OAKLAND, Calif. (KRON) - A grassroots housing activist who was willing to break the law to bring attention to housing insecurity is now an elected lawmaker in that same city.
What a difference a year makes for Oakland City Councilmember-elect Carroll Fife.
Back in November 2019, she was among a group of housing activists, Moms 4 Housing, illegally occupying a private property in West Oakland to bring attention to the housing crisis.
"This is a systemic problem," Councilmember-elect Carroll Fife said.
A year later she is elected as the official representative of that same district.
Did she see the Moms 4 Housing movement as a vehicle to City Hall?
"Absolutely not. I never saw myself as someone who would be on the inside of City Hall legislating for some of the things that we care about,” Fife said.
Within that same year, Fife and Moms 4 Housing would garner support from the governor of the state of California.
“Takes a lot of courage to do what they've done. They deserve an enormous amount of credit,” Governor Gavin Newsom said.
She was also tapped to open up for Senator Bernie Sanders presidential campaign stop in Richmond.
“Housing is a human right,” Fife said.
Two major planks of her winning platform are housing as a human right and divesting from policing to invest in the community.
“People want to see a shift in policing in our budgets and people want to see homelessness addressed,” Fife said.
Councilmember-elect Fife beat the incumbent Lynette Gibson McElhaney by a significant margin. She says this win shows that grassroots activism in the street can be converted to a seat at the table of political power.
"I have been successful because of the organizing not in spite of it,” Fife said.
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