Oakland officials this week agreed to close an 89-room homeless shelter at a former hotel near Lake Merritt and move residents to a new site by Jack London Square — while also extending the city’s longstanding homelessness emergency.
The lease for the Lake Merritt Lodge, a cream-colored, four-story building at 2332 Harrison St., expires at the end of June, and the property owner intends to sell the hotel. To ensure homeless residents aren’t kicked to the street, the city is working with the site’s nonprofit operator to sign a new lease for the 110-room Jack London Inn at 444 Embarcadero West.
On Tuesday, the City Council unanimously voted to award a $6.8 million grant to the Housing Consortium of the East Bay to manage a new shelter at the Jack London Inn for the next year, with the possibility of extending the funding. The annual lease will cost about $4.7 million, and shelter operations are expected to cost $2.1 million.
Like the Lake Merritt Lodge, the new site will shelter older and medically frail homeless people while providing case management services, on-site security and help finding permanent housing. Of the 268 residents who have stayed at the lodge, 105 moved to lasting homes, according to the city. The average length of stay has been between 9 and 16 months.
On Tuesday, the City Council also agreed to extend its local homelessness emergency declaration, which it first approved in 2019. The declaration allows the city to request additional state and federal grants and streamline some homelessness efforts, such as building and opening shelters. Alameda County, San Francisco and San Jose have made similar declarations.
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During Tuesday’s council meeting, homeless advocates urged the city to do more to help build desperately needed affordable housing. They pointed to a former Army base near the Bay Bridge entrance as a potential site.
“Let’s get the land to livable non-toxic conditions and start building housing immediately,” said Sameerah Karim, a co-founder of the Oakland advocacy group Moms 4 Housing.
As housing costs have soared over the past decade, Oakland’s homeless population has more than doubled, spiking from an estimated 2,191 people in 2015 to 5,055 people in 2022.
