{"id":346167,"date":"2026-06-04T07:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T07:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/346167\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T07:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T07:30:11","slug":"concerns-over-conditions-at-oakland-affordable-housing-complex-nbc-bay-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/346167\/","title":{"rendered":"Concerns over conditions at Oakland affordable housing complex \u2013 NBC Bay Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Oakland Station was supposed to be a quiet and affordable home to live out their golden years.<\/p>\n

Instead, dozens of Oakland seniors say they’re living with roaches, garbage and unsafe conditions \u2014 and are now banding together to demand change from their landlord and the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be around my senior people, play some bingo, do some line dancing,\u201d said Linda Wade, one of the building\u2019s tenants. \u201cHowever, that wasn\u2019t the case. It didn\u2019t turn out that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The building opened in 2021 as an affordable housing community for seniors, but tenants say the building is already falling apart, and living there has become unbearable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never lived under these conditions before in my entire life, and I refuse,\u201d said Wade, who moved in about a year ago after her son died in the Oakland apartment they used to share. \u201cI came here for senior living, for safety, for peace of mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The building sits at the intersection of 105th Ave and E. 14th St. in East Oakland. It\u2019s owned by Oakland Pacific Associates and managed by a company called CONAM, which market the Oakland Station on its website as a \u201cluxury community\u201d in \u201cOakland\u2019s most desirable area.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the tenants say reality inside the Oakland Station doesn\u2019t match the glossy online photos. NBC Bay Area found live and dead roaches, fluorescent lights flickering over stained carpets, and wires hanging from holes in the ceiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoaches race down the hallway,\u201d Wade said. \u201cThey will race you to your apartment and beat you there. It\u2019s just that bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wade is hardly the only one raising concerns.<\/p>\n

Inside her Oakland Station\u00a0unit, Isabelle Ruiz holds up a jar of dead roaches as proof of the infestation for building management.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, I put one in there just a few minutes ago,\u201d Ruiz said. \u201cThis one was in my sink.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tenant<\/p>\n

Tenant Isabelle Ruiz holds up a jar of roaches she’s caught in her Oakland Station apartment<\/p>\n

She also pointed to a large bruise on her arm, which she said was the result of tripping over one of the loose floor panels in her unit.<\/p>\n

She wants to leave but feels stuck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been looking, but my problem is my income,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the places I\u2019m looking at, I have to make three times the amount of rent. I\u2019m only on social security. That\u2019s all I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chaney Turner doesn\u2019t live at the Oakland Station, but her parents do. She visits nearly every day to care for her mother with dementia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe elevator, the hallways, everything smells like urine,\u201d Turner said. \u201cThe entire place smells like urine and feces and trash.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photos from tenants \u2013 and NBC Bay Area\u2019s own cameras \u2013 captured piles of trash throughout the building and several instances of what appeared to be feces in the carpeted hallways.<\/p>\n

\"Tenants<\/p>\n

Tenants say piles of trash throughout the building are a common problem.<\/p>\n

Turner said she and other tenants have reported the conditions to building management and the city over the years, but not much has changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis area is not a priority,\u201d Turner said.<\/p>\n

They also cited as persistent issues broken heaters, flood damage that hasn\u2019t been repaired, and elevators with expired permits or that don\u2019t work at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you going to do when there\u2019s a fire?\u201d said tenant Shari Williams. \u201cYou\u2019ve got people in wheelchairs on the sixth floor.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, Turner said she reached out to the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), a nonprofit that helps marginalized communities organize around major issues such as housing and affordability.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the prime examples of why we do this organizing,\u201d said Valarie Bachelor, the organization\u2019s Oakland director. \u201cThere are some real concerning things happening in this building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bachelor said roughly three dozen seniors living in the Oakland Station have joined forces to demand improvements and implore city officials to hold their landlord accountable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Their new wave of complaints is starting to get traction.<\/p>\n

Oakland code enforcement has opened investigations and ACCE said three city council members have come to see the building for themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city said code enforcement inspections in May led to notices of violations, including for pest-related issues, and they plan to come back for further inspections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The tenants, alongside ACCE, outlined their complaints in two separate letters sent to CONAM and Oakland Pacific Associates earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Neither company responded to NBC Bay Area\u2019s requests for comment, but in a response to one of those letters provided by ACCE, they said \u201cmanagement remains committed to operating the property in compliance with applicable laws and lease agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n

They told tenants the building\u2019s heating system has been fixed and that common areas are regularly cleaned.<\/p>\n

But Wade and other tenants say most of their concerns still haven\u2019t been addressed, and they continue to organize.<\/p>\n

Standing in front of the building, Bachelor pointed out a large garage door she said has been stuck open for months. Tenants say the open gate allows strangers to come into the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of squatters,\u201d Wade said. \u201cPeople breaking into the laundry rooms, the yoga room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tenants<\/p>\n

Tenants say strangers enter the building through a garage door that’s been stuck open for months<\/p>\n

Inside the building\u2019s mail room, Bachelor said mailboxes have been pried open and some no longer lock.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are seniors,\u201d Bachelor said. \u201cMany women, folks of color, and it\u2019s concerning when you can\u2019t feel safe in your own building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding to the tenants\u2019 concerns: The building began accepting tenants of all ages last July, which many senior tenants said isn\u2019t what they signed up for when they moved in.<\/p>\n

In their written response to the tenants, building management said the property has a security team in place, though it\u2019s not in place at all hours of the day.<\/p>\n

They also told tenants the building\u2019s owners received permission to open the building to people of all ages.<\/p>\n

Linda Wade said organizing with her neighbors has brought them closer together. She once planned on moving out, but now wants to keep fighting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re human beings who want to be treated like human beings,\u201d Wade said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oakland Station was supposed to be a quiet and affordable home to live out their golden years.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[348,32521,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-346167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-investigation","tag-investigative-unit","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}