In a stark display of the wealth disparities that are currently ravaging the San Francisco Bay Area, a real estate developer attempted to shoot $1,000 in dollar bills over a homeless encampment in Oakland in an effort to get residents to leave.

Dressed as an elf to “deliver Xmas in July”, Gene Gorelik stood on a boom lift on Friday and chanted into a bullhorn, “Free money! Free money!” He was shouted down by community activists and encampment residents before he was able to turn on his leaf blower full of cash.

Gorelik, who did not respond to a request for comment, posted on a Facebook page that he planned to offer each encampment resident $2,000 to leave the area by 8pm and move to another lot about four miles west. After activists continued to shout at him, he told the crowd the deal was off, and police escorted him from the lot.

“It’s just a slap in the face for the residents,” said Candice Elder, the chief executive of East Oakland Collective, a community organization that focuses on racial and economic equity. “He’s not doing anything constructive right now but being disrespectful and classist.”

His concern centered on the nearby Home Depot store, which had complained that homeless people parking recreational vehicles in the area had made employees feel unsafe. The Oakland city council voted to close a section of the street behind the store to curb the issue.

Oakland homeless activists protest real estate developer Gene Gorelik who offered people in a homeless encampment $2,000 in hopes of getting them to leave. Photograph: Vivian Ho/The Guardian

Gorelik wore a “Make Oakland Great Again” cap during his stunt, and a slogan he parroted throughout the event page on Facebook. Bizarrely he was surrounded by half-inflated eagles intended for a parade.

Activists and encampment residents pointed out that Gorelik did not offerany lasting solutions to the humanitarian crisis in the Bay Area. The most recent homeless count in Alameda county, where Oakland is located, found more than 8,000 sleeping on the streets or in shelters.

Even if Gorelik had given each resident $2,000, “it really doesn’t do anything,” said 38-year-old Kay Spikes, who has lived in a tiny house in the encampment for five years.

“$2,000 would get me maybe a motel for two weeks, some food,” she said. “You can’t even use that as a deposit. There’s no place in Oakland that’s $1,000. It doesn’t solve the issue and it sure doesn’t even put a cushion under it.”

Gorelik, a real estate developer at Oakland Redevelopment Group, was sued by the city attorney’s office in 2017 for allegedly harassing and illegally evicting a 64-year-old tenant.