Union Point on the Rise

In the Spring of 2021, a group of people camping at Union Point Park refused to leave. The city really needed them to leave to avoid $6,000 dollars a day fines from the BCDC. The group of people created a list of demands and had support from housing activists. Lawyers were brought in and an agreement was reached to move into hotel rooms while an alternative piece of land was selected and set up to be a place where the group of 16-20 people could live and manage their own space. It would be the first Co-Governed transitional housing program in Oakland. The group of people decided to call themselves "Union Point on the Rise" (UPOR) and began making decisions at weekly meetings to develop the initial set of policies and frameworks that would serve as their operating and governance system at the new site. A site was located at the controversial E12th parcel. Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas pushed to see it be used for housing relief rather than continue to sit vacant. Space on the property was offered to UPOR as a place to set up their Co-Governed Tiny Home Community next to a neighboring 50-unit program operated by Housing Consortium of the East Bay. The Group of people partnered with a Tiny House Consulting Firm, Tiny Logic, that would serve as its backbone agency. In the winter of 2021, due to persistent demands from two protesters with a conspiracy that the site was segregationists, the City of Oakland canceled the experiment and began the process of merging the two separate programs into one.