{"id":394211,"date":"2026-07-11T01:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T01:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/394211\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T01:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T01:39:10","slug":"uc-goldman-initiative-paying-oaklanders-to-solve-store-vacancy-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/394211\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Goldman Initiative paying Oaklanders to solve store vacancy issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UC \"UC UC Goldman Initiative paying Oaklanders to solve store vacancy issue<\/a> <\/p>\n

The UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy is launching an initiative to pay a group of Oakland volunteers to come up with recommendations for the city’s mayor and city council to tackle the problem of vacant storefronts and lots. Each volunteer, chosen by lottery, can receive $1,350 as well as childcare, senior care, and transportation support for the three weekend sessions.<\/p>\n

OAKLAND, Calif. – Oakland city leadership is trying to address why there are so many vacant lots and storefronts, and is asking for the public\u2019s help to do it.<\/p>\n

Approximately 20,000 residents have received letters offering them the chance to participate in a new University of California, Berkeley Goldman School Initiative. The plan is to create a 40-member Civic Assembly to help reduce the number of vacant lots and storefronts.<\/p>\n

Chris Iglesias, the CEO of The Unity Council ,said they\u2019re seeking creative problem solvers.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re open to ideas, we\u2019ve been talking to folks,” Iglesias said. “How can we be creative, how can Oakland be filling these vacancies?”<\/p>\n

Dig deeper:<\/p>\n

Iglesias and others on a steering committee met on Friday with a team from UC Berkeley\u2019s Goldman School of Public Policy to launch the Civic Assembly initiative, the first of its kind in the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

“This civic assembly will focus on vacant lots and storefronts in Oakland and make recommendations to be able to make these community assets really work for the community, whether it\u2019s a place for children to play or the elderly, or where artists can have their work (displayed), where entrepreneurs can move forward and have spaces to operate,” Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink founder and a professor at the UC Berkeley Goldman School. “Where are te vacant lots, where are the storefronts? What government agencieshave responsibility? What happened in other places?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blackwell and her team decided to build the Community Assembly via lottery \u2014 the 20,000 letter recipients are invited to enter a lottery from which 40 members will be chosen.<\/p>\n

By the numbers:<\/p>\n

Those 40 members will receive $1,350 for partaking in three weekend sessions to develop solutions to the question of why Oakland has so many vacant lots and storefronts, and what could be done with them.<\/p>\n

The plan is for the Civic Assembly to develop a report with recommendations for the mayor and the city council.<\/p>\n

“If you got a mailer, I\u2019d say please respond,” Gregory Hodge, Oakland Civic Assembly Steering Committee member said. “We really want to make this a broad-based effort that gets the everyday Oaklander involved.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

News<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC Goldman Initiative paying Oaklanders to solve store vacancy issue The UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[100,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-394211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-news","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394211","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=394211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}