Residents at Oakland transitional housing site slam program as a failure
A transitional housing facility in Oakland was under fire on Wednesday by its formerly homeless residents for not helping them find a permanent place to live.
And now, they say they are facing possible evictions, one year after moving into the site.
In May 2025, bulldozers moved in to tear down a long-standing homeless encampment along E. 12th Street in Oakland. But before they did, the city offered housing at the new Mandela House, formerly the Extended Stay hotel near the border of Emeryville.
Oakland bought the site with tens of millions of dollars from the state's Encampment Resolution Fund. And the city selected a group called the Housing Consortium of East Bay, or HCBE, to run the operation. But now, almost a year later, the residents say the program hasn't worked.
"Housing Consortium of the East Bay completely failed to provide the services, support and permanent housing navigation that they received more than $5 million from the city of Oakland to provide for the residents," said homeless advocate Needa Bee. "And in their failure to do so, now they're threatening to evict everyone."
That's because the program only provides for one year of housing at Mandela House. But Bee said the residents got almost no help in finding permanent housing, and so on Wednesday afternoon, they gathered outside to protest the looming evictions.
"The staff didn't do their job," said Bee. "They sat around! I watched it! I witnessed it. They did not navigate anybody."
Many of the residents said they voluntarily left the encampments because promises were made to them — Promises, they say, that weren't kept. Joletta Bishop said she left her 5th-wheel trailer because she was promised that it would be moved to an RV-parking site, but she said that never happened.
"Everything of mine and my son's is gone, due to the fact that I came here," she said. "It's gone. It's gone. I had no way to move it. It's gone. And all my things that were in it."
But most importantly, the residents said they were told they would get help to find a permanent place to live. But after a year, out of about 100 people, they said only one or two found housing. And now they said they're being told they will all have to leave.
"This is fraud, what's happening. Absolutely, no question about this. This is fraud," said Bee. "They accepted money from the city, the city accepted money from the State, under very specific contract guidelines. And those contracts have been fully violated."
Seventy people from the E. 12th Street encampment were relocated to Mandela House. At the time, mayor Barbara Lee wrote that she was "grateful that so many residents of this encampment have taken advantage of this opportunity."
CBS News Bay Area requested comment from Housing Consortium of the East Bay, but in an email, they said as a contractor for Oakland they would have to get the city's authorization to respond. So far, there has been no response from HCBE or the city.