ordering harsh penalties<\/a> against the operators, based on \u201cundisputed evidence.\u201d<\/p>\nAngelique Austin, owner of One Rose of Unity, must pay $1.1 million to the city and $75,000 to a trio of tenants. Her company must also pay about $950,000 in penalties and $123,000 in attorney fees. Her son, Terrell Bailey, and his company T&A, which operated some of the homes, were ordered to pay $703,000 to the city and $50,000 to the same tenants.<\/p>\n
Austin and Bailey were also required to either leave the rental market altogether or continue running the homes under numerous conditions for the next five years, including notifying the city any time they want to evict someone, providing reports of any police visits, no longer advertising that the programs are appropriate for people with severe mental illness, not retaliating against tenants, and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe permanent injunction issued is a significant success for the City and for the tenants it protects,\u201d the City Attorney\u2019s Office said in a statement provided to The Oaklandside. \u201cThe injunction protects tenants \u2014 many of them among Oakland\u2019s most vulnerable residents \u2014 from harassment, unlawful eviction, and deceptive practices, and it helps ensure their rights are safeguarded going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
After this order was issued, a lawyer for Austin, who\u2019d previously been representing herself, filed an opposition, asking the judge to set aside the ruling against her because it violated her constitutional property rights and arguing that the city had failed to demonstrate harm to the tenants. The attorney, Dale Rubin, also wrote that the city failed to disclose to the judge that it had deposed Austin, who\u2019d denied all of their allegations \u2014 so the statement that facts were undisputed wasn\u2019t true.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is unclear from court records whether Austin\u2019s opposition motion will lead to anything. Rubin did not respond to an interview request.<\/p>\n
Sexual assault, illegal evictions alleged in lawsuit. One Rose of Unity claims the city didn\u2019t show evidence<\/p>\n
Austin, through One Rose of Unity, rented units in four to six Oakland buildings between 2016 and 2023. There, she ran independent living facilities \u2014 private programs that provide housing to tenants who need some support, like people who\u2019ve recently gotten clean, or those who\u2019ve recently come out of incarceration. The operator does not need to be licensed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Austin said she\u2019d been incarcerated many years ago and, after turning her own life around, wanted to give back to a vulnerable population that struggles to find housing.<\/p>\n
In an emotional interview last week, she maintained that she hadn\u2019t done anything wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was good to my people,\u201d Austin said. \u201cI feel I was robbed of everything. I didn\u2019t have a lawyer because I couldn\u2019t afford one at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she\u2019s no longer running housing programs and is instead working as a truck driver, where she can avoid dealing with people. \u201cLoads don\u2019t talk,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Austin claimed the city didn\u2019t really know what was happening inside the properties. She said state inspectors, acting on an anonymous tip, inspected at least one home just months before the lawsuit and gave it positive marks. We\u2019ve asked the state for confirmation and documentation of this and will update this story when we get a response.<\/p>\n
The 2023 lawsuit against Austin and Bailey\u2019s organizations, filed by then-City Attorney Barbara Parker, detailed allegations of \u201cappalling and unlawful conditions, abuse, and harassment\u201d at homes run by One Rose of Unity and T&A Independent Room and Board. Austin has argued that her program and her son\u2019s should not have been lumped together in one suit.<\/p>\n
At these properties, the city tallied 530 calls for service to the police and 95 visits by officers during the period when Austin and Bailey ran them. The city said the programs illegally evicted 18 tenants, sometimes changing locks, removing their belongings, or trying to get the police to kick out legal residents.<\/p>\n
In interviews, Austin claimed she wasn\u2019t required to follow the standard court process to evict someone because she was the renter of the units in question, and program participants subleased from her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city said her residents still have standard tenant rights, and the lease agreements between One Rose of Unity and its participants said similarly. The city also sued the landlords who rented to Austin, and settled with the remaining ones last week. It\u2019s not clear what happened with three other property owners named in the case; the City Attorney\u2019s Office did not respond to our question.<\/p>\n
A central incident in the lawsuit is the 2017 sexual assault of a woman living at a 102nd Avenue home run by One Rose of Unity. In an interview in 2023, Austin acknowledged that an employee raped a woman who\u2019d been referred to the program by Adult Protective Services. The woman worked as a house manager, making meals for other residents and making sure they took medication, in exchange for free rent, according to Austin. One Rose of Unity closed this facility before the lawsuit was filed.<\/p>\n
In its complaint, the city said private, unlicensed \u201cindependent living facilities\u201d \u2014 of which there are around 200 in Oakland \u2014 are prone to the sorts of abuses they say occurred at the homes in the lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to the lack of regulation and oversight, [independent living facilities] offer ample opportunities for predatory actors to exploit vulnerable tenants,\u201d the city wrote in the suit. However, Austin said the county and mental health nonprofits frequently referred clients to her and she still gets calls from case workers.<\/p>\n
After the lawsuit was filed, Austin said she planned to sue the city. Speaking with The Oaklandside last week, she reiterated those intentions.<\/p>\n
“*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This building on Gray Street was one of the \u201cindependent living facilities\u201d named in Oakland\u2019s 2023 lawsuit. Credit:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[2093,8552,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-472737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-mental-health","tag-oakland-city-attorney","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472737","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=472737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Sober-living](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/20230829-205113.webp\" "\\"Sober-living")
This building on Gray Street was one of the \u201cindependent living facilities\u201d named in Oakland\u2019s 2023 lawsuit. Credit: Amir Aziz\/The Oaklandside<\/p>\n