![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/007_KQED_WoodStreet_ErinBaldassari_IMG_3463-1020x765-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHomeless Oaklanders organize against a devastating eviction in Caron Creighton\u2019s new documentary.<\/p>\n
Jul 13, 2026<\/p>\n
Updated 4:14 pm PT<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
John Janosko speaks with other members of the Wood Street Commons before a meeting with the city of Oakland and its nonprofit contractor, Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS), on Nov. 30, 2022.\u00a0(Erin Baldassari\/KQED)<\/p>\n
For years, when Oakland police kicked people out of encampments, they\u2019d tell them to go to Wood Street<\/a>.<\/p>\n Eventually, the Caltrans- and city-owned lot in West Oakland grew into Northern California\u2019s largest community of unhoused people, with 300 residents at its peak during the pandemic. They laid bricks, hammered plywood and planted flowers. They cobbled together makeshift homes and two community centers with showers, bathrooms and a free store. For many struggling with mental health and addiction, the shelter and resources they built for themselves became a lifeline.<\/p>\n Filmmaker Caron Creighton first got to know these residents as a multimedia producer at the San Francisco Chronicle. When the Wood Street community received an eviction notice in 2022, she quit her job and spent nearly a year following them with her camera, documenting their efforts to stop the sweeps and keep their community together.<\/p>\n Notably, Wood Street doesn\u2019t feature interviews with politicians or other talking heads. Nor does it portray its protagonists merely as victims. In Janosko\u2019s phone footage of community meals and clean-ups, we see imperfect people making a way despite dismal circumstances.<\/p>\n \u201cAs I was a reporter covering homelessness, it felt like you always had to have an outside expert talking about it, but a homeless person\u2019s experience isn\u2019t necessarily considered an expertise,\u201d Creighton says.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the documentary, she set out to change that. Creighton captures the psychological toll of the looming eviction as residents relapse into addiction, struggle with mental health and lose the tenuous sense of stability they\u2019d managed to build. Strong personalities emerge, and tensions run high.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to show how all of these processes move to impact an individual. They impact people\u2019s mental health in such a negative way,\u201d Creighton says. \u201cA lot of people are struggling with addiction, and the stress of an encampment sweep isn\u2019t going to help them get clean.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood Street comes to a tear-jerking crescendo when bulldozers finally arrive to crush people\u2019s homes and belongings. City officials justify the eviction by citing a new affordable housing development slated for the site. That building is now open, and with rents starting at $1,845 for a studio apartment, it\u2019s out of reach for many low-income workers. The encampment site itself is now a parking lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe word \u2018affordable,\u2019 I think, is incredibly misleading,\u201d Creighton says.<\/p>\n After Wood Street was cleared out in 2023, many of the residents moved into a tiny home site, which the city of Oakland also later evicted<\/a>. Only a fraction of them made it into permanent housing. The rest have scattered to encampments around the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, California ramped up encampment sweeps<\/a> after the Supreme Court\u2019s 2024 Grants Pass Supreme Court ruling. For many homeless people, each sweep means losing irreplaceable documents, possessions and support systems. These life disruptions can have dire consequences, including increased chances of overdose and even death<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a better way, there has to be,\u201d Creighton says. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to be traumatizing people in order to get them off the street.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Wood Street\u2019 screens on Tuesday, July 14 at 6:30 p.m. at the New Parkway<\/a> (474 24th St., Oakland), and on Wednesday, July 15 at 7:30 p.m., at the Grand Lake Theatre<\/a> (3200 Grand Ave., Oakland). Sold out online; limited tickets available at the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Homeless Oaklanders organize against a devastating eviction in Caron Creighton\u2019s new documentary. 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Wood Street residents\u2019 demands to the city of Oakland. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Wood-Street-crushing-flowers-1.jpg\")
A still from \u2019Wood Street.\u2019 The new documentary follows unhoused residents of a makeshift community as they attempt to fight their eviction. <\/p>\n