The city council president of Oakland, California, has floated putting the city’s expanding homeless population on a cruise ship.
Council President Rebecca Kaplan noted that a cruise ship could house as many as 1,000 homeless. She recommended that the city looks into buying a cruise ship to house the homeless as a quick way to have several rooms available while the city considers permanent solutions to the affordable housing crisis in Oakland, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“It could be a great way to house a lot of people quickly,” Kaplan explained. “Cruise ships have been used for emergency housing after natural disasters and for extra housing for things like Olympics.”
The city’s homeless population has exploded over the last two years. Between 2017 and 2019, it grew from 2,761 to 4,071, a growth of 47%.
There are cruise ships that are hotels in California, including the Queen Mary in Long Beach, which has 347 rooms that are typically rented for $141 per night. Kaplan explained, “It could be like that. But as affordable housing instead of hotel.”
She said some cruise lines had expressed interest in helping Oakland with their homelessness crisis, but the problem may not be finding the ship. The Port of Oakland is one of the busiest in the world and may not have room for a cruise ship to dock permanently.
Port spokesman Mike Zampa said: “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.”
Beyond docking issues, the ship would need to be connected to the city’s power and sewage for daily maintenance.
Elaine de Coligny, executive director of the homeless advocacy group EveryOne Home, said she appreciates the “creativity” of Kaplan’s plan but said she has “lots of questions.”
California has the largest homeless population in the U.S., with nearly 130,000 homeless people.
