KUOW - How community pressure helped rebuild Black-owned businesses in Seattle s Central District kuow.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kuow.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Oakland: Homeless services audit find city not prepared to deal with crisis
Published article
OAKLAND, Calif. - An audit of homeless services in Oakland found that a team charged with closing and cleaning homeless encampments was not adequately prepared to deal with the problem and lacked an efficient strategy for dealing with the growth of the camps.
That s according to City Auditor Courtney Ruby, who will present an informational report on homeless services to the City Council s Life Enrichment Committee on Monday afternoon.
For several years, city residents have identified homelessness as the most pressing issue facing Oakland. The last Alameda County Point-in-Time count of homeless people, which was completed in 2019, found that between 2015 and 2019, the number of homeless gpeople living in Oakland increased by 86 percent.
March 2, 2021 at 1:56 pm
QueenCare owner, Monika Mathews, cuts the ribbon on her new space in the Central District. (Photo courtesy of QueenCare)
A few weeks ago, Monika Mathews was able to open a second location of QueenCare in Seattle’s Central District, selling her handmade, all-natural body oils, scrubs, and creams.
“If it wasn’t for Vulcan, we would not be able to be in this location here,” said Mathews about the new space she’s renting on the ground level of the Jackson Apartments. “Vulcan, along with a lot of African-American community members, advocated that these spaces be dedicated to Black businesses. Vulcan took it a step further to actually subsidize some of the rent so that Black micro businesses could actually afford to be in a beautiful location like this.”