A group of frightened disabled seniors claims that the sidewalks in their Oakland neighborhood are so filthy that they must risk their lives by taking their wheelchairs onto the main road.

Cathy Harris, Shaaron Green-Peace, and Rose Luster-Brooks, who all rely on motorized wheelchairs, reside at a senior living facility near International Boulevard and 105th Avenue.

They all told KTVU that the sheer amount of garbage is making it impossible for them to get around safely in their own community.

‘We have to ride in the street as if we’re cars. It’s unsafe,’ Luster-Brooks said.

They insist the blame doesn’t solely lie with the homeless population in the area. They notice that as the pile of trash has expanded, even everyday pedestrians have been adding to it without concern.

‘People are dumping, I mean everything in the world you can find right here on this corner,’ Luster-Brooks said.

The women have said that the garbage has even stopped them from being able to use a bus with East Bay Paratransit, a transportation method funded by the city that specifically serves disabled residents.

‘They no longer can pick us up there. A couple of them have tried and we’re like, “how are you going to let us out in this trash?”‘ Luster-Brooks said.

The bus driver now picks them up at the next corner of the intersection, which the women said is riddled with oncoming traffic and isn’t as safe.

Luster-Brooks said this has been going on for around a year and in that time, they’ve called the city, the mayor’s office and their city councilmember Ken Houston.

None of their requests for help have been answered, they said.

‘They say they’re for us. We voted for these people, and we’re not being recognized,’  Luster-Brooks said. ‘You go further into Piedmont, Dimond District, all of that’s fine, but what about us?’

City spokesperson Sean Maher confirmed to KTVU that the location has received repeated requests from constituents for clean-ups and that Oakland’s Encampment Management Team is aware of the site.

Houston, who represents deep East Oakland in the city council, said the encampment has been removed twice but keeps returning.

‘It’s on the radar and we’re going to come out, and these seniors should be protected,’ Houston said in front of the pile of trash.

One thing that could be hamstringing cleanup crews is that they’re generally not allowed to remove people’s personal property from encampments under city policy, Maher said.

According to a regulation passed in 2020 by the city council, employees tasked with ‘deep cleaning’ encampments must ‘make reasonable efforts to mitigate any individual or group property loss.’

They’re allowed to clean up ‘debris, trash, waste, illegal dumping, hazmat’ and other items, but any personal property they come across that doesn’t appear abandoned needs to be stored.

‘The City will make reasonable efforts to store up to one (1) square yard of such property per individual,’ the regulation states.

Oakland had the eighth largest homeless population of all major cities in the US last year, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The number of homeless people in Oakland has jumped nearly 18 percent since 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem in most US cities.

The problem has gotten so bad that gigantic shantytowns have formed in certain parts of the city.

Oakland is also prone to crime sprees, with residents growing quite accustomed to chaotic smash-and-grab robberies.

The city also has a high rate of car theft, with a civil grand jury recently finding that 9,400 vehicles were reported stolen in 2024.