An Oakland retiree responds to rising housing prices, homelessness and isolation by opening her house, serving to neighbors and constructing group.
Nancy Morton speaks together with her unhoused neighbor, William, whereas strolling by her neighborhood in Oakland on Might 14, 2026. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Taken collectively, these tales reveal a area the place many individuals are not making an attempt to get forward — they’re making an attempt to remain put.
Outdoors of the Rockridge department of the Oakland Public Library, an unhoused man named William normally sits within the shade. Every part he owns travels with him. A wheelchair serves as a storage unit. A number of carry-on suitcases are strapped to it. A bulging white trash bag rises above the bags like a sail. The rigorously balanced assortment resembles a small movable room — the seen proof of a life deciding what will be carried and what have to be left behind.
On a latest afternoon, Morton stopped to speak with William. She requested how he was doing. She supplied to clean his laundry. I wave at William nearly each day on my method house from BART. Most individuals stroll previous him.
The Bay Space’s affordability disaster is normally measured in {dollars} — house costs, rents, grocery payments and retirement accounts. However affordability shapes greater than financial institution balances. It influences who stays, who leaves and the way a lot individuals are keen to put money into each other. Morton has responded to these pressures by opening her house to buddies, unhoused individuals and refugees, internet hosting dinners and urgent metropolis leaders on housing and public security. In a area the place rising prices more and more isolate individuals from each other, Morton has chosen a special response: She has doubled down on group.
I first met Morton when she invited me to dinner in 2016, again after I was a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Our typical dialog is about politics, life and books. I nonetheless can’t imagine we disagreed about The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett’s novel about colorism, id and the alternatives individuals make to outlive. Like most conversations with Morton, the disagreement remained pleasant.
She is a Rockridge fixture, all the time up for espresso at Im Second Kaffee or Hudson Bay Cafe, the place she sometimes meets dates. She participates in occasions on the Native Financial system group area on School Avenue and barely misses a chance to attach with individuals.
On a latest night, pork sizzled on the range inside Morton’s house whereas thick string beans softened in a pan close by. Tacky potatoes sat beneath foil. Sherbet waited within the freezer.
Morton moved by the kitchen in socks, checking the oven whereas carrying on our dialog. That evening, we talked about retirement, housing and what it means to get older in one of the crucial costly locations in America. We talked about core power, too — the type developed by train and persistence.
That dialog set the inspiration for this story. As a result of after I take into consideration Morton, I take into consideration somebody always exercising a special form of muscle: the willingness to stay engaged in a metropolis the place many individuals really feel exhausted, priced out or disconnected.
For 35 years, Morton, 78, has lived in the identical Rockridge home. Each morning begins with the identical command to Alexa.
“Play KQED.”
Morton is comfortably settled. She owns a house in one in all Oakland’s most fascinating neighborhoods and spent many years working in monetary providers and nonprofit finance. She performs bridge and is approaching Life Grasp standing. She typically wears silver glitter nail polish as a result of, as she likes to say, “your fingers are all the time in entrance of individuals.” She follows native politics intently, attends lectures and performances and nonetheless drives the identical automotive she purchased in 2008.
Years in the past, somebody hit it on her option to yoga and drove off. Then, a number of months in the past, a person dwelling in his automotive together with his household supplied to pound out the dent in a Dwelling Depot car parking zone. Morton later tracked him down and paid for a resort room for his household.
“I’d relatively do this than give to charities the place I really feel just like the executives make all the cash,” she mentioned.
Morton understands that affordability is about greater than cash. Like many Oakland residents, she is anxious about public security. She spends time on Nextdoor, the place the trending matters usually contain crime, lacking pets, suspicious exercise caught on door cams, spam telephone calls and requests for assist from neighbors.
“The feedback make me so indignant,” she informed me.
Crime is down in Oakland. Violent crime, together with murder and rape, fell 22% in the course of the first quarter in contrast with the identical interval in 2025. Homicides alone dropped 39%. The impacts stay uneven.
For a lot of residents, issues about high quality of life lengthen past crime to incorporate housing prices, homelessness and the rising sense that the Bay Space is turning into more durable to afford and more durable to navigate. These issues floor steadily in Rockridge.
Final yr, plans for a 200-unit residence constructing drew criticism from residents who argued the seven-story construction can be too tall. Years earlier, neighbors opposed a proposal to redevelop the previous California School of the Arts campus with 600 properties, together with a 19-story tower.
Now one other debate looms over School Avenue. The Dealer Joe’s that anchors one in all Rockridge’s busiest industrial corridors might ultimately get replaced by two residential towers containing 400 senior housing items. Supporters see desperately wanted housing close to transit. Critics fear about scale, visitors and neighborhood character.
Morton follows the arguments intently.
“I are inclined to see myself extra as a moderator than an activist,” she mentioned. “I need to hear from the individuals who assist these initiatives, too. Why do they need them? What am I lacking?”
That intuition to grasp individuals earlier than judging them has formed a lot of her life. Morton grew up in Pasadena, the place the Match of Roses paraded by city each New Yr’s Day. As a teen, she noticed the Beatles carry out in Glendale and later attended a Rolling Stones live performance in Sacramento. Neither reminiscence impresses her very a lot right now.
“I’m not that into that form of music,” she mentioned. “I’m into protest music. I’d a lot relatively go see Joni Mitchell.”
After faculty, she spent 5 months touring by Europe earlier than returning house, satisfied she couldn’t spend the remainder of her life in Pasadena. There have been no glamorous alternatives ready for her. She waited tables at Denny’s. She labored momentary jobs in Oakland. She accepted a place with an airline that folded earlier than coaching ever started.
Ultimately, she answered a newspaper advert for a home dad or mum for ladies who have been wards of the courtroom. Some had survived abuse. Others had been deserted by their households.
“I used to be 23 years previous and all of the sudden chargeable for 5 women,” she mentioned.
The work overwhelmed Morton, and she or he left after a yr. However the connection endured. A kind of women nonetheless retains in contact many years later.
The by line is difficult to overlook. Morton has spent a lot of her life discovering individuals who want someplace to land. Years later, that intuition resurfaced when she started opening her house to refugees. One was Messia, a lady from Afghanistan. Thomas, whom Morton met whereas volunteering at Crossroads Transitional Shelter in East Oakland, now lives within the yard she-shed.
The preparations haven’t all the time been simple. Serving to individuals hardly ever is, however Morton continues doing it.
At some point, she was driving by an alley close to the Wendy’s on Broadway when she bumped into Michael, an unhoused man she is aware of from the neighborhood. Morton had $19 in her purse, and she or he wanted $10 later that day to play bridge. She gave Michael $9.
“He mentioned, ‘Would you like me to deal with William?’” Morton mentioned. “And I believed, for this reason I like this man, as a result of he’s going to offer one thing to William.”
The scene captured one thing Morton has spent a lot of her life practising: individuals survive as a result of different individuals determine they matter.
The factor individuals can’t afford to lose is each other.
