MACRO was pitched as a panacea that would “reimagine” policing, save money, and improve lives. Instead, it cost the city about $10M during a fiscal crisis with little to show.
And less safety...the perfect Bay Area policy - flashy social justice signaling, grift to political sweethearts, and a thumb in the eye of the taxpayer.
I love MACRO! they solved the noise problem in our neighborhood, whereas many calls to the police never did. I am not sure the number are correct, the police discourage calls to MACRO, they don't like it. MACRO also removed some homeless sleeping on the sidewalk.
The County MCT seems like the right service. But in my decades of working downtown I only saw them once. Most often calls for homeless people in distress were handled by the fire department sending their big red fire truck and a contract ambulance. So like 6 people to deal with one person who often was acting strange but didn't need to go to the ER. So why didn't the City just offer to pay the County more to step up the MCT in Oakland? Seems like CRT could have set up a substation right in front of City Hall and had work all day is long. Also, it seems nutty to roll out MACRO on anything less than 24/7.
Ok, I get it. This Substack is for the most part an argument for using the police to solve all our problems in Oakland. I’m pretty much just here to remind y’all that the police can’t do everything, nor, if you ask them, do they want to.
MACRO hasn’t had enough time to see if it is going to work. 3 years is nothing compared to decades the police have been arguably failing to do what MACRO is trying to do.
I’m OK with MACRO costing precious city dollars in the time of a fiscal crisis. If the police are serving 0.46% less calls due to MACRO, that’s at least a few minutes of time they can spend responding to commercial burglaries.
Additionally, I can’t even believe I have to argue that we need compassionate alternatives to the police to serve our homeless neighbors, but here we are.
Please put the data down for a moment. Pull your head out of the computer and go outside. Buy a cup of coffee for a houseless neighbor and ask them how they are doing. Not everything is about algorithms and charts.
Actually, author, sit down and have a cup of coffee with me. Let me tell you about how my dad was homeless at the end of his life. Let me tell you how he was a Green Beret who served his country during Vietnam, and how people like him deserve better than your complaints that you have to put up with them in your town.
It would be good to delve deeper into what a "referral to services" really is. I don't think it means that the homeless person availed himself of services, or was taken to services. I think it just means the MACRO team gave information about a service the person could use. Without a way to know that the services were used, a "referral" is pretty meaningless. My experience in calling MACRO and following up on the outcome of the contact is that acceptance of the referral (i.e., going to the service provider) is pretty rare. My sense is that success for the community, such as having a homeless person vacate a public space, might be the result of repeated MACRO visits that eventually cause the person to feel harassed and need to disappear to another location, not so much because the person was actually helped.
I have had great experiences with MACRO. I am in property management, and we have called MACRO over 5 or 6 times in the past year to help with mental illness crises. Each of these individuals was homeless. In the past, we would call OPD, and only once did they even show up to help. We have had the unhoused sleeping in front of the front entrances to properties and would not move. We have had individuals in front of a property screaming and yelling for hours. The people of MACRO are kind and often know the individuals. I would be sad to see MACRO leave the City.
MACRO is not helping the police. MACRO only works certain areas and limited hours. MACRO does not work after 5pm. The MACRO program is not worth the money we are spending to support this program. We should not be spending a penny on this program. Let us change the city ordinances and get rid of the Federal and local oversight committees. Mindy Pechenuk, candidate for Oakland Mayor 2025. WWW. electmindy.com
This article's Herculean coverage of analytic details was HUGELY disappointing in an obvious respect. If it wanted to make a case for County coverage of the costs, why didn't it just say so in the first paragraph? And why didn't it also very early on project the costs of handling conditions that would exist if MACRO did not exist?
These incompletions border on being manipulative and should be corrected by the people interested in publishing this existing analysis.
I’m a retired social worker, SEIU 1021 member, who has helped create street-based programs & have been working with others (largely from CPA) for several years to get the city to listen to our opinions on MACRO. Its director, has zero experience designing such programs & didn’t, in fact, design MACRO. It has grown despite having no plan or design or any evaluation as to whether it met its goals which were never actually formulated. Elliot is comfortable in the OFD which also pays little attention to MACRO, doesn’t understand its original purpose & listens to Elliot. MACRO doesn’t belong in the OFD or any other part of Oakland government, as no one of the many officials we’ve talked to has lifted a finger to examine what’s going on. I am convinced the only solution is to make MACRO a nonprofit & actually design it. Antioch has such a program that has actually been highly successful in alleviating APD’s burden of taking non-essential calls & in a short period of time. This can be done with MACRO but not in its current state.
All "reimagining" public safety has accomplished is leading to a bigger waste of taxpayer funds.
And less safety...the perfect Bay Area policy - flashy social justice signaling, grift to political sweethearts, and a thumb in the eye of the taxpayer.
and turned Oakland into an amusement park for criminals.
The budget shenanigans are incredibly frustrating…
I love MACRO! they solved the noise problem in our neighborhood, whereas many calls to the police never did. I am not sure the number are correct, the police discourage calls to MACRO, they don't like it. MACRO also removed some homeless sleeping on the sidewalk.
The County MCT seems like the right service. But in my decades of working downtown I only saw them once. Most often calls for homeless people in distress were handled by the fire department sending their big red fire truck and a contract ambulance. So like 6 people to deal with one person who often was acting strange but didn't need to go to the ER. So why didn't the City just offer to pay the County more to step up the MCT in Oakland? Seems like CRT could have set up a substation right in front of City Hall and had work all day is long. Also, it seems nutty to roll out MACRO on anything less than 24/7.
Ok, I get it. This Substack is for the most part an argument for using the police to solve all our problems in Oakland. I’m pretty much just here to remind y’all that the police can’t do everything, nor, if you ask them, do they want to.
MACRO hasn’t had enough time to see if it is going to work. 3 years is nothing compared to decades the police have been arguably failing to do what MACRO is trying to do.
I’m OK with MACRO costing precious city dollars in the time of a fiscal crisis. If the police are serving 0.46% less calls due to MACRO, that’s at least a few minutes of time they can spend responding to commercial burglaries.
Additionally, I can’t even believe I have to argue that we need compassionate alternatives to the police to serve our homeless neighbors, but here we are.
Please put the data down for a moment. Pull your head out of the computer and go outside. Buy a cup of coffee for a houseless neighbor and ask them how they are doing. Not everything is about algorithms and charts.
Actually, author, sit down and have a cup of coffee with me. Let me tell you about how my dad was homeless at the end of his life. Let me tell you how he was a Green Beret who served his country during Vietnam, and how people like him deserve better than your complaints that you have to put up with them in your town.
One wonders if the anonymous writer is on the MACRO payroll. Just asking.
Indeed. Also hilarious for an anonymous account to have pronouns. I guess I now know how to not offend stale bread.
It would be good to delve deeper into what a "referral to services" really is. I don't think it means that the homeless person availed himself of services, or was taken to services. I think it just means the MACRO team gave information about a service the person could use. Without a way to know that the services were used, a "referral" is pretty meaningless. My experience in calling MACRO and following up on the outcome of the contact is that acceptance of the referral (i.e., going to the service provider) is pretty rare. My sense is that success for the community, such as having a homeless person vacate a public space, might be the result of repeated MACRO visits that eventually cause the person to feel harassed and need to disappear to another location, not so much because the person was actually helped.
I have had great experiences with MACRO. I am in property management, and we have called MACRO over 5 or 6 times in the past year to help with mental illness crises. Each of these individuals was homeless. In the past, we would call OPD, and only once did they even show up to help. We have had the unhoused sleeping in front of the front entrances to properties and would not move. We have had individuals in front of a property screaming and yelling for hours. The people of MACRO are kind and often know the individuals. I would be sad to see MACRO leave the City.
MACRO is not helping the police. MACRO only works certain areas and limited hours. MACRO does not work after 5pm. The MACRO program is not worth the money we are spending to support this program. We should not be spending a penny on this program. Let us change the city ordinances and get rid of the Federal and local oversight committees. Mindy Pechenuk, candidate for Oakland Mayor 2025. WWW. electmindy.com
This article's Herculean coverage of analytic details was HUGELY disappointing in an obvious respect. If it wanted to make a case for County coverage of the costs, why didn't it just say so in the first paragraph? And why didn't it also very early on project the costs of handling conditions that would exist if MACRO did not exist?
These incompletions border on being manipulative and should be corrected by the people interested in publishing this existing analysis.
I’m a retired social worker, SEIU 1021 member, who has helped create street-based programs & have been working with others (largely from CPA) for several years to get the city to listen to our opinions on MACRO. Its director, has zero experience designing such programs & didn’t, in fact, design MACRO. It has grown despite having no plan or design or any evaluation as to whether it met its goals which were never actually formulated. Elliot is comfortable in the OFD which also pays little attention to MACRO, doesn’t understand its original purpose & listens to Elliot. MACRO doesn’t belong in the OFD or any other part of Oakland government, as no one of the many officials we’ve talked to has lifted a finger to examine what’s going on. I am convinced the only solution is to make MACRO a nonprofit & actually design it. Antioch has such a program that has actually been highly successful in alleviating APD’s burden of taking non-essential calls & in a short period of time. This can be done with MACRO but not in its current state.