Directions to 7800 MacArthur
East Oakland Collective
In the past 35 years East Oakland has been especially hard hit by economic instability brought on by drugs, violence, foreclosures, evictions, and gentrification. The East Oakland Collective (EOC) was founded in 2016 to counteract the disinvestment and lack of social and economic resources in deep East Oakland. This membership-based organization addresses food insecurity by sponsoring the bimonthly “Feed the Hood” program through its Homeless Services and Solutions component. During the COVID-19 pandemic the organization distributed fresh and healthy prepared meals and groceries, hygiene kits and household supplies. EOC provides the community with opportunities to feed Oakland’s homeless and low-income food insecure populations. Since its founding the program has galvanized over 1,500 community volunteers, distributed 20,500 lunches, distributed 20,500 hygiene kits, and served over 4,500 unhoused persons across Oakland.
Candice Elder, founder and executive director of East Oakland Collective, grew up in EOC’s neighborhood where her parents ran Elder’s Gourmet Bakery. She remembers when Eastmont Mall was a thriving commercial enterprise, when you could go to the mall to shop, socialize, and find work, when festivals were held in the community, when children used the parks. But East Oakland’s pockets of prosperity would not last long. Candice remembers growing up with a community changed by the crack epidemic. By the 1980s, disinvestment had caught up with the community: stores closed, taking jobs with them, people moved out of the community. Evictions and gentrification followed, creating a homelessness crisis.
Assisting Oakland’s growing unhoused population is an important part of EOC’s mission. She says her organization of like-minded millenials are focused on creative solutions to widespread homelessness by asking our community questions like, “What does food sovereignty look like?” The use of vacant land is one way to place people in temporary communities. In an Oaklandside article from 2020, Candice is quoted as saying,
“East Oakland is the last frontier. We still have a lot of land, and we can temporarily address the homelessness crisis by moving [people] onto vacant land.”
Through the EOC’s Economic Empowerment component, the organization is working to empower the community by providing opportunities to learn about lending circles, home and business ownership, entrepreneurship, and other cooperative activities that will improve the economic health of East Oakland. The organization’s Community Planning cohort works on policy issues that impact the community’s economic growth. These efforts call for direct engagement and participation in the city’s planning processes, making sure that East Oakland community members’ voices and concerns are considered. They also collaborate with other community agencies to revitalize key East Oakland business corridors to improve economic viability of the district.
Candice wants to turn the EOC into a “nationally recognized service hub” to “change the narrative about East Oakland.” Her aim is “to keep people here.”
Listen to an interview with Candice Elder, founder and executive director of the East Oakland Collective:
Voices of the People:
Listen to Oakland neighbors talk about what they love about their communities, the changes they’ve seen, what they envision for the future of Oakland and ideas on how to get there.