Former Black Panther Leader, Elaine Brown, Champions Affordable Housing with New Complex in West Oakland
By Magaly Muñoz
West Oakland is now the proud location for the new 100% affordable housing complex for low-income families.
The Black Panther Apartments gets its name from developer and former Black Panther chairwoman Elaine Brown, who says she intends to honor the party throughout the building.
Brown helped raise $80 million for the project, which features 79 units and includes ground floor businesses for residents and the community.
The complex is a brief walk from the West Oakland BART Station, making it an ideal location to access other parts of the city and region within a few minutes.
The upper levels of the complex are almost or completely parallel to a BART track, which can be a disturbing and noisy distraction with how often the trains pass by, but future residents should not worry. Every apartment has a triple-pane window that muffles the sounds of the passing train and traffic from the street below.
Brown said that she had conversations with BART to build a cover over the train track to dampen the noise, but her efforts came to no avail.
The ground-level businesses will feature a grocery store, gym, restaurant, and tech space. The restaurant will be called “Taste of Power.”
The businesses are co-owned by formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs and will allow those in the building to possibly apply for available jobs.
The complex will also feature three greenhouses that will be maintained to sell to the downstairs grocery store. Residents will have the opportunity to apply for jobs here as well.
But Brown emphasized that this apartment complex was not a transitional housing service or “survival program,” if people want to make their way in this capitalistic world, they have to work for it, she says.
“This is not a charity,” Brown repeated throughout the tour.
She said everyone is entitled to housing regardless of their background, but she would not be providing therapy, substance abuse programs or case work management. This is a place to give people a much-needed roof over their head.
There are studios and 1- to 2-bedroom apartments available to rent. Each apartment will come furnished with a dining table, a sofa bed in the living room, and beds for each room. Bathrooms can also be adapted for ADA accessibility.
A community room and kitchen will also be available to residents for socializing or hosting their own private events. Each residential floor also has water fountains, laundry rooms, and trash chutes.
West Oakland was once a thriving hub for Black folks, featuring restaurants, bars, music clubs and more. The area was made up of a majority of Black people and their families, but the population has slowly dwindled over the years.
It did not take long for people online to criticize the development, saying that it was a waste to build in West Oakland and the apartment complex would soon “turn into a drug den.”
Brown said she does not respond to petty comments about people who are not making any change in their community.
“What I’m hoping for is that this will inspire developers to actually develop beautiful housing for poor people who can’t afford market prices,” Brown said.
The limited amount of units available has not stopped people from applying. The complex currently has received over 7,000 applications that will be filtered through the county’s coordinated entry program.
Although they cannot house everyone, Brown and her team say that this goes to show the urgent need for more affordable housing projects in the city. They have heard of too many people and families either living on the streets and their cars or packing themselves into a tight living space with not enough room for everyone to be comfortable.
The development is one of the few affordable housing projects in the area to successfully pan out from start to finish.
Residents will begin to move into their units starting in September.
