Oakland Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire: Is It A Call To ‘Re-Engineer Our System’?


The Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire was a horrific tragedy that took the lives of 36 young artists, musicians and college students. It is cause for pause certainly for officials looking for solutions to California’s housing and homelessness issues.

Oakland’s plans for future fire prevention will require new and logical strategies, not just the enforcement of old zoning and building codes. The problem is larger than that. This is a multifaceted problem involving homelessness, economic disparity, and high rents, as well as the specific needs of artists.

The Oakland Ghost Ship is not the only warehouse or other makeshift structure being used for housing in the area, and so it is predictable that now code enforcement is going to be a huge priority for city planners and inspectors. City employees will likely be forced to evict thousands, but is this the right tactic? Where will these people go?

The Oakland Ghost Ship collective is not a situation without parallel in Oakland. Cheryl Edison, who is working with The Gate 510 to develop a large mixed-use space, told USA Today there are many artists who wish to work and live in the same space.

Artists like the ones who lived and worked at Oakland’s Ghost Ship also need space away from close neighbors because they make noise and use power tools. Their work requires something like warehouse space but most artists prefer to live with their work and to work on it at widely varying times of the day. Yet according to Ms. Edison, the current policies are too inflexible to permit it legally without huge costs and red tape.

“There’s a barrier to moving the properties from one use to another. There’s not a fluidity between zoning and permitting. So it’s years and years and hundreds of thousands of dollars you have to spend. The truth is… these buildings are out there. But we need to re-engineer our system so that they can be shifted to different uses, so developers can know how much it will cost to transform these spaces. We make a proposal and the fire marshal says ‘No’ and walks away. That’s the system that’s currently in place.”

The Oakland Ghost Ship artisans did not have hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they could not wait years for a place to work. Perhaps if they had been met with a more cooperative system, the warehouse fire could have been prevented with less costly measures.

Oakland's Ghost Ship as it looked in 2014
Oakland’s Ghost Ship as it looked in 2014. [Image by Ajesh Shah/AP Images]

Rusty Blazenhoff, who is involved in the California art scene spoke out to USA Today in the wake of the Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire, a tremendous tragedy for the artistic community. Ms. Blazenhoff blames high rents for the tragedy, which is gradually leading to an exodus of artists from the bay area.

“People don’t always have first and last month’s rent and a security deposit, they don’t make enough money for that. Say rent is two grand. That’s six grand to move in — that’s a lot of money for an artist or a young person.”

The Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire was “preventable,” Noel Gallo, an Oakland City Council Member who lives a block away from the Ghost Ship, told NBC News.

“So you have many warehouses that have been converted to live-work spaces. I am not going to make excuses for the city because we have documented it, we have turned it in, we have called it in. I have brought, personally, the police in front of it to shut that place down and to get them to remove that debris. For young people and anyone else to lose their lives that way — it was preventable.”

The Oakland Ghost Ship was an unlawful residence, according to Gallo, who explained that unused industrial facilities such as warehouses were often unlawfully converted into residences. Still, many cities, including New York, allow the conversion of warehouses into chic apartments. Converting such a facility requires new wiring and installing certain amenities, but it is often cheaper than building a new structure.

The Oakland Ghost Ship was created in the first place to provide affordable living and working space for artists in an area where rent prices start at about $2,000 and average is $3,373 a month, according to USA Today. Minimum wage is $13 an hour. Home loans require that the cost of purchase be less than one-third of the household income, simply because they have found that it is impossible for a family to pay more than that for housing on a regular basis. That means that apartments are unaffordable in Oakland for those making less than $72,000 per year. That is a huge problem for those making considerably less.

The Oakland Ghost Ship was not a government-sanctioned project, to say the least. It seems that Derick Almena and his wife Micah Allison, now being blamed for the warehouse fire, leased the property from Chor N. Ng as studio space. The Ng family alleges they were unaware that their property was being used as a dwelling, according to Fox News.

The Oakland Ghost Ship manager, Derick Almena told NBC News he’d done everything he could afford to do to fix up the property.

“We’ve done everything we could possibly afford to do.”

The Oakland Ghost Ship was a dream for Almena and for some, but not all of the residents. Mr. Almena and Ms. Allison lived at the Ghost Ship, they were not some distant slum lords. They were away at the time of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire, according to Fox News.

The Oakland Ghost Ship and the Satya Yuga artists collective were not about money, according to Vikram Babu, a 35-year-old app designer who admired the spirit of the Ghost Ship. Babu told USA Today it was about art, not cash.

“These types of spaces are not about making a buck, they’re about creating an ambiance and environment that you can tell isn’t corporatized.”

Oakland Artists greive outside after Ghost House fire
Oakland artists grieve outside after Ghost House fire. [Image by Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Images]

The Oakland Ghost Ship was distinctive, and it had character. It had a nostalgic feel reminiscent of a time when things were not so corporately owned. It was a one of a kind sort of place, and its parties drew in young people of all social strata. The Ghost Ship was not just cheap, it was cool, and it represented hope and a sort of artistic fellowship and sense of purpose for residents.

The Oakland Ghost Ship was not a homeless shelter or a government project with subsidized rents. It wasn’t a charity and it wasn’t even like a low rent apartment. It was, despite the flickering faulty electrical system the clutter and all the fire hazards, a collective of artisans that many people were proud to be part of.

In considering the Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire, one must remember that 20 percent of the nation’s homeless live in California. According to 247 Wall Street, there are 578,424 homeless people in California, 31 percent of which are not housed by California’s residential programs for the homeless. Is it right to force people living in warehouses similar to Ghost Ship out of substandard housing into no housing at all, or some kind of homeless shelter?

The Oakland Ghost Ship and other converted warehouse homes could have perhaps benefited from a tiny fraction of Governor Brown’s allocation of $2 billion to ease the homelessness crisis. A billionaire tax is being used to fund it, according to the Los Angeles Times. Could billionaires in California be taxed to pay for the various collectives currently holed up in warehouses?

The Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire is in many ways symptomatic of widespread problems that are not peculiar to Oakland. Oakland officials, however, could lead the way to a compassionate and sensible solution, instead of exacerbating the problem, by requiring unaffordable solutions to people who don’t have the money to do what is required. Couldn’t funds be found to create affordable solutions?

The Oakland Ghost Ship artists colony, the homeless, and millions of Americans struggling to barely get by deserve a safe place to live, not to be forced out. In the last 10 years, 18 million people have been displaced from the labor force. Fully 95 million are not listed as unemployed, nor are they employed or self-employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the Social Security Administration, 54.75 million of those are retired or disabled. That still leaves 40 million people not working. Could unemployment statistics be that misleading? That is about 12.5 percent of the population. What are they doing? CNBC wonders.


RELATED REPORTS FROM THE INQUISITR

Oakland Fire At Ghost Ship: At Least 33 Young Artists, Musicians And Their Guests Lost Their Lives

Is Oakland Housing Crisis To Blame For Ghost Ship Fire Deaths?

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How Dangerous Was The Ghost Ship Warehouse? Criminal Investigation Now Underway

Oakland Warehouse Fire: Open Investigation Into Venue As 40 Feared Dead, Family Search Social Media For Loved Ones

Mystery Hero Saved Lives During Oakland Ghost Ship Fire By Selflessly Staying By Exit To Help Others


The Oakland Ghost Ship and other low rent collectives may be one place these displaced people land or they could be on the streets, maybe they are sustenance farming, but they are obviously not renting apartments in Oakland for $2,000 or more a month. Other people are struggling to get by on low wages, so perhaps it is time to recognize that there are a lot of people suffering economically, through no fault of their own.

The city of Oakland could respond with rent control or a helping hand in fixing up old properties, as easily as rousting out artists from their warehouses with nowhere to go but the streets.

The Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire could result in a new spirit of cooperation between Oakland city officials, the artistic community, and the poor, or it could lead to more homelessness, more poverty and fewer options for low-income people including artists. The choice is up to the city of Oakland.

The Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire is a call to action, but it is also a call to think over the options before acting.

[Featured Image by KGO TV/AP Images]

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