OAKLAND — Months after Oakland officials gave community organizers the green light to create a sanctioned homeless encampment on a city-owned lot in East Oakland, they told them to pack their bags by November.

Organizers of “the Village” at East 12th Street and 23rd Avenue have been working since November 2017 to get the site up and running — clearing trash, seeking help for folks who already lived there and building tiny homes. But earlier this year, city officials told the organizers that the site needs to be cleared out by November of this year in order to make way for a major retrofitting project on the 23rd Avenue bridge, which passes over the encampment and feeds into Interstate 880.

Assistant city administrator Joe DeVries told the East Bay Times that the retrofitting project has been on the books for about 10 years; it’s going to be carried out by the city’s Department of Transportation but funded through Caltrans. When city administrator’s staff were looking at potential sites for a sanctioned encampment, they were unsure of the timing of the project, he said.

The city administrator’s office is looking for other nearby sites to move the encampment to, and staff members have identified a few potential sites in the Fruitvale neighborhood, DeVries said.

Anita De Asis, the Village’s lead organizer, expressed frustration over having to move in November. She and other Village organizers and supporters had been pressuring city officials for land to operate on months before they were provided the parcel.

“It behooves the city to hurry up and get us land, because we’re not going to stop building,” De Asis said. “We have no intention to stop building.”

De Asis and the Village organizers have asked the city for a new site closer to the original Village site at Grove Shafter Park at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and 36th Street in West Oakland. The original village was established without the city’s permission, and shut down in February 2017. The structures volunteers had built were torn down.

In addition to a site in West Oakland, the village organizers are asking the city for a site to house people who turn down any homelessness assistance and who refuse treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. The village organizers also seek two additional sites for folks who are seeking recovery from drug and alcohol addiction; those sites would ideally house up to 20 people each, De Asis said.

The current site at East 12th and 23rd has been operating far over capacity, De Asis said. The organizers had initially intended to house around 40 people at the site, but as the city has cleared out other encampments in East Oakland, more people have flocked to the village, De Asis said. It currently houses around 80 people.

Many of the people who live at the village are “in crisis,” De Asis said; they struggle with mental health and addiction issues. Though the folks are now living there peacefully, the overcrowding led to tensions between village residents earlier this year.

That tension led to a physical confrontation where two residents were attacked by another who was wielding a 2-by-4, according to a news release issued by the village organizers. The two residents defended themselves, and were later charged with crimes, according to organizers. Those charges were later dropped because of a lack of evidence, De Asis said.

“That should have never happened,” De Asis said. “It’s overcrowded there, and people are all doing too much. There shouldn’t be that many people in deep crisis.”

Between now and November, the organizers plan to continue developing the site — though they have been unable to secure an insurance provider per the city’s requirement. Students from Laney College have worked on frames for tiny homes to be placed on the village site and plan to deliver a new frame every week until July, De Asis said. Students from local high schools also have been volunteering at the site.

The outpouring of support from the community has prevented De Asis from feeling disheartened about having to clear the site by November.

“We’re way more powerful than that and way more determined to still put up houses,” De Asis said.