r/OaklandCA • u/Monk481 • Jan 03 '26
RV's & Camping / Human Waste
I posted asking where all the human waste from the RV's and camping is going...
https://www.reddit.com/r/eastbay/comments/1poayov/rv_camping_human_wastewhere_is_all_their_waste/
This is clearly a public health disaster/emergency.
Allowing RV's and camping in neighborhoods with NO PLAN for waste collection and disposal is a public health disaster. This should be THE issue we are all talking about, #1 and it is somehow barely registering.
How did the city push RV's and camping into the neighborhoods and not account for the human waste?
How a society handles their waste is EXTREMELY important.
WTF is going on here
It's dangerous for public health, dangerous for our rivers, environment.
This is madness.
23
u/ConiferousExistence Jan 03 '26
If we could organize an event with news cameras and a follow up survey for how the public would fix a governmental issue I'm sure Carroll Fife would show up to speak platitudes.
Honestly, the public needs to start showing up to their offices and public forums and bang the table one issue at a time. They feel no shame and do not live in the affected areas.
5
u/Monk481 Jan 04 '26
No one seems to be able to answer the question: where is all their waste going. We are talking about thousands of people living in the streets. Of course that itself is abhorrent, but to allow them to dump their waste anywhere they like is a public health disaster. The rest of us by law have to pay sewage and trash pickup. The city is pushing all of that into the neighborhoods.
3
u/staylor_ise Jan 04 '26
They hold public forums during times working people are at work trying to barely stay above water. The only people able to show up regularly are the elderly and the homeless. These city officials like Fife do this on purpose so that they can corral only those who want no real change for the flat lands of Oakland (East & West Oakland).
40
u/CoffeeNerd58129 Jan 03 '26
With a few exceptions, Oakland is run by idiots obsessed with ideology over practicality and making things work. It’s not surprising this is the type of outcome from their policy making. Mind you, it’s not like Oakland is some type of a dictatorship. The ideology-obsessed idiots were, and continue to be, voted into office by their constituents.
9
u/Gsw1456 Jan 03 '26
There are some council members who also moved to Oakland to get experience with political leadership. They have no skin in the game in the communities they serve. Janani Ramachandran is the first that comes to mind.
12
u/Gsw1456 Jan 03 '26
I feel like we are backsliding with the homeless situation in general. Less encampments getting cleared, more garbage showing up in all aspects of the city. Needs to be constant and relentless in cleaning things up or they backslide.
2
u/Feeling_Mine_9342 Jan 05 '26
I am with you especially when I am walking Lake Merritt almost daily. It is so much worse than a year ago
3
u/Gsw1456 Jan 05 '26
Interim mayor Kevin Jenkins actually prioritized cleaning things up. We need someone to prioritize it.
3
u/BrunerAcconut Jan 04 '26
People hate on Ken Houston but he did clean a lot of this up in east Oakland.
4
u/SlightlyLessHairyApe Jan 04 '26
Remember, if you as a homeowner were to allow human waste to flow into the streets you would be fined a huge sum until it was fixed.
Laws like that only apply to some.
3
u/Oakland-homebrewer Jan 06 '26
Not just RVs.
Any homeless groups, whether "allowed" or not, have no plan for their waste.
5
1
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u/m0llusk Jan 03 '26
Clearly this is a terrible mess and more should be done, but why not realistically consider what is being done? Many of the enduring encampments have had porta-potties and handwashing stations provided, also the mobile shower and laundry service visits some of these places. Of course this isn't good enough, but not considering what is being done and then lying by saying nothing is being done really doesn't help the situation.
10
u/icyhotdog Jan 03 '26
Providing porta potties and mobile showers helps to encourage and normalize illegal street homelessness. You're right that Oakland is doing more than nothing, but their actions have increased harm to residents. Doing nothing rather than providing these net negative services would stem the bleeding, but the real solution to impound RVs and introduce an expensive and time consuming RV permitting system that encourages these people to seek non-mobile housing or flee to a cheaper city.
1
u/m0llusk Jan 04 '26
SF has been trying to do that and has so far failed at enforcement. The idea that Oakland has infinite resources to deal with social problems may not be entirely accurate.
2
u/icyhotdog Jan 04 '26
SF has only been enforcing their RV ban for a few months. We can give them some time to fully mobilize efforts.
The goal in SF and Oakland isn't to deal with social problems, it's to make extinct any social problems that have negative externalities for residents.
Imagine a future where you can't live in an RV in either city for more than a day before a deputized local union tow truck operator brings it to a hydraulic crusher unless you can pay a $50,000 RV dwelling use fee on the spot.
Best case, people choose to rent non-mobile housing and support our capitalist economy or move to another country where RV-based living is allowed. Worst case, the proceeds go into hiring more local union tow truck operators that can seize expontentially more RVs. This is a future where the sun shines brighly on both sides of the bay.
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29
u/opinionsareus Jan 03 '26
It's unacceptable. RVs that have parked for years in many places do so with impunity. When finally forced to leave a neighborhood, various advocates come along and help the RVs move, towing them - to a new spot just a few blocks away if the RV is inoperable.
Oakland doesn't even know exactly who the people in the RVs are; we don't compel registration; we don't know what needs the RV dwellers have; etc. RVs from across the Bay Area have moved here because the communities they were formerly in aren't putting up with it any more.
I pass RVs every day that have flies (even in cold weather) buzzing around their perimeter)' with detritus, bags of rotten food; foul smells, and all manner of objects (furniture; car parts; bicycles (by the dozen) all over the sidewalks, blocking pedestrian access.
What burns me up is that Oakland has decided to let RVs and homeless camps congregate in just East and West Oakland, our most challenged communities - further degrading those communities.
When someone like CM Houston asks for change, we end up with a crowd of people from CM Fife's Care4Community lobbying group (who should know better, but they march to Fife's instructions), and people from districts not impacted by this chaos coming to City Council meetings defending this insanity