Oakland landlord fails in attempt to pay homeless to leave encampment

OAKLAND — Oakland landlord Gene Gorelik donned green and white pajamas and a “Make Oakland Great Again” hat and went to the homeless encampment in front of the Fruitvale Home Depot on Friday in an effort to pay the encampment’s residents to leave — what he called a “game” while talking to them from a megaphone atop a boom lift surrounded by inflatable eagles.

Insulted, none of the encampment’s residents took him up on the offer.

“I think this is just to degrade us, honestly, to make us feel low. I don’t think he’s offering any kind of help,” said encampment resident Maria Fuentes.

Home Depot has been pressuring the city for months to remove the homeless encampments surrounding the store — there is one on a vacant lot in front of the store made up of tents, small structures and some vehicles, and an RV encampment on a dead-end road behind the store. In emails to city officials, Home Depot company officials have said the homeless and trash have made customers and employees uncomfortable and that the encampment residents have been stealing merchandise — a claim which they deny.

Frustrated that the city has not yet cleared the encampment and worried that the company may close its store, Gorelik, a frequent Fruitvale Home Depot customer, launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to offer people living there $2,000 each to relocate to a different illegal encampment at 11 Fourth St. But according to his proposal, he would only dish out the money if the encampment was cleared by 8 p.m.

In his campaign, he called the encampment “Libbyland” — a quip at Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who he said was to blame for the city’s surge in homelessness.

The Fourth Street parking lot south of Laney College is owned by the Peralta Community College District; Oakland identified it last year as a potential site for a sanctioned RV-dweller encampment. The GoFundMe campaign didn’t raise a penny, and Gorelik did not say how he intended to pay the residents if they had taken him up on his offer.

Candice Elder, director of the East Oakland Collective nonprofit that offers resources to the encampment, said the residents felt disrespected and angered by the campaign and the way he went about it. She called his proposal “ridiculous” on a logistical level.

“There’s over 100 people here. It’s ridiculous that you could get 100 people to agree, and then get 100 people to move by 8 p.m.; there are plenty of conscious people who aren’t going to fall for his gimmick,” she said.

Activists flocked to the encampment Friday morning to protest Gorelik’s stunt, and chanted and chastised him as he drove a Home Depot box truck in with a boom lift attached. He paid more than a dozen day laborers $100 each to help him, and had them wear hats depicting the minion character from the animated movie “Despicable Me.”

While on top of the boom lift, he said he had $1,000 to give out if 30 people signed up in 10 minutes to participate in his “game.” The activists and encampment residents shouted back at him in protest, and when the 10 minutes was up he said he was going home.

The protesters did not let him out so easily, though. One climbed up on the boom lift, and another cut holes in his inflatable eagles. The truck’s tire was punctured — it’s unclear whether it happened by accident or if somebody slashed it — and activists blocked him as he tried to drive away. One man laid down in front of the truck before Gorelik got out and walked to his car in the Home Depot parking lot.

Fuentes said she felt like Gorelik’s stunt made light of the encampment residents’ situations.

“We’re not trying to be out here forever; we’re all trying to get permanent housing somewhere, if he were to offer anything he should offer resources, or services, or some kind of help. But this is all a joke to him,” Fuentes said.

This story is developing. Check back for more information.