Introduction: Inhabiting the Uninhabitable at Oakland’s Wood Street Encampment

From 2013 to 2023, the unhoused residents of West Oakland's Wood Street encampment constructed a sprawling informal neighborhood from the city's vast material and spatial excess. They built and furnished myriad shanties, tiny homes, and shacks from items cast off by Oakland's middle and upper classes and by the industries surrounding the city's massive port. It was common to see tarps and banners used as shading materials, fastened to utility poles and chain link fences. Forklift pallets became picket fences demarcating yards. Structures made from plywood and discarded furniture populated the shade beneath freeway.