re going to strike up at the grocery store line.”

But what keeps the space alive isn’t just money — it’s movement.

Deborah Campbell regularly donates items to the store and picks up materials to bring to the Creative Growth Art Center, where adults with developmental disabilities make and sell artwork.

“I wish there was more of this going on,” she said. “I think this activates a community spirit.”

Others come with no specific purpose at all.

“For window shopping,” said Niem Nguyen, who has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years. “Just for fun and for a happy day.”

Over time, Meggait has become a central figure within that ecosystem — a shopkeeper, a therapist, a confidant.

“When you come in here, you realize she knows everybody,” Fryer said. “And if it’s their first visit, she knows that too.”

Meggait sees that role a little differently.

“I hear people’s stories and their secrets,” she said. “I’m like somebody’s grandma. You can tell Grandma anything.”

More than a decade after opening the storefront, Meggait said the concept still surprises people.

“When I first opened, my customers thought I was insane,” she said. “My family up in Canada thinks I’m insane.”

But, she said, “I’m still here, so it seems to be working.”

In a city where scarcity can define daily choices, Free Oakland UP offers a different framework — one rooted in a free exchange of goods and the added bonus of community.