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As homeless encampments grow and turn to illegal and dangerous sources of electricity, elected officials are confronted with the vexing question of how to respond.
One unsanctioned tiny home village in Oakland is hoping to raise enough funds to put a solar panel on each home.
But until then, the camp is being powered by other means.
“It is coming from one of the poles out there, unfortunately,” said Brent Ship, one of the head builders at the Oakland Tiny House Community. Ship admits to siphoning power from a traffic light on East 12th Street, near the community in Vantage Point Park.
“It is dangerous. It is 220 volts, it will kill you in a heartbeat,” says Ship. “I know a little bit about electricity, but at the same time, it’s still a crime.”
Public officials worry that an accident with rogue wiring could have fatal consequences.
“That is one of the reasons why we are required quite often to engage in, for lack of a better term, ‘sweeps’,” said San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo.
When asked if providing solar panels was a viable alternative, Liccardo replied, “I would love to. Obviously the first priority though is getting people housed.”
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf agrees because she says people are always healthier and safer living indoors.
“That said, I respect the innovation that the homeless communities are coming up with because we as government have failed to provide adequate shelter and affordable housing," said Schaaf.
In Berkeley, the Here There encampment has been able to operate on solar power for the past three years. City officials tell KCBS Radio they continue to monitor it for health and safety violations.
For their part, the residents of these camps know that whatever they build can quickly be torn down but say they have little choice but to do what they can to sustain themselves.
“We look at it as, if they do that and they bulldoze these houses down, we don’t have nowhere to go,” says Ship. “We got to go to the next piece of land and they’re going to do the same thing there.”