OAKLAND, CA — The Oakland People’s Budget Coalition (OPBC) has released a wide-ranging statement urging city leaders to prioritize funding for services and programs that uplift the city’s most vulnerable populations, including undocumented residents, unhoused individuals, and low-income families.
Highlighting the need to center community-driven solutions, the coalition calls on the City of Oakland to collect all applicable taxes, secure state and federal grants, and redirect public funds away from policing and toward essential services.
According to the OPBC, the city’s limited financial resources must be carefully invested to support the people of Oakland. With structural deficits looming, the coalition emphasizes that the city should maximize its General Purpose Fund to address urgent community needs.
The coalition criticized what it sees as excessive spending on policing in communities of color and proposed reallocating those funds toward public services that directly benefit residents.
While acknowledging the city’s financial challenges, OPBC stressed that these issues cannot be solved overnight—but argued that Oakland can take immediate action by passing a budget that prioritizes housing, sustains core services, supports low-wage workers, promotes safety through alternatives to policing, funds arts and culture, and boosts revenue generation for long-term stability.
OPBC advocates for targeted investment in services and infrastructure that support city operations and residents’ daily lives. To that end, the coalition urges Oakland to monitor departmental overspending and expand revenue-generating positions such as parking meter collectors and building inspectors. It also calls for the rehiring of employees laid off due to previous budget constraints, arguing that “services cannot be provided without workers to provide them.”
Programs like Head Start, which offers free early childhood education and family services to low-income residents, should receive full funding, the coalition says, and tax enforcement should focus on high-value debts, especially from corporations with significant resources. OPBC identifies the Department of Violence Prevention and the Department of Workplace Employment Standards as two critical agencies that both support public well-being and generate returns for the city.
Housing remains a central focus of the coalition’s demands. OPBC describes tenant legal services as vital for protecting renters—who make up more than half of Oakland’s housing units—from illegal rent hikes and eviction threats. It calls on the city to restore all money withdrawn from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and to fulfill the promises of the 2018 “Public Land for Public Good” legislation, emphasizing that public input should be required in decisions about public land use. The coalition also opposes homeless encampment sweeps, calling them ineffective and counterproductive, and suggests redirecting those resources to more supportive approaches.
The coalition also highlights the need to invest in workers and the programs that support them. It notes that initiatives like Head Start are staffed largely by BIPOC women and should be treated as both social services and economic engines that provide meaningful employment.
The coalition warns that layoffs by the city—Oakland’s third-largest employer—destabilize communities and deepen economic hardship. Rehiring previously laid-off staff would restore essential services and create stability. OPBC also recommends further staffing and funding of the Department of Workplace and Employment Standards, which has the authority to fine noncompliant employers.
Funding for the Day Laborer Program is another priority, as is expanding arts and culture programming, which provides summer jobs and internships for youth and fosters long-term employment opportunities. The coalition backs expanded support for MACRO (Mobile Assistance Community Responders of Oakland), a public safety program that reduces police involvement in nonviolent crisis response, limiting both costs and the potential for harm.
The coalition’s final recommendation is an investment in public trust and civic engagement through full support for Oakland’s boards and commissions. These bodies provide essential community input into city policy, oversight, and ethics enforcement, but many are underfunded and understaffed. The coalition calls for full staffing and funding of all boards and commissions so they can fulfill their charters and bring greater democratic accountability to city government.
Among the specific proposals are the expansion of revenue-generating powers for commissions such as the Jobs Oversight Commission, full funding of the Oakland Police Commission as mandated by the city charter, and increased resources for the Public Ethics Commission. The coalition argues that these efforts are not only essential for good governance but could also bring in revenue through enforcement actions.
In its vision for Oakland’s future, the Oakland People’s Budget Coalition frames its demands as a necessary shift from reactive budgeting to proactive investment in people, services, and community trust. The coalition’s message is clear: to build a more just, equitable, and thriving Oakland, the city must invest in its residents—not in systems that have historically harmed them.
“The coalition criticized what it sees as excessive spending on policing in communities of color”
So move the police to white neighborhoods? :-|
Considering it took me *three full days* sitting in West Oakland just to *report* a felony when I was scraped by a car there on purpose, I’d hardly say the area is ‘over-policed’. It then took 2-1/2 hours on the phone to report when I located the car (as they asked me to do if I found it, which I did in minutes because it was parked by where the incident occurred), and then as far as I know they never followed up.
Over policed my arse. Oakland has become a sh*thole city. I used to love Oakland, I rarely go there anymore.
Over policed and underprotected
“The coalition criticized what it sees as excessive spending on policing in communities of color”
If you are a law abiding citizen I would think this was a good thing. If there were no police presence residents would be criticizing the police for not being there. You can’t win…
Not if you’re a person of color being harassed by the police
I’ll bet if you asked the average law abiding POC on the street in crime plagued Oakland if they would rather have more or less police presence the answer would be a resounding “MORE”.
numerous surveys and community forums in places like Oakland show a more nuanced picture: many residents, especially Black and brown community members, want safety—but they don’t equate that solely with more police.
For example, a 2021 survey conducted by the Urban Institute and other groups in Oakland found that while some residents did want increased police response to violent crime, there was also deep concern about racial profiling, over-policing, and lack of accountability. And when given options like violence interruption, mental health crisis teams, and community-based outreach, many supported those alternatives too.