On Fri May 22 to Sat May 23, housed and unhoused protestors gathered outside Palms Motel for a little over 16 hours to call for 37MLK, a community of mostly elder female lifelong Bay Area unhoused residents, to be sheltered in hotel rooms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
37MLK residents as well as the mutual aid and housing justice group, Love and Justice in The Streets (LAJITS), have been encouraging residents to call Mayor Schaaf to use hotel rooms, the vast majority of which sit empty due to COVID-19, to shelter homeless people.
The Oakland Post emailed Justin Berton, spokesperson for Mayor Schaaf, mentioned Oakland Code of Ordinance 8.50.050, and asked: “Are hotel rooms considered vital and found lacking to protect life in Oakland?”
Boyd’s statement did not say if the city was providing funds for hotels, or if the city planned to obtain or commandeer hotel rooms but said, “We continue to support the county in making referrals into their hotel programs.”
Due to the amount of hotel rooms available and the slow pace in which the county is filling them, activists are continuing to push the city of Oakland to secure rooms itself while collecting private donations to lease them through venmo at @ars_hoetica.
