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They call it an "abatement policy." City hall frames it with sanitized, bureaucratic words like public safety, sanitation, and neighborhood revitalization. But if you want to know what Oakland’s Encampment Abatement Policy (EAP) actually feels like, you have to look at it through the eyes of the people whose lives it disrupts, dismantles, and shatters. Elected officials are supposed to protect all members of this community. But somewhere along the way, "the community" stopped

"The thing about homelessness is that it makes people uncomfortable, no matter the angle from which you’re viewing it. Homelessness is so complex that we just deem it a bad omen or a disease you can catch if you look at it too long. Because of that, we forget that real human beings are experiencing it."

"Why are spaces for unhoused advocacy so rare? It’s time to shift from survival mode to thriving. Discover how lived experience is key to housing justice."

For a long time, I believed that because I had experienced homelessness, addiction, poverty, and countless barriers, my voice didn't belong in the rooms where decisions were being made. I assumed policy was something created by lawyers, politicians, researchers, and people with degrees hanging on their walls. I thought I had nothing to contribute. I couldn't have been more wrong. What I've learned over the past few years is that there are organizations across the country act

Breaking the stigmas on homelessness in America.