City plans attempting to address park inequities have not yet materialized. In March 2020, Oakland voters passed Measure Q to collect tax funding that will levy $27.5 million annually over the next 20 years to support park maintenance and address homelessness. 12 Parks will not improve until homelessness is addressed. Oakland’s homeless population increased by about 1,000 people since the start of the pandemic, but the growth rate has slowed, from 47% between 2017-2019 to 24% from 2019- 2022. 13 Measure Q will fund 35 to 40 new full- time employees for public works, adding to about 80 already employed. As of March 2022, about 75% of the new employees had been hired and trained. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission has oversight over Measure Q and plans to work with public works to create reports on how often sports fields get mowed, bathrooms are cleaned, and trash gets picked up. Still, many parents, children and city leaders told us they remain frustrated by the lack of progress. Oakland lacks the political will to improve parks, partly due to inertia by the community, said Brown of the OPRF. “If you’ve lived here your whole life, this is what you think parks are supposed to be,” said Brown, who hopes the philanthropy sector will one day fund a public ad campaign to educate residents about the value of parks. “There’s not this idea of, ‘I need to put pressure on local politicians for parks,’ and if there is, it comes from White people and not people of color. I think residents want better; we have to help them know it’s possible.” Oakland Midnight Basketball provides a positive alternative to the streets. Once very popular in the 1980s and 1990s before becoming politicized nationally, Midnight Basketball is making a comeback and offers a supervised, free play format. Midnight Basketball, which once had its national headquarters based in Oakland, disappeared for
about a decade before returning in 2019 through partnerships with the Alameda County Probation Department, Oakland Police, and Oakland Human Services, plus support from corporate sponsors. 14 Youth and young adults ages 16 to 25 play in weekly summer games held between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. – the time frame when 1 in 3 shootings happen in Oakland. 15 Players must participate in a one-hour life skills workshop before games on topics such as employment, legal services, community violence, and financial literacy. The league also hosts resource fairs, provides free food to players and spectators, and free Lyft rides. One of the program’s goals is to improve community-police relations, and much of its $150,000 budget goes toward police overtime pay. About 20% of program participants have a criminal background, including teens from a minimum-security residential program in Alameda County’s Juvenile Justice Center. 16
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PROJECT PLAY — AN INITIATIVE OF THE ASPEN INSTITUTE
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