A thousand homeless people on a cruise ship? California city wonders if it could work
Oakland City Council President Rebecca Kaplan wants everyone to get on board with her plan.
Kaplan told council members at a Tuesday meeting that she plans to bring a cruise ship to Oakland’s port in order to house up to 1,000 homeless people, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The city’s port has countered the idea, calling Kaplan’s plan “untenable.”
The number of homeless people living in Oakland has risen 47 percent since 2017, per The Mercury News. Data released this year showed that there are 4,071 people living in the street — up from 2,761 people in 2017.
Kaplan said that she plans on unveiling a proposal to the council in January 2020 and it’ll come at “no or low” cost to the city because the payment for the rooms would depend on resident income, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The cruise ship would not be purchased by the city, said Kaplan, who added she’s been contacted by different cruise ship companies about how to provide housing for the homeless.
“I made a comment about ‘Gee, maybe we should look at cruise ships to help house people in need of housing,’” she said, per KCBS Radio. “Well, the fact that I made that comment got from someone who was here to someone he knew to someone they knew, and now I’ve been reached out to by someone who actually does this, and we may have the possibility of actually getting a cruise ship.”
The Port of Oakland, however, would have to approve before a ship could dock there, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Mike Zampa, a spokesman for the port, also said the port is made for cargo ships and cruise ships haven’t used the space in the past.
“We respect President Kaplan’s desire to address homelessness but Port of Oakland docks are designed to work cargo ships, there isn’t the infrastructure to berth a cruise ship,” Zampa said, the Associated Press reports.
Turning an outdated ship into housing for the homeless isn’t a completely new idea. Last year, the founder of the nonprofit Memory Works proposed turning a used cruise ship into a homeless shelter.
Kaplan has compared her plan to the Queen Mary in Long Beach, which serves as a floating hotel, per the AP.
“It could be like that,” Kaplan said. “But as affordable housing instead of hotel.”