Faced with growing anger over the city’s squalid tent cities — both from the homeless people who live in them and the neighbors who see them as blight — Oakland officials on Tuesday considered overhauling the way they handle encampments.

Instead of managing encampments on a case-by-case basis — resulting in unpredictable sweeps that push homeless residents from one spot to another — the city is considering adopting an overarching policy that would lay out where people with nowhere else to go can camp in the city, and where they can’t.

Such a standard could help homeless people who follow the rules avoid the trauma of a sweep, while also setting clear health and safety guidelines for encampments, according to a memo presented Tuesday during a committee meeting by Joe DeVries, assistant to the city administrator.

“As the crisis has grown larger, we have reached a point where a staff evaluation on an encampment-by-encampment basis is not enough,” DeVries said.

But the proposal raised concerns from some homeless Oaklanders and activists who crowded the City Council chambers Tuesday. Almost 50 community members signed up to speak on the controversial issue.

“We see the Encampment Management Team as flawed from the very beginning,” said Angelo Isaac Sandoval, a legal advocate and organizer with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. “They shouldn’t be deciding who goes to jail, whose stuff gets thrown away, who gets retraumatized.”

The Ella Baker Center and other activists on Tuesday submitted a letter to Mayor Libby Schaaf and the Oakland City Council demanding the city stop clearing encampments on public land and abolish 10 city ordinances they say criminalize homelessness — such as rules prohibiting soliciting on the street and sleeping on public benches. They claim those ordinances, and the city’s sweeping of encampments, run afoul of Martin v. Boise — a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that held cities cannot punish people for living outside if they have no option to sleep inside.

Currently, the city evaluates homeless encampments individually, dismantling them if they get too big or too filthy, if they pose a safety risk or if they are in an area of concern, such as too close to a school — among a host of other reasons. As an alternative, DeVries proposed laying out a sweeping set of rules that would make certain areas off-limits to the homeless.

In his memo, he discussed whether to allow encampments in public parks, how close they should be to schools and protected waterways, whether they should be allowed near local businesses that rely on foot traffic, and if they should be prohibited from blocking traffic and bike lanes.

The issue of how to handle Oakland’s sprawling encampments is one of the city’s most fraught, as evidenced by city officials’ last attempt to discuss a policy overhaul. In a December committee meeting, DeVries tried to present a report in which he proposed allowing police to cite homeless people camping on spots where previous encampments had been cleared. Before he could deliver his report, DeVries was shouted down by activists, and then accosted as he attempted to leave the meeting.

DeVries came back with a new report Tuesday, which did not specifically mention citing people for sleeping in cleared areas, but instead asked several broad questions about how the city can enforce its encampment policy.

“This issue is one of the most emotional, sensitive and challenging issues our city faces,” DeVries said.

Community members who spoke during Tuesday’s meeting included homeless Oaklanders, activists, religious leaders and residents with encampments near their homes — all of whom expressed concern about Oakland’s growing homeless population.

Victoria Harris of West Oakland talked about a park near her home that turned into an encampment, collecting trash and rats, and deterring children and families from playing there.

“I get addressing homelessness is really important,” she said to this news organization after sharing her story with city officials, “but we also need to preserve these public spaces.”

Instead of focusing on what sites should be off-limits to the homeless, Council President Rebecca Kaplan wanted to emphasize where they would be allowed to camp.

“It’s not just how much are we spending pushing people out, but where are we letting people go to,” she said.

Councilman Dan Kalb advocated for a policy that would focus on removing bad actors — such as drug dealers or people who behave violently — from encampments. He also suggested beefing up the resources the city puts into keeping encampments clean.

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Some Bay Area homeless sweeps continue, despite coronavirus moratorium “We need to be picking up the trash and cleaning the encampments that do exist, however many do exist in the future, wherever they may be,” he said. “We need to pick up the trash and clean them twice as often as we’re doing now.”

Councilman Loren Taylor proposed holding a series of town hall meetings throughout the city so residents can weigh in on what they’d like to see in an encampment management policy. Officials would then take those recommendations and come up with an official policy to be voted on by the City Council and implemented by the middle of the year.