If It’s Vacant Take It

Abstract

This article reframes the current housing crisis in Oakland, California as environmental injustice and as an ongoing effect of racial capitalism. It also highlights recent examples of citizen-led land reclamation, which it argues retaliate against city-sponsored erasure of precariously housed residents and offer the potential to address economic, racial, and environmental injustice simultaneously. By disrupting the status quo of real estate price gouging and visibly reestablishing community on Oakland’s streets, these movements demonstrate alternatives to the capitalist dehumanization and manufactured scarcity at the heart of Oakland’s housing crisis.