Photos by Ali Winston/Special to the 510 Report.

Brittney Johnson/510Report
Scenes from an Auction: As the number of Bay Area foreclosures skyrockets, so does the amount of auctions selling foreclosed homes at a fraction of their original price. Watch potential buyers vie for bargains at a recent auction.

By Samson Reiny/510 Report
Jason Witt is an Olympian of recycling—he can recycle up to 800 pounds of bottles and cans a day.  “He’s the captain of his ship,” said Amir Soltani, a writer and activist who has been following Witt for the past year as part of his upcoming documentary on West Oakland recyclers.  Soltani said there is a lot of physical effort and finesse involved in manning a cart the size of Witt’s, which, at the end of each day, is stacked with overstuffed bags protruding several feet into the air.  “He …

Ali Winston/Special to the 510Report

East 14th Street, more commonly known as International Boulevard, runs from Lake Merritt, through the heart of East Oakland and down through San Leandro.
The boulevard cuts through Vietnamese, Mexican and African-American communities, reflecting city’s diversity. On weekends, the streets in Fruitvale and near Lake Merritt bustle with life.
Other stretches are more desolate – dust gathers in empty store windows, graffiti hints at tensions between street gangs and prostitutes ply their trade at all hours of the day.
Additional link: Exotic Escort on Craigslist

By Samson Reiny/Oakland North
Many of Oakland’s community health problems can be traced to a history of bad city planning and land use, an expert from the Alameda County Public Health Department (ACPHD) said last Wednesday during a panel discussion at the American Institute of Architects East Bay offices in downtown Oakland. 
 
Sandra Witt, the County’s deputy director of planning policy and health equity, referred often to a report published last year called “Life and Death from Unnatural Causes: Health and Social Inequity in Alameda County,” as she argued that historical segregation, …

BY CASEY MINER AND HUDA AHMED  The 12th St. corridor in Oakland is a 12-lane freeway sandwiched between two perfectly normal city streets. There are no crosswalks or traffic lights, but morning commuters don’t care; the quickest way to BART is to look both ways and hope for the best.

Oakland’s “Unity for the Sake of Change” Presidential Inauguration
Community Viewing at the Oracle Arena
January 20, 2009
Presented in part by Alameda County Board of Supervisor’s Keith
Carson, District 5 Supervisor.

By Anna McCarthy
A peaceful demonstration over the recent fatal shooting by a BART police officer escalated into violence last night in downtown Oakland
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the Fruitvale BART station at 3 p.m .Wednesday to protest the death of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, a Hayward resident shot by the BART officer, 27-year-old Johannes Mehserle, in the early morning hours of January 1 on the Fruitvale BART station platform in front of dozens of witnesses.  Since the incident occurred, cell phone footage of the shooting, available on the Internet and other …

By Anna McCarthy/510 Report
“Happy New Year’s Eve, I love you, and may God Bless Your Family.”
That was the text that Cephus Johnson said he sent to his nephew, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III, at 12:49 a.m. on Thursday.  But Grant never responded, and a little more than an hour later he was shot in the back and killed on the Fruitvale BART station platform by a BART police officer, according to cell-phone videos and eye-witness accounts of the incident.
BART officials said there is no video footage of the incident available from …

By Will Jason
The 34 condominiums built on top of an abandoned gas station at 2700 San Pablo Ave. last year were supposed to signal the transformation of their southwest Berkeley neighborhood. Vacant lots and empty buildings would give way to a vibrant, mixed-use district.
Then the units didn’t sell, and the developer lost the property through foreclosure. The building failed to attract a bid when it was put up for auction in mid-December, and now, a year after its completion, it’s owned by a former lender who is renting the condos …