Federal Suit Filed to Block Eviction from Albany Bulb

The City of Albany was sued in federal court Wednesday by 10 Albany Bulb dwellers and the nonprofit Albany Housing Advocates, who are seeking to block Albany's planned eviction of Bulb residents.

The suit maintains that the city lacks alternative housing options for the homeless and that the eviction would amount to "cruel and unusual punishment" and thus violate the U.S. Constitution.

"The effects of driving people now living on the Bulb from their homes and shelters at the beginning of the rainy season – without providing those people with any viable alternative – will be devastating," the suit says.

The city is planning to evict the 50-60 or so people living illegally in makeshift shelters and tents on the Bulb, which is mostly owned by the city. In a series of decisions over the past several months, the City Council requested that Albany police begin enforcing the city's no-camping ordinance at the Bulb beginning last month so that the city could fulfill its longstanding goal of making the Bulb part of McLaughlin Eastshore State Park.

The city has sought to help the Bulb dwellers obtain social services and alternative housing, though with only modest success, and is setting up a 30-bed, temporary homeless shelter in two prefab portables at the Bulb that it anticipates will be ready for occupancy sometime next week.

The suit says the shelter is not an acceptable solution for several reasons: it's a short-term fix of only six months, it lacks enough beds for all those living on the Bulb and it will not accommodate the needs of the many Bulb dwellers who suffer from physical and mental disabilities.

The suit also maintains that city's eviction plan violates Constitutional protections for the right to privacy and unreasonable seizure of property. The suit says Bulb residents' property includes the dwellings they have constructed on the Bulb and their personal belongings, which the city has said it will store for up to 120 days.

Asked for a response by Patch, City Clerk Nicole Almaguer, who serves as the city's public information officer, said, "We have not been served, and as such have not had an opportunity to review as of yet."

The suit, case C13-5270, was filed in U.S. District Court for Northern California by attorneys for the firm of Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton, the East Bay Community Law Center and the Homeless Action Center.

"Apart from  the temporary portables it is installing," said a news release from the plaintiffs' attorneys, "Albany lacks a single shelter bed and has no program to provide transitional housing or supported living arrangements for homeless people.  Even for those residents of the Bulb with an income, there is not a single unit of low-income housing available in Albany.

"Given Albany’s failure to provide a legal place where people who are homeless can stay, the complaint filed today contends that Albany’s planned enforcement of section 8-4 (the no-camping section of Albany's municipal code) violates the Constitution as it essentially makes it illegal to be homeless in Albany."

The lawsuit says, "The actions for which they will be punished are involuntary and necessary for survival – going to sleep at night, covering oneself from the cold, seeking shelter from the rain, will become crimes because they are homeless in Albany."

The suit alleges that city has long given tacit approval to the Bulb encampments, as shown by its lack of enforcement of the anti-camping law on the property and by Albany police officers in the past allegedly directing homeless people to the Bulb as a place they could stay.

The city by and large has taken a hands-off policy toward camping on the Bulb since 1999, when those living on the bayfill site were last evicted.

The complaint requests that a temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction be imposed against the eviction pending a number of remedies that the city must adopt. For example, the suit says the city's plan should be blocked "so long as there is not a location available in Albany where they can find shelter that protects those persons' right to privacy and reasonably accommodates their disabilities."

The 10 individual plaintiffs in the suit are Katherine Cody, Patricia Moore, Robert Wharton, April Anthony, Larry Cabrera, Joseph Rose, Stephanie Ringstad, Alexander Richard Wilson, Tamara Robinson and Philip William Lewis.

The press release says that attorney Maureen Sheehy is leading the effort for Kilpatrick Townsend, and it also quotes attorney Osha Neumann for the East Bay Community Law Center. Neumann is also an artist who helped create the Bulb's distinctive outdoor sculptures made from driftwood and debris.

The plaintiff organization, Albany Housing Advocates, is also one of the plaintiffs in a related lawsuit filed against the city on Oct. 2 that accuses the city of violating state mandates for local governments to facilitate affordable housing. 

The earlier suit alleges that the city has twice failed to meet the state requirements for updating its Housing Element, the part of a city's General Plan that identifies housing policies. The Housing Element is the one part of the general plan that requires state approval. It is supposed to describe how the city intends to meet its allocation for needed housing, especially affordable housing.

Background on the Albany Bulb issues

Considerable controversy has been stirred by the city's plans to remove the longstanding encampments on the Albany Bulb and turn it over to the Eastshore Park. More information can be found in the many recent news articles and community blog and board posts about the Bulb. Click here for a list of titles and links.

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