At a City Hall news conference, Schaaf and executives from the East Bay Community Law Center, Catholic Charities of the East Bay and Bay Area Community Services presented a $9 million pilot plan called Keep Oakland Housed, which is designed to provide support services for low-income city residents.
Tirien Steinbach, executive director of the East Bay Community Law Center, said pressures of the region’s tightening rental market provide incentives to landlords to raise rents. Tenants are feeling the squeeze, and need help fighting evictions.
“We believe that it will help staunch the bleeding of Oakland tenants,” said Tirien Steinbach, executive director of the East Bay Community Law Center.
Financially stressed families must choose between paying crippling fees or basic expenses, like feeding their children
The suit, filed this week in federal court, says the city ordinance is applied excessively to young black men and should be deemed unconstitutional. Named as defendants are the city of Oakland and the Oakland Housing Authority Police Department. The entities that filed the lawsuit — including the East Bay Community Law Center and local ACLU division — submitted a stack of police reports as part of the complaint.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, in partnership with the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, East Bay Community Law Center, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and King & Spalding LLP, today filed a complaint in United States District Court, Northern District of California, challenging the constitutionality of the Oakland Public Housing loitering ordinance.
The supervisors ultimately moved all three forward when attorneys from the East Bay Community Law Center argued that ability-to-pay assessments were often inconsistent. Brandon Greene, a staff attorney for the center, said the measure is the culmination of two years of public records requests and meetings with county officials.
Among the groups that are urging Alameda County to eliminate the court fees are the East Bay Community Law Center, a Berkeley-based legal services provider that represents low-income people, and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, a non-profit group based in Oakland.
GORDON: I’d say that we’re seeing not only more evictions but we’re seeing evictions on a bigger scale, because there’s so much money to be made by developers now.
The East Bay Community Law Center said today that it is seeking to convince Alameda County officials to eliminate administrative fees for people who are convicted of crimes.
