“Moms 4 Housing” Gear Up for Post-Christmas Court Battle

In the living room of the house at 2928 Magnolia Street, a big construction paper sign advises visitors to remove their shoes — “Baby Zone” is lettered on it in black marker.

Dominique Walker’s 1 year-old son has been learning to walk in the carpeted living room of the West Oakland home. The family has been settling in since Walker and Sameerah Karim broke into the home, which is owned by a real estate investment company, in November.

A sign reading “No Shoes, This Floor is a Baby Zone” hangs in the West Oakland house currently occupied by two moms. (Kate Wolffe/KQED)

The two broke in to protest the amount of vacant homes in Oakland amid a housing crisis and speculative housing. This comes as a recent federal report found a 2.7 percent increase in homelessness across the U.S. driven almost “entirely” by a 16.4 percent increase in California.

Since occupying the house, the moms who live there have done their best to make it a home in time for the holidays. Their Christmas tree is decorated, and Walker said they plan to make a gingerbread house. They want to enjoy the holiday.

Then on Thursday — the day after Christmas — they’ll drive down to Hayward to fight against their removal from the property. The hearing was originally scheduled for December 30, but was rescheduled for Thursday earlier this week.

In early December, Walker and Karim received an eviction notice from Wedgewood LLC, which owns the company that technically owns the house. Now, they’re heading to court to argue that they are tenants and can contest that eviction.

“By filing a claim of right to possession, you are saying, ‘I deserve to be able to defend this eviction lawsuit’ so that I’m not evicted without being able to be heard,” said attorney Jackie Zaneri.

However, the team was dealt a blow on Tuesday when Alameda County Judge Patrick McKinney issued a tentative ruling in favor of Wedgewood, saying “the claims do not appear to provide a basis for a valid claim of right to possession and instead contend only that the claimants have a right to occupy the subject premises.”

Tenants rights attorney Leah Simon-Weisberg said they’ll still make their case.

“We’ll be talking about why housing is a human right and why that is a basis for the court to interject itself and say ‘yes, they can stay’,” said Weisberg. “The fact that the judge wants to hear what we have to say is encouraging.”

Three members of the Oakland City Council are also rallying behind the moms. Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas, Dan Kalb and Council President Rebecca Kaplan said that they’ll support them in their fight.

“What we are asking for is simple. Wedgwood: sit down with moms for housing and negotiate the purchase of this home so that they can stay here in their community,” said Bas.

But Wedgewood says they won’t negotiate with the moms while they are unlawfully living in the property.

On Monday, the Southern California-based youth shelter program Shelter 37 urged the moms to leave the property so it could be converted into a shelter space.

“I encourage Mothers 4 Housing to voluntarily leave the property as quickly as possible so that we can train disadvantaged Oakland youths, give them jobs, and teach them skills,” said shelter founder and former NFL player James Washington in a statement.

But some are questioning the organization’s ties to Wedgewood.

Wedgewood has said the women don’t have a legal right to be in the house and plan to defend their eviction in court.

Copyright 2019 KQED