Donations crowd The East Oakland Collective’s three-room office with bins of hot meals, stacks of water bottles, packets of cereal, reusable grocery bags, bulk boxes of Vitamin C tablets — all of this donated directly from local businesses and neighbors, and much of it coming from the collective’s Amazon wish list.
Of these many donations, only 250 bottles of hand sanitizer came from government agencies, and those were gone in two days, says Candice Elder, the Collective’s founder and CEO. “Before we receive any government assistance, the community helps.”
Elder started The East Oakland Collective (EOC) six years ago to assemble like-minded residents wanting to address generations of racial and economic inequality in the historically black and increasingly gentrified area of Oakland. To do this, the organization applies a holistic approach — providing regular meals to the area’s low-income and unhoused population, advocacy against invasive urban development, and lending circles to build wealth within the community.
But the arrival of COVID-19 has made it more difficult to fight the systemic inequities impacting East Oakland. In fact, the pandemic only affirms the pernicious effects of disparities in health care funding and access, employment, incarceration, and education.
Both African Americans and Latinos, who together comprise more than 80 percent of East Oakland’s population, are experiencing disproportionate rates of hospitalization and death related to COVID-19, and both groups are experiencing higher rates of unemployment as the economy slows to unprecedented levels. More than two-thirds of Oakland’s COVID-19 cases are located in East Oakland, making it the hardest-hit area in Alameda County.
Restaurants and other partners have been crucial to the increased support EOC is spreading across the neighborhood. Pastor Josh McPaul of Oakland City Church, which has partnered with EOC for the past four years, is now raising money to purchase hot meals from local restaurants, like Lena’s Soul Food, to contribute to EOC’s growing response to the pandemic.
Located at the edge of East Oakland, the church attracts a multi-ethnic and anti-racist congregation, McPaul says, and their partnership with EOC is a natural extension of its members’ values. By activating its network during the COVID-19 pandemic, Oakland City Church raised more than $40,000 in just three weeks.
“It’s really about committing to the people who actually live here in the neighborhood,” says Pastor McPaul. “We have a lot of people in our church who are aware that maybe they’re part of gentrification, and they see the impact of that and want to at least mitigate some of the effects of gentrification in the community they see around them.”
EOC’s efforts reach beyond just food delivery — the organization has been fighting city “sweeps” of homeless encampments, a police practice that forces unhoused people to relocate their belongings, even during a deadly pandemic, or else have their possessions trashed or destroyed. Elder and other EOC members are also pushing for increased emergency housing for homeless people who need safe places to isolate or quarantine.
Police interactions with the black community have, in the past week, ignited nationwide demonstrations, and The East Oakland Collective is now providing protective supplies to demonstrators in Oakland who are calling for an end to police brutality. They are joined by thousands of others in cities across the country who have come out in force to protest the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
In Oakland, those marches have passed within miles of EOC’s front door, only adding to the growing list of needs EOC is working to address. But the demonstrations also draw greater attention and momentum to the issues EOC has been working for years to reform.
“Feeding people has been a way for us to stay engaged,” Elder says. “We are going to people’s doorsteps. We’re having conversations. When there’s a need, we try to find a way to address it.”