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A new homeless encampment in Oakland hopes to take the work of Berkeley’s Here There camp to another level.
The longstanding Berkeley community used solar panels to provide electricity to every resident until a recent accident destroyed the equipment.
But that setback has not deterred supporters of the Oakland Tiny House Community. In January, over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, activists built a community garden, security shack, kitchen and rows and rows of Tuff Sheds at Vantage Point Park, which overlooks I-880 and the BART tracks.
“It’s more like a tiny house. It’s built with insulation and paneling,” said Brent Ship, one of the camp’s head builders of the new structures. “Our goal is to put one solar panel on top of each house and run it to the main ‘cop house’ and run electricity from there to all of the homes.”
In addition to powering the community’s kitchen, devices and lights, many homeless residents have medical devices that need power, said housing activist Needa Bee.
There are even people who need a reliable power source to avoid trouble with the criminal justice system, said Bee.
“Folks who are on probation have ankle bracelets that need to be charged, or they could get in trouble for doing nothing – just not having a charged ankle bracelet,” said Bee. “We live in an electronic age, you have to have electricity.”