More than 9,000 homeless individuals live in Oakland, currently at extremely high risk for COVID-19. The newly formed Homeless Action, a subcommittee of Kehilla’s longstanding Economic Justice Committee, had its first Zoom meeting last week and immediately addressed this emergency.
The emergent issues discussed were:
- Supporting an advocacy letter that will go to City and County officials to expand bed capacity within empty hotels and housing units. This letter calls for the immediate housing of all homeless individuals in these unused spaces to stave off rampant spread if there is no intervention. Kehilla members and others will be asked to make urgent follow up phone calls to city, county and state officials.
- The possibility of “adopting” one or two small encampments to provide meals. Based on the fact that many of our local restaurants are losing business, we want to explore if some local restaurants may be interested in packing meals that we could deliver to these encampments.
Please contact Sue Greenwald at sgreenwald 53@yahoo.com
- If you are willing to make follow-up calls to support the effort to get more hotel and housing unit beds for homeless individuals to stop the rapid spread of Covid-19.
- If you know of restaurants that may be interested in preparing meals and/or are willing to donate
- If you are in a financial position to donate to the Rabbi’s Discretionary Fund. Contributions made to this Fund will be used for projects such as providing food/water to unhoused individuals, and other areas of need related to COVID-19 crisis.
The next meeting of Homeless Action is Wednesday, April 1, 6 – 7 pm. Join us by clicking on this link:
Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/3893648015
Please also email Sue to let her know you are joining.