months of organizing by residents<\/a>, who filed complaints earlier this year with the city and confronted building management over conditions at the property.\u00a0<\/p>\nNow, they\u2019re taking them to court.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people that we\u2019re representing are retired nurses, retired teachers, retired AC Transit workers,\u201d attorney Rahman Popal said. \u201cAnd they come back to the conditions here which are not safe and unsecured and completely dirty and uninhabitable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also raises questions about how the project was first developed and marketed<\/p>\n
It alleges the Oakland Station was promoted as a luxury affordable housing community for seniors in order to attract tenants and secure development incentives, including housing tax credits. But last year, citing high vacancy rates and other factors, the building\u2019s owners \u2013 Oakland Pacific Associates \u2013 were granted permission from the city to open the property to tenants of all ages.<\/p>\n
But the lawsuit alleges those empty units were caused by \u201cunsafe and unhealthy\u201d conditions, reduced services, and limited access to parking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur lawsuit looks at the entire history of this property from the very beginning,\u201d Popal said. \u201cThis was passed and sold as an affordable housing complex for senior tenants. And the ownership group secured housing tax credits that greatly benefit them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit describes dozens of alleged problems, including building-wide heating and plumbing issues.<\/p>\n
Paula Reed, 75, is a cancer and stroke survivor. She alleges in the lawsuit that her bathroom plumbing was not working for about a week and had to use makeshift alternatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was using a pai,l and I was using plastic bags,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the civil complaint describes a time when Reed was displaced from her apartment for almost two months due to flooding at the complex and was promised reimbursement for a motel. But she was never paid back, according to the lawsuit, \u201cforcing the senior, low-income Plaintiff to shoulder the costs of displacement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly every tenant in the building who spoke to NBC Bay Area told stories about cockroaches. Roach motels and bug-killing powder are common sights throughout the hallways and inside tenants\u2019 units.<\/p>\n
Claudia Alejandre says cockroaches have even crawled inside the CPAP machines she and her husband use to sleep at night, so she now has to tape them shut.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found roaches inside swimming in the water container,\u201d Alejandre said. \u201cIt was a really stressful situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also details numerous safety concerns, notably a broken exterior gate that remains open and allows anyone to enter the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tenants regularly encounter trespassers using drugs, along with \u201csex workers, and others camping through the building,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople off the street living in the hallways,\u201d said Williams, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran. \u201cI had my car stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s taken his complaints to building management, run by a San Diego company called CONAM, but has been met with \u201cno communication and a lack of concern.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another plaintiff in the suit, Saffiya Usman, said the building got so dangerous she had to move out. The lawsuit alleges that she was assaulted and robbed in the building\u2019s elevator last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe pushed me and knocked me down, and my head hit the back of the elevator,\u201d Usman said. \u201cHe grabbed my bag and ran out.”<\/p>\n
Usman said she filed a report with police, but the man was never caught.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Records from the Oakland Police Department show officers have responded to more than 50 calls at the property in the first four months of 2026 alone, for reported robberies, trespassers, car burglaries and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the most terrifying and frightening experience that I have ever had,\u201d Usman said.<\/p>\n
The building\u2019s elevators are a major concern among tenants, particularly those with disabilities, since they \u201chave broken down over 30 times,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
When the building\u2019s elevators were out of service for four days in 2024, according to the lawsuit, Oakland firefighters were forced to carry a paralyzed tenant down six flights of stairs during a medical emergency.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Oakland Fire Department confirmed the incident.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the outage, tenants like Rose Luster-Brooks said they were trapped in their apartments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody was stuck, and it was hard for people like me that\u2019s in a wheelchair,\u201d Luster-Brooks said. \u201cBut the office never came up and said, \u2018Hey, y\u2019all need some water? Is there anything we can do to help you?\u2019 They never checked on us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither Oakland Pacific Associates nor CONAM responded to NBC Bay Area\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
In a March letter to tenants, however, management said it remained committed to operating the property in compliance with applicable laws and lease agreements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They added that the building\u2019s heating system has been fixed, common areas are cleaned regularly, and that the building has a security team, though it\u2019s not in place 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n
With the help of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), the tenants’ complaints and organizing efforts caught the attention of city officials earlier this year. Several city council members have toured the property and the city said May code enforcement inspections led to notices of violations, including for pest-related issues.<\/p>\n
But Popal said there were opportunities for the city to intervene earlier and more aggressively, citing code enforcement visits to the property going back to 2023.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit seeks damages and court orders requiring the owners to address the alleged conditions at the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re demanding accountability,\u201d Popal said. \u201cThese tenants didn\u2019t come to me about money, they came to me because they want to be able to sleep at night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 70 current and former tenants of the Oakland Station apartments \u2013 all seniors or people with disabilities,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[32521,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-410181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","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\/410181","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=410181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}