ST EOBHCSunset 072321 - Flipbook - Page 9
disease. The two City Council representatives for the district had each been in office for over a
decade: both controversial leaders with often opposing political viewpoints. The politics of being
pro-development, even without community accountability, exacerbated by the lack of a positive,
long-term vision and strategy for sustained, resident-informed change, have robbed East Oakland
from growing while the rest of Oakland has enjoyed an economic “renaissance” of sorts.
While deep East Oakland still had the City’s lowest rental housing costs, the influx of real estate
speculation dollars began causing a serious housing affordability crisis just as BHC got off the
ground. By 2012, East Oakland was considered Oakland’s next development and displacement
“frontier.” Demographic shifts saw African Americans moving or being pushed out of historically
Black neighborhoods at increased rates, and absentee landlords neglecting the remaining lowincome housing stock, often with the intent of evicting renters and ultimately raising rents, and/or
taking advantage of new immigrant residents moving into the neighborhood.
Asian
Asian
12%
Latinx
19%
12%
70%
East Oakland: 1990
African
American
38%
50%
Latinx
East Oakland: 2014
In 2014, Latinx comprised half of the people living in East Oakland, and together with African
Americans made up 88% of the resident population. In 1990, 70% of East Oakland residents were
African American and 19% were Latinx. Asians have remained constant at around 12%, and the
makeup of the Asian community is diverse, with immigrants coming from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia,
Bhutan, and Nepal. The number of White residents experienced a slight uptick in recent years,
increasing from 3,148 in 2010 to 4,583 in 2014.
From 2008 to now, East Oakland has experienced unprecedented displacement of long-time
residents. Gentrification has drastically changed—physically and demographically—most
neighborhoods in Oakland. Until recently, the impact on East Oakland has primarily been
experienced, seen, and documented in terms of the shifts in populations. Latinx and White
populations, and new Asian refugees, have replaced the historically African American majority in
East Oakland.
FOR THE LOVE OF BLACK EAST OAKLAND: EOBHC Sunset Report
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