In California, Oakland and Alameda County policymakers have launched a pilot program to provide unsheltered residents at the MacArthur Freeway camp with basic services.

Waste360 Staff, Staff

January 4, 2017

1 Min Read
Oakland, Calif., Provides Trash Pickup for Homeless Camps
Laura A. Oda/ZUMA

In California, Oakland and Alameda County policymakers have launched a pilot program to provide unsheltered residents at the MacArthur Freeway camp with basic services, such as waste pickup, porta-potties and health services via a mobile health clinic. In addition to those services, the policymakers have directed social services and relief employees to work with the residents of the camp to help them find permanent housing.   

Mother Jones has more information:

It's cleaning time at one of the several encampments set up in the shadow of the elevated MacArthur Freeway in West Oakland, California. More than two dozen tents in various states of repair sit in the musty space beneath the stark overpass. Axel, a black man in his late 40s who lives along the camp's outskirts, pushes a broom across the sidewalk that serves as a front porch for his tarp-draped tent. After a few minutes of sweeping, the trash he has arranged into a neat pile is collected by Abby Harrison, who places it into one of the five shiny Waste Management trash cans circulating in the camp. In a little while, the cans will be arranged on the street bordering the camp's southern edge, where they will wait to be emptied by a garbage truck.

Read the full story here.

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