Fed-up Oakland residents place LOGS outside stores in a bid to stop homeless encampments

Business owners have placed large logs along a commercial street in Oakland in order to stop homeless encampments being set up outside their stores. 

The logs – some of which measure ten feet in length – appeared Monday morning on West Oakland’s Poplar Street – a popular place for vagrants to park their RVs and dilapidated vehicles. 

No one has claimed responsibility for the placing the tree trunks along the road, however ABC reports that the logs must have been transported into the area by a forklift or bulldozer given their hefty size.  

The move comes as the number of homeless residents in Oakland has soared nearly 50% in the past two years alone. 

Business owners have placed large logs along a commercial street in Oakland in order to stop homeless encampments being set up outside their stores.

Fox News reports that a federal count taken this past July showed the city had 4,017 homeless people, up from 2,761 in 2017.

Meanwhile, the number of residents living in cars or mobile homes has jumped 131 percent, from 618 in 2017 to 1,430.   

One Oakland business owner told Fox News he does not have a problem with the logs being placed across the street as ‘the city does an extremely poor job in preventing homeless encampments from developing in West Oakland’. 

No one has claimed responsibility for the placing the tree trunks along the road, however ABC reports that, given their size, the logs must have been transported by a forklift or bulldozer

No one has claimed responsibility for the placing the tree trunks along the road, however ABC reports that, given their size, the logs must have been transported by a forklift or bulldozer

Other residents have also expressed their frustrations as the rates of homelessness surge in the city. 

Back in October, local property developer Gene Gorelik suggested putting thousands of homeless people onto party buses stocked with alcohol and sending them on a one-way trip to Mexico, according to a New York Times report at the time. 

His comments came after a stunt in which he ‘shot  dollar bills over a homeless encampment in hopes of getting people to leave’.

However, resident frustration appears to be at odds with government responses to the swelling crisis. 

A spokesman for Oakland’s Public Works Department told Fox News that he considers the logs an ‘intentional obstruction of the public right of way 

Meanwhile, one community lawyer described the logs as ‘hostile architecture’. 

One community lawyer criticized the installation of the logs and described them 'hostile architecture'

One community lawyer criticized the installation of the logs and described them ‘hostile architecture’

In Oakland, the number of residents living in cars or mobile homes has jumped 131 percent, from 618 in 2017 to 1,430 as per the count in July. An RV is pictured in the city

In Oakland, the number of residents living in cars or mobile homes has jumped 131 percent, from 618 in 2017 to 1,430 as per the count in July. An RV is pictured in the city 

Similar ‘hostile architecture’ was set up in neighboring San Francisco back in September, as fed-up residents placed nearly two dozen boulders along a sidewalk to keep people from camping outside their homes.  

One local in the Mission Dolores neighborhood told KTVU that the installation of the giant rocks was a community effort.  

‘A bunch of my neighbors, we all chipped in a few hundred dollars and I guess this is what they came up with,’ resident David Smith stated. He added that homeless people will ‘shoot up and stay overnight’.  

Fed-up residents placed nearly two dozen boulders along a sidewalk to keep people from camping outside their homes in San Francisco this past September

Fed-up residents placed nearly two dozen boulders along a sidewalk to keep people from camping outside their homes in San Francisco this past September

Neighbor, Ernesto Jerez, claimed that the rocks have ‘helped’ keep homeless people away. 

‘It’s something. We’ve got to do something. I feel like there is nothing being done,’ he told the station. 

Though residents of the Mission Dolores neighborhood believe that they have found a solution to a problem, advocates have called their idea cruel.

‘There’s actually a name for it. It’s called anti-homeless architecture,’ Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition On Homelessness, told KTVU. 

San Francisco has long struggled with problems of human waste and needles on the streets in the Tenderloin district, where many addicts and homeless people are found. 

San Francisco's homeless crisis prompted a group of residents to place nearly two dozen boulders along a sidewalk to keep people from camping outside their homes

San Francisco’s homeless crisis prompted a group of residents to place nearly two dozen boulders along a sidewalk to keep people from camping outside their homes

California as a whole is struggling with rising numbers of homeless people, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom and mayors of the state’s 13 largest cities to send President Trump a letter in September asking his administration to provide more aid to fight homelessness, including an additional 50,000 housing vouchers for the poor. 

But Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson rejected the housing aid request in a letter, saying that California’s policies on law enforcement, an overregulated housing market and sanctuary policies regarding people living in the country illegally have driven up housing costs while increasing demand.

‘Your letter seeks more federal dollars for California from hardworking American taxpayers but fails to admit that your state and local policies have played a major role in creating the current crisis,’ Carson wrote.

Carson said nearly 500,000 California households already receive some kind of federal housing assistance and said ‘federal taxpayers are clearly doing their part to help solve the crisis’.

California as a whole is struggling with rising numbers of homeless people, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom and mayors of the state's 13 largest cities to send President Trump a letter in September requesting extra assistance

California as a whole is struggling with rising numbers of homeless people, prompting Governor Gavin Newsom and mayors of the state’s 13 largest cities to send President Trump a letter in September requesting extra assistance

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk