The state of homelessness in Vallejo in 2025 got off to a tragic start when James Oakley, 58, was crushed to death as he lay on a mattress during a city-run cleanup on Christmas Eve 2024, just a week before the new year began.
Oakley’s death, increasing numbers of homeless citizens and a dearth of resources for them make for a pessimistic outlook going forward, though a long-delayed shelter opened in June and at least one advocate has expressed optimism for the future.
Homelessness increased 50 percent in Vallejo between 2022 and 2024, according to Solano County’s 2024 Point in Time homeless count, with 682 people experiencing homelessness in Vallejo in 2024. Homelessness grew 6 percent in the Bay Area in 2024 and 18 percent in the country.
Every Vallejo resident — housed or unhoused — is affected by homelessness, whether barely surviving in an encampment, vehicle or tent, or housed and dealing with the secondary effects of litter, debris, garbage and human waste on the sidewalk, drug deals, shootings and fires at encampments.
James Oakley (Courtesy Photo)
While Oakley’s death was the nadir, there was one clearly positive development. The long-delayed and much-anticipated 125-bed Navigation Center homeless shelter opened in June after many delays.
“It takes a village … It took 10 years, three mayors, and six different city councils,” said Vallejo City Councilmember J.R. Matulac, addressing the standing-room-only crowd gathered in the facility’s spacious outdoor garden at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The facility at 1937 Broadway has wraparound services including case management, employment assistance and health care for those living there.
“This is one of the great things we can tout about positivity in Vallejo moving forward,” Matulac said. Not only are there 125 beds, but the facility will be able to service up to 200 individuals, he said. According to homeless advocates, the shelter was close to full by September.
Less clear is the future of the city’s Broadway Project, a 47-unit North Vallejo permanent housing project for people chronically experiencing homelessness.
From left, Matt Kennedy, Design Manager with Cerletti and Kennedy Design-Build, Taryn Sandulyak, Executive Director, Firm Foundation and Heather Chicoine, Senior Project Manager with Firm Foundation, look out one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that pour light into the hallways from both ends of the four-story Broadway Project facility. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
Originally budgeted at $9 million, the Broadway Project cost ballooned to $27 million, with $558,000 in overruns. It has been plagued with delays, variously scheduled to open in 2023, 2024 and the first quarter of 2025. A former mayor deemed the project “a financial catastrophe.”
The structure was finally completed in the spring. Natalie Peterson, assistant to Vallejo’s city manager, predicted earlier this year that tenants might be able to move in as early as mid-April. In May, Peterson said that the first tenants could move in as soon as mid-June.
However, by the end of August. no one had moved in and in September, the estimate was revised to October as the “current goal.” The city council in August approved $643,000 in Opioid Litigation Funds and allotted additional opioid monies to avoid delay in moving people into the facility, but it is still empty, and concerns have arisen about the delay.
Another important factor going forward is the leaf blower effect — also known as Whac-A-Mole, or rotational homelessness. Whatever it’s called, when a homeless encampment is removed without anywhere else for the inhabitants to go, they move to a different location in the city, creating another encampment — even more traumatized, often having lost vital documents in the move and less able to break out of homelessness.
Vallejo Police Officers standby as a city worker rakes trash into a tractor bucket during a cleanup of the encampment area across from the JFK Library on Wednesday. The Vallejo Homeless Union was able to file claims for 90% of the unhoused living in the Georgia Street encampment to prevent the City of Vallejo from clearing tents and temporary homes from the area. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
This widely reported phenomenon, noted in media outlets including the Los Angeles Times in stories dating back at least as far as 2018, has been apparent in city after city across the Bay Area and the country for years.
A June Whac-A-Mole in Vallejo is an example.
“We’ve had a lot more activity up and down the street after the people on 5th Street got cleared out,” resident and business owner Kathy O’Hare, whose Obtainium Works art studio is on Pennsylvania Street in south Vallejo, told the Times-Herald in September.
There already were a few RVs on the street before an encampment on Fifth Street was removed in June, but “that’s when we got the worst of the mess here,” said O’Hare, who owns the studio with her husband Shannon O’Hare.
“There’s human waste, dog waste, drug dealing. Sometimes there will be a group of people standing in the street waiting to make a drug deal,” Shannon O’Hare said. “Sadly, when they get free food from the various food services they dump half of the material on the street and that becomes fodder for the rats.”
Dogs occupy the sidewalk, forcing people to walk in the street, risking a collision, Kathy O’Hare said.
“And then you have the people who have piles of tires and bicycles and use it as ad hoc storage for items — cans of gasoline, generators, oil, all sorts of hazardous materials,” Shannon O’Hare said.
Obtainium Works, located at 510 Pennsylvania St., is a group of tinkerers and artists who create art cars and other contraptions from repurposed materials, often referred to as “obtainium.” The group holds an open studio on Sunday afternoon. However, the encampment is driving away business from the artist’s studio events, the O’Hares said.
The newly opened Navigation Center is filling up and the city’s Blue Oak Landing Project, a 74-unit permanent supportive housing project with wrap-around services at 2118 Sacramento St., has been fully occupied since June 2023 — meaning beds are largely unavailable for people evicted from encampments in Vallejo.
The authors of a study at Los Angeles County encampments from 2021-2022 published by the National Institutes of Health concluded, “Sweeps should be discontinued as they harm the capacity of unhoused people to improve their well-being.”
The death of James Oakley prompted a stunned city council to pause encampment removals in March for two weeks, only to be met with public outcry against the decision. The council voted to resume removals at its April 1 council meeting.
At the meeting, the council voted unanimously to approve several recommendations for evaluating how city staff conduct encampment removals, including how people are notified and how to manage the removals to protect people’s safety and belongings, in the interests of conducting more humane removals.
The council also recommended creating a homeless outreach team.
Longtime advocate Jose Carrizales said he is maintaining an optimistic outlook for the future.
Jeff Glough gets a free haircut from Kareem Hickman, from Liberty Church, during Dignity Day at the Solano Dream Center on Saturday in Vallejo. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald)
He mentioned Vallejo agencies he said are doing good for people experiencing homelessness, helping to ease the problem.
“I would consider the nonprofit agencies and the citizens of Vallejo who out of their own good graces provide food,” Carrizales said. “I will give a big shoutout to the United Way Bay Area.”
He said United Way in Solano County is partnering with nonprofits including Fighting Back Partnership to help those who are at risk of becoming homeless.
“The provide financial assistance and they are having great success,” the homeless advocate said.
Vallejo Together is providing food and hygiene kits via a mobile team. They go out twice a month, Carrizales said.
Looking to the future, the advocate said despite the obstacles, he is determined to be optimistic.
In order to find an effective way to address homelessness, “what we have to do is collaboratively build relationships with agencies — inform the general public, ‘this is the number you call for help,’” the advocate said.
According to Carrizales, that is the big missing piece in homelessness, not only in Vallejo but the country.
“We all must work together, sit at the table, set aside the anger, the ideologies, and figure out a way to help,” Carrizales said. “Include those with lived experience as well as those with medical degrees and those who have studied the issue for years, use best practices and find what works in our city.”