The right to housing is a human right. Yet, in Oakland, there are nearly four vacant properties for every homeless person.
Photogallery of Press Conferences and Eviction Night
This statistic, found in a Mother Jones article cited statistics from SFcurbed, states there are close to four vacant housing units per homeless person in Alameda County. Many other counties and cities have the same rate.
A group of homeless moms, Moms 4 Housing, organized to take over a vacant home in West Oakland and used this statistic to wedge their way into a vacant home in West Oakland. They first entered the property on Nov. 18, 2019. When news broke of their refusal to leave, many thought they advocated taking over regular homeownership and squatting. But that’s not the case. The moms and the organizations working with them used research to target a home that had been vacant for almost two years. The house was recently purchased by a shell corporation LLC named Wedgwood, based in southern California.
This is my home. I was born and raised here. I deserve to be here.
– Sameerah Karim. Moms 4 Housing.
To highlight the myriad of issues to access housing, they showed that houses are kept vacant to fluctuate the housing market, keeping demand for housing high, and only selling or renting when the market has hit the desired peak. Eventually, the research they cited had to be taken seriously and addressed in the news media.
On Nov. 23, 2019, at Mosswood Park in Oakland, CA, a mixed collective of activist groups gathered united to march in what had been announced as a Housing Week of Action. The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action organized and led the march. It included Moms 4 Housing and well-known organizations like the Sunrise Movement, Poor People’s Campaign, Youth vs. Apocalypse, and Anti-Police Terror Project (APTP).
This was an unusual move, which meant a large collective of housing, economic, and environmental activists coming together to organize using research and powerful tactics; they may be unstoppable.
As Moms 4 Housing refused to leave the home and started to garner more media attention, Wedgwood, with their corporate office pictured here, hired a PR firm. They hired Sam Singer, president of Singer Associates Public Relations San Francisco, to manage their media messaging. On Dec. 17, 2019 Moms 4 Housing petitioned the courts to hear their case, attempting a “right to claim possession.”
On Dec. 23, 2019 Wedgwood claimed they would use a Southern California-based nonprofit called Shelter 37. Shelter 37 claimed that if the moms left to be homeless on the streets with their children immediately, then Wedgwood would use the home for at-risk Oakland youth, despite this plan never being announced before and the non-profit has no record of working with the City of Oakland before.
The moms found this idea ridiculous since it would put their children at risk of being on the streets just before Christmas. The moms had also contacted the company from the start, asking that they sell them the home at a reasonable price through an Oakland Land Trust.
The moms stayed in the home through Christmas and took their case to court in hopes that their argument that housing is a human right and has been withheld from the public on purpose fluctuate the market so only those with large amounts of cash can afford it would work in their favor.
The system is designed to protect the wealthy. It wasn’t designed for us, so we never thought we would win in the unjust system. Yet we are here, and we’re not leaving
– Dominique Walker, Moms 4 Housing
Wedgwood also covered the moms’ shelter at a Catholic Charity for two months. However, the Catholic Charity said it isn’t that easy to get out of homelessness, and they could not promise to help the moms within two months.
The judge in charge of the case ruled favor of Wedgwood on Jan. 10, 2020. The moms said they were not mad, though. It was a win to stay as long as they did and receive the media coverage they received. They galvanized a movement that would continue.
Here’s the full press conference on Jan 10, 2020 responding to the judgement of eviction:
“The system is designed to protect the wealthy. It wasn’t designed for us, so we never thought we would win in the unjust system. Yet we are here, and we’re not leaving,” Walker said in a press conference after a judge ruled in favor of the corporate house flipping owner Wedgwood on Jan. 10.
“We are bringing awareness to this national and global housing crisis. And we don’t intend to stop. Housing is a human right,” said Walker. “We’re working to change not only the loss here but all over the world around housing. We want to create a housing registry. We want to outlaw short-term rentals. We want to be able to use eminent domain to get housing from these corporate speculators out of our communities.”
Director of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) Action Carroll Fife spoke first at the press conference, calling attention to a narrative she said she often saw in the media that blamed the moms for being homeless.
I really want to highlight how this particular situation has called into the forefront of how people are not valued. I hear that they should work harder. That they shouldn’t have children.
“They work two or three jobs,” Fife said of Moms 4 Housing advocates. “Some of them lost their partners through car accidents or bad health because they didn’t have access to health care. So we want people to understand that this could be anyone.”
Fife continued to say that the housing problems that Moms 4 Housing faces affect everyone. “The people who can save up enough for a down payment on homes have to compete with corporations like Wedgewood, which has hundreds of shell organizations and limited liability corporations that buy houses in bulk,” Fife said.
Hundreds of supporters had gathered at the West Oakland home on Magnolia Street the evening before the eviction after Moms 4 Housing sent a mass text announcing that the Alameda Sheriff’s Department was coming to evict them. Supporters sang, chanted, and rallied together peacefully while many stood in front of the house, ready for arrest.
Moms 4 Housing Call to Action Eviction Night, Jan. 13, 2019 Over a Hundred Supporters Arrive Within Fifteen Minutes of Receiving a Text Notification
On Jan 14, within the early 5 am morning hours, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department evicted two of the moms using Bearcat armored vehicle and militarized officers. Dominique Walker was live on Democracy Now! At the time, with Fife, she was not arrested, and the children had been removed from the home the night before when the community had gathered and prepared to stop the eviction.
It was announced on Jan. 20, 2020, Martin Luther King Jr. Day that Wedgwood would sell the home at an appraisal price to the moms through the Oakland Land Trust. In case you don’t know, appraisal price just means someone will come and appraise the home’s value, and whatever is determined, the house’s value is what it will be sold for.
California Governor Gavin Newson met with Wedgwood to negotiate the home sale with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf. However, the moms wanted to clarify a few things that day, so they held a press conference to thank their supporters. They mentioned that two public officials initially supported them: Oakland City Council members Nikki Fortunato Bas and Rebecca Kaplan. They also wanted everyone to know the fight for housing would not stop until everyone who wants to be housed is housed.
Moms 4 Housing Announce Purchase of Home in Discussion with Wedgewood on MLK Day Press Conference on Jan. 20, 2020
In closing, this is probably one of the best modern-day examples of using tactics and research to get a message across, educate the public, use social media to organize, and use media to do follow-up research to get a little closer to solving a major public problem like the housing crisis we have here in California. It’s a blueprint that can be used around the world.
NOTE: This article has been updated (last updated Aug. 20, 2024) since it was originally published on Feb. 2, 2020, with additional information.
Dominique Walker and Misty Cross of Moms 4 Housing spoke at the Poor People’s Campaign Teach-in at Laney College on Feb. 25, 2020. They shared intimate stories expressing detailed reasons housing should be a human right based on their experiences.
Cross said she was a victim of a violent crime—shot three times by an AK-47—yet she saw the importance of getting involved in local politics going in as a write-in candidate for the D3 school board. She said the current elected officials are doing nothing, which is why “we” are in the position that we are now. That is why voting and getting involved locally is so important.
I bled on these streets. I do community work here. This is my city.
– Misty Cross, Moms 4 Housing
When asked what a Community Land Trust is, Walker described a board that works with the city council. This was likely a new concept at the time, but there has been more information since then. The Oakland Community Land Trust (CLT) says, “It is a nonprofit organization that acquires and stewards land in trust for the permanent benefit of low-income communities.”
Laney Poor People’s Campaign Teach-In Feb 25, 2025 with Guest Speakers Dominique Walker and Misty Cross of Moms 4 Housing
Reference Articles/Citations
Click on this link to download all of the citations where you can find a full list of referenced article links related to Moms 4 Housing.
Originally this article was a gathering of information and posting a podcast to Youtube to spread the information further. 2020 became a crazy year! It took four and a half years for me to come back and fully update this information, but now is a god time.
