Oakland announced a new barricade of three intersections along its busy International Boulevard in an effort aimed at curbing human trafficking last week, but locals fear it will hurt businesses without actually protecting anyone.
Barricading the Blade
The affected regions include 9th, 10th and 11th avenues where they meet at International Boulevard, an area known as “the Blade” and well-known for prostitution.
The Oakland City Council voted 6-1-1 last Tuesday to approve the six-month pilot proposal. According to the Oaklandreport, the council’s goal isn’t to eliminate solicitation but to relocate it onto the main boulevard, disrupting sex buyer access and improving police sightlines. According to SFist, the model is borrowed directly from San Francisco’s Capp and Shotwell Street barriers in the Mission.
Oakland Report’s independent analysis of nine years of Oakland PD data found that after 2023 barricades went up on East 15th Street, activity simply relocated a few blocks west to the 700 and 800 blocks of International, with citywide numbers beyond a half-mile of the site staying the same with no net reduction. Oakland City Councilmember Charlene Wang tells KTVU, that the measure is “an experiment” with roughly “50/50” odds of working, acknowledging the problem could simply shift elsewhere.
More Struggle for Oaklanders
Local business owners aren’t buying the tradeoff either. Adrian Sanchez Acosta, who owns a custom auto shop in the area, tells NBC Bay Area that she worries the barricades would create more problems than they solve for small businesses already struggling economically.
Sex worker advocates and harm reduction groups have been the strongest protestors. A joint statement from Bay Area Workers Support, St. James Infirmary, and the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District called the barricade strategy a non-solution, arguing it only pushes sex work to other blocks or underground, creating more opportunities for abuse and more dangerous working conditions, while also impeding neighborhood access to fire and emergency services.
Oakland-based legal advocates have made the same point about the broader enforcement push Wang is proposing. Matthew Kellagrew, the co-founder of Red Light Legal (a nonprofit in Oakland that provides legal support for people in the sex trade) tells KALW that criminalizing demand pushes out cautious clients and leaves workers dealing with buyers who have less to lose and are more prone to violence, while his colleague Kristina Dolgin adds that it’s already worsening leverage on the street, bringing more danger, not safety, to the city.
