Donation protected
As an Oakland native I have seen my city change drastically. When you walk down Wood Street now, you see a microcosm of the gentrification that has ravaged the entire bay area. From multi-million dollar homeowners to third generation homeowners struggling to pay the skyrocketing property taxes, to long and short-term renters paying most of their income towards rent, to ugly, misplaced, and overpriced condos across the street from abandoned buildings (which the city forcefully keeps from occupation)--the Wood Street encampment starts. As you walk further, this curbside community extends all the way from 16th street to 34th, and is home to over 200 unhoused residents--constantly threatened with eviction by Caltrans and the city of Oakland.
In June 2020, the early stages of the pandemic, I got a call that the Wood Street community was in need of Narcan, an opioid antagonist that prevents fatal overdose. That call prompted my ongoing weekly mobile harm reduction outreach providing life saving harm reduction necessities, like Narcan and clean supplies to the folks that reside in this curbside community. Since that summer I have gone out every Sunday rain or shine! Using my stimulus checks, my extra unemployment money, and help from the Berkeley Needle Exchange, Rogers and Rosewater, Punks with Lunch, and SmokeWorks Boston, I was able to provide tools to keep folks safer from fatal overdose, illness, and blood borne pathogens associated with drug use. Over the past year, my outreach has expanded to involve more people and more supplies. We have been able to add water, snacks, wound care, and additional harm reduction and safer sex supplies to our outreach.
This gofundme will enable us to not only keep this project sustainable, it will also expand our outreach to provide socks, warm weather clothing, more food, water and any additional needs we hear from the people who reside at Wood street. The Wood Street Wagon operates with a non-judgemental approach to community healthcare and asserts that people who use drugs deserve dignity and unconditional respect. We dedicate our outreach to providing the tools for empowerment to keep each other safe. Your donation would mean the world to the folks who live at Wood Street and to those of us keeping keeping this outreach going.
In June 2020, the early stages of the pandemic, I got a call that the Wood Street community was in need of Narcan, an opioid antagonist that prevents fatal overdose. That call prompted my ongoing weekly mobile harm reduction outreach providing life saving harm reduction necessities, like Narcan and clean supplies to the folks that reside in this curbside community. Since that summer I have gone out every Sunday rain or shine! Using my stimulus checks, my extra unemployment money, and help from the Berkeley Needle Exchange, Rogers and Rosewater, Punks with Lunch, and SmokeWorks Boston, I was able to provide tools to keep folks safer from fatal overdose, illness, and blood borne pathogens associated with drug use. Over the past year, my outreach has expanded to involve more people and more supplies. We have been able to add water, snacks, wound care, and additional harm reduction and safer sex supplies to our outreach.
This gofundme will enable us to not only keep this project sustainable, it will also expand our outreach to provide socks, warm weather clothing, more food, water and any additional needs we hear from the people who reside at Wood street. The Wood Street Wagon operates with a non-judgemental approach to community healthcare and asserts that people who use drugs deserve dignity and unconditional respect. We dedicate our outreach to providing the tools for empowerment to keep each other safe. Your donation would mean the world to the folks who live at Wood Street and to those of us keeping keeping this outreach going.
Organizer
Marissa Spoer
Organizer
Oakland, CA