This week on The Final Straw Radio, we’re featuring an interview with three participants in the feature length documentary Wood Street, about the community that formed in a parking lot at 1707 Wood Street in Oakland. The location was a destination for people evicted from encampments around the city, who either refused or were denied the low number of shelter beds available, or didn’t fit into the city lots for camping or recreational vehicles aka RVs. Over the course of 10 years at a few spots on the street, as guest John Janosko explains, residents got to know each other and build bonds to the place and each other as neighbors. The north portion of what became known as the Wood Street Commons was evicted by the city to build transitional tiny homes managed by a services organization called BOSS and residents at the south side of the Commons ramped up organizing with outside supporters to stop the city’s eviction plan in 2023 through lobbying politicians and proposing alternative plans. The film shows this work, snippets of the lives of residents and the eventual eviction of the Wood Street Commons in 2023, with over 300 people losing their homes in the end.
Since the eviction, the tiny home camp funding ended and it was vacated, the mayor Sheng Thao was recalled and indicted for corruption and the site became a parking lot for a minor league baseball park next door, but people have taken their energy and experience to keep advocating for themselves and other Oaklanders around issues of houselessness. For the hour we speak with John Janosko, a featured face in the film, as well as our past guest Freeway and the film’s director Caron Creighton. The Wood Street Movie is touring a number of film festivals and looking to feature elsewhere, in hopes that the film can act as a support and inspiration for other homeless organizing in communities across the country.
- Our 2024 interview with Freeway: https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2024/10/13/homeless-organizing-in-oakland-and-rural-relief-after-helene/
- Capital City Film Festival, April 12: https://capitalcityfilmfest.com/event/wood-street
- RiverRun Film Festival, April 18 & 20: https://riverrunfilm.com/events/woodstreet/
- Instagram: @woodstmovie & @woodstreetcommons
- Film website: www.woodstreetmovie.com
- Wood Street Commons website: www.woodstreetcommons.org
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Featured Track:
- The Ghost of Tom Joad by Rage Against The Machine from Renegades
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