Alternative community health project takes shape in West Oakland as artists and healers build a “cob” kitchen and clinic to support encampment
From January 2021
Two community organizations formed by Bay Area residents as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic are working together to build a kitchen and a health clinic at an encampment on a stretch of Caltrans land off of Wood St. in West Oakland. The groups have dubbed the project “Cob on Wood” because the structures are framed with pallets and wooden beams and then covered with a mixture of earth, sand and straw known as cob.
“We are looking at this as a training program and offering stipends to residents who need a chance to make a little cash,” said Xochitl Bernadette Moreno who is one of the lead organizers of the project.
“In a POC community creating sovereignty over the space and teaching hands on skills so that these structures can be replicated is a way to show city officials that this is a more sustainable alternative to projects like the tuff shed camps,” Moreno said.
The two organizations are offering residents of the encampment $25 per day for any level of participation in building the structures and hourly rate for those that work on a regular basis.
Encampment resident John Janosko is enthusiastic about the project’s potential. “I feel like if the opportunity is given to the people out here, job wise, and at the same time, a home so they have stability it will make all the difference. Most people here either have no job so they can’t pay their rent or they have a job but they can’t afford to get into a place. Well, we could take away all of that. If you come out here you have a job and you have a place for as long as you need to stay here. I think it would work.”
One of the organizations, Artists Building Communities or ABC, began as a collective of artists who started using Venmo and crowdfunding sites to raise money to build tiny homes for houseless residents in the Bay Area. Annmarie Bustamante, the co-founder of ABC, said the unemployment that many artists experienced at the start of the pandemic and concern over how the shelter in place restrictions would impact houseless communities spurred volunteer participation in the organization’s projects. ABC has built six tiny homes with this fundraising model, three of which have been built at the Wood St. encampment during the pandemic.
ABC’s partner organization on the project, Essential Food and Medicine (EFAM) was founded by Moreno and Ashel Seasunz Elldredge in early April not long after the first shelter in place orders were issued. Moreno and Elldredge were concerned that Oakland’s unhoused residents would be losing much needed community resources with the closure of gyms like the YMCA and reduced access to facilities offered by churches and community centers. At that time Elldredge was running a juice company and the two quickly converted the business to a service organization that delivered healthy food, juices and herbal medicines to encampments in Oakland.
The two groups, ABC and EFAM are working with builder Miguel Elliott who offers workshops that he calls Earth Art Therapy as part of his business, Living Earth Structures that specializes in the cob building technique. According to Elliott, one of the advantages of cob is that the earthen walls are fire resistant.
“Fire is a serious problem, not just on Wood St. but at so many encampments. It is one of the major concerns for residents as well as neighbors because it can easily spread to other structures and neighboring buildings,” Moreno said. “The structures we are building are affordable and fire proof and not only are they sustainable but by reusing and up-cycling the trash that we find on the site we are also taking care of the land.”
ABC has been using conventional materials to build the 10' by 12' tiny homes in an effort to meet Oakland building codes for small structures. The conventional design with 2” by 4” framing covered with OSB panels is easier to disassemble and move if the City were to close the encampment where the tiny home is located.
Bustamante is concerned that most of the encampments throughout Oakland will be displaced as the city begins to ramp up enforcement of the newly adopted Encampment Management Policy (EMP) this month. “Wood St. may be one of the only places that people can go because the camp location meets the required setbacks from schools, waterways, and business and residential districts,” she said.
After the passage of the EMP the groups decided to build the more permanent cob structures to make a political statement in resistance to displacement that may result from the city’s new policy, Bustamante said.
The encampment along Wood St. and on Caltrans property and private land parcels to west of the street is one of the largest in Oakland. City officials are considering Wood St. as a possible location to establish a co-governed encampment, said Oakland Communication Director Karen Boyd in an email.
A co-governed encampment as defined by Oakland’s Permanent Access to Housing framework (PATH) involves the participation of encampment residents in developing community agreements and leadership with the support and collaboration from a community-based organization or non-profit.
The Wood St. encampment currently does not have access to utility services so ABC and EFAM are planning to power any lighting and appliances used in the kitchen and the clinic with a solar electric system. They also plan to install a refillable water tank and a stove with an exchangeable propane tank.
Storage of propane and electrical generators are not permitted under the EMP but they could be used safely “in collaboration with a community or managing agency that can assist with ensuring safe storage of the equipment and materials,” Boyd said in an email.
The two groups launched a Go Fund Me campaign on December 18th with the goal of raising $20,000 that will cover the full cost of the two cob and wood structures. So far, the campaign is nearly two thirds of the way to its fundraising goal.
“Many residents need paying work and a safe place where social and behavioral challenges are going to be met with patience and empathy. At a typical job that is not going to be the case, you have to buckle down and hide all your feelings,” said Bustamante.“The dream is that with more capacity and funding we will be able to resolve the homelessness problem by providing safe and understanding job opportunities and work environments for the residents that we are serving.”
Wardell Brim is one of the resident volunteers at the Cob on Wood project, “I hope these organizations [ABC and EFAM] will be different. Most organizations are all about paper. They get your name and if they get you to do an interview you become a number and most of the numbers get nothing,” Brim said.
“I am tired of being a statistic, Brim said. “All these organizations do is sell my name. But are they helping? No. But when that money from the county and the state is up for grabs you can bet that they will be sending in my name and info.”
“This project is close by. It’s not something that you have to walk 10 blocks to get to. It’s a big difference,” Brim said. “In order for you to cultivate different ideas you need other people around. These on site projects create a good opportunity for a new social network. I hope that with my participation that I can not only help myself but I can help it grow and I can help somebody else and show that it works.”
Cob on Wood Organizers hold weekly meetings to update residents on the progress of the project and to gather input and new ideas about how to proceed. These meetings often feature pizza cooked in the onsite wood fired cob oven. Volunteer chefs also prepare special treats like Glaydes Sanchez’s Atole de Avena, a thick, hot beverage made from corn, cinnamon and piloncillo, a raw cane sugar.
Eldredge pointed out that the relationships the group built at the encampment early on in the pandemic and check-ins with the encampment’s existing leadership have been key to developing a supportive community base for the project. “It is important for organizers who care to make sure that they are addressing the goals of the community that they work with and not just parachuting in.”
Finding ways to create economic independence for camp residents has been a frequent topic at organizing meetings for the project. Meeting attendees have offered a range of ideas including worm farms, plant nurseries, making adobe bricks, and building and recycling pallets for shipping.
Jonosko shared a vision that included a resource yard similar to Urban Ore in Berkeley, a japanese tea garden, a mechanic shop, a bike and walking path and a bike-in movie theater.
“We need to be able to show off all the skills that homeless people have. It could be a way for outside people to meet more of the homeless and interact with them without it being a pressure thing like a community meeting. You could come and just sit in the park area and have a picnic and buy something and if you wanted to you could walk around and do some things and not feel so uncomfortable. It would be a place where the whole family could come and spend a day because of the little shops maybe and just because it’s a special place and you want to be there.”
Like many residents Jonosko expressed frustration with the trash and dumping at the encampment. Although, he said that residents do go through the trash to find valuable items that they can use or sell.
“I always just look at it with no trash out there, that’s what keeps me going, even if there is trash I look at it like there is no trash but being the same way it is now. I see little rocks and maybe a little pathway to each person’s home with an address and maybe a few little streets just to tie it into the neighborhood,” Jonosko said.
After a little over two weeks of work the kitchen and community clinic structures are nearly complete. ABC and EFAM volunteers are now turning their focus to covering the exterior cob walls with a waterproof lime plaster and installing appliances, cabinetry, and countertops.
The builders have also begun work on a restroom that can be serviced like a portable toilet or converted to a composting toilet. But these structures are still just the beginning according to the organizers. The Cob on Wood crew plans to build several more structures that they call cobins.
These cob tiny homes will house residents who are selected through the same community process that ABC has used for the three other homes that they have built at Wood St.
Wizeproof is one of the residents who was selected by the Wood St. encampment community to receive one of these homes along with residents Kellie Castillo and Mona. “I have a philosophy that’s more inclusive than saying “my home,” or “my house” it’s a house for a community purpose but I am stewarding it and then hopefully if I move forward from it someone who carries on the spirit of making basic needs available to everyone will receive it after me,” Wizeproof said.
A large portion of the materials for the projects has been donated or recycled. The kitchen and clinic structures have been constructed partially from pallets following Elliott’s design which he calls a “Palatable Cobin.”
In this design the pallets are fastened to support beams to make up the walls and the inside of the pallet is then filled with trash, clothing and other waste materials that have been collected at the encampment to serve as insulation. Donated foam insulation panels are being used to fill in any gaps and to insulate the upper walls and ceiling.
The kitchen and clinic will be open for residents to use and it will be a space to offer workshops and training, Moreno said.
In September EFAM held a day-long event called “What’s Your Medicine” at the same location where the kitchen and clinic have been built. According to Moreno the event offered over 30 different healing modalities from acupuncture to herbal medicine to traditional western medicine. Participants at the event also constructed the cob pizza oven and installed a set of raised garden beds and planted a winter garden.
Moreno is studying herbal medicine, Ayurvedic medicine and Curanderismo which is a traditional form of healing that originated in the Americas and is practiced in Mexico where her family is from. “We want to have an Ancestral Apothecary that can help to indigenize the field of health care,” Moreno said.
“This clinic will allow practitioners to develop relationships with the residents with the understanding that these are front line communities who are situated at the crux point of several different forms of oppression,” she said. “Being unhoused can lead to both mental and physical ailments. The kitchen and clinic will offer support for mind, body and spirit.”
One of the volunteers who helped to build the wood framing of the kitchen, Liam Flynn-Jambeck, works as a theater bar manager in San Francisco but he has been on furlough since the beginning of the pandemic. “The earliest I go back to work is in July, I have just one week of unemployment left,” said Flynn-Jambeck. “During the pandemic I have also volunteered for Planting Justice and I went to Phoenix with Seed the Vote to encourage democratic voters to go to the polls.
“This is better than my normal job, the way I feel afterwards is different. As a bar manager there is not much of a spiritual return. Behind the bar you learn to serve customers in a very efficient way but in working to build this kitchen I know that people will receive the fruits of our labor and that it has a chance to make a difference in someone’s life.”
Members of another community group that has been working with the Wood St. encampment have questions about the effectiveness of the Cob on Wood project. The United Front Against Displacement (UFAD) is an anti-gentrification organization that began reaching out to the residents of West Oakland in May of 2018. Since then the group has been going out to talk with community members on a weekly basis and has organized several anti-displacement and eviction defense actions according to UFAD organizer Dayton Andrews.
“We are no stranger to build projects, “ said Andrews “We have built a shower, we built a number of hand washing stations but we differ from those organizations [ABC and EFAM] in terms of what we have learned from those projects. The reality is that folks [at the Wood St. encampment] are deeply isolated, they are surrounded by violent organized crime, law enforcement harasses the community almost every single day, and there is the very serious issue of substance abuse. It has been very difficult to get participation [from encampment residents] in community life programs or in advocacy for themselves and others,” said Andrews.
Elliott who is managing the building portions of the Cob on Wood project and trains new resident volunteers said that participation from residents has been fairly limited aside from a few regulars. “It’s well known that there is very little participation from Black people in the permaculture and natural building world and that’s discussed quite a bit on natural building forums. People often ask ‘How do we get the African American community more involved?’ Because there is so little representation…and it’s not just here on Wood St. I think it’s a lot for us to expect that we will be the exception,” Elliott said.
Andrews is also concerned about the longevity of build projects, “The Sheriff will show up after a few months because the city is not going to allow a homeless encampment next to a major development project that is slated for the adjacent property,” he said. “Why are we going to build these things that are going to be bulldozed? The social media posts will live forever and the money will get raised and the workshops will take place but what will ultimately happen to the residents?”
Bustamante acknowledges that the emergency structures and support that group is providing are not long-term solutions. The goal is to provide relief while making a political statement urging city and state leaders to create housing programs without the barriers that have made it difficult for some of the Wood St. encampment residents to navigate the social services system, she said.
“A situation like this can be flawed in all the different ways but someone has to start moving in the direction and start somewhere. Eldrege said
“I love the juice aspect in the medicines. The juice you kind of feel immediately, like, wow, life! It’s almost like you replenish that well and the physical structures around you start changing, it really is a strategy for liberation. People have to be healthy and actually have a little clarity in order to unchain themselves from dependency”. However, Eldredge said, it still takes time to build up all the different structural aspects that contribute to a healthy community.
