“I have done this work for over 30 years, it’s all I know.” Sr. Hernandez’s eyes welled up with tears. “I have no benefits and can’t even get unemployment.”
Hernandez was just one of so many elders and families who have been lied to and face immediate homelessness and joblessness in Pleasanton after being terminated from their job supporting the “racetrack” industry.
On January 30 the California Authority of Racing Fairs stated that it would end all Golden State Racing stabling and training operations in Northern California, including at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. The agency told stable staff—who lived in recreational vehicles they had bought after being displaced from a previous racetrack in Albany—to be ready to vacate by March 25.
“We came here after they closed Golden Gate Fields [in 2024] because they said we would be employed for five years, now we have no job and no place to live,” said Vicky, one of the indigenous residents of the Alameda County Fairgrounds RV park who has worked for the stables since they got there.
The promise by the CARF to all of these poor, indigenous stable workers, which included a five-year job guarantee and a stipend to offset the $1,400 rent for their spaces at the RV lot, is typical of the lies told and sold to people to get them to leave our homes and our communities without a fight.
The sick part of this situation these hundreds of families are facing is these workers are the reason that the CARF and all of its billionaire and millionaire stakeholders made all that money on this industry. They do all the really hard work to care for the horses and the stables.
“These families moved from Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley—uprooting their children—to Pleasanton,” said Andrea Henson, lawyer and advocate and founder of Where Do We Go, who is working with POOR Magazine to support the families.
We see this happen frequently: marginalized populations are moved into other cities, and the city of origin then uses the resulting lower numbers to claim success, rather than revealing the true nature of the reduction in their unhoused population.
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“What is happening in Pleasanton is catastrophic in terms of displacement and the removal of a Latinx community—many of whom have dedicated over 25 years of service to California’s equine industry,” said Henson.
“Reparations NOT evictions!” my chant was clear at an emergency press conference POOR Magazine held with the families and Henson and our youth at Deecolonize Academy.
“They shouldn’t have to pay any rent,” said Simbha, 12, one of our youth skolaz at Deecolonize Academy to the small crowd.
As of press time, nothing has been resolved and these families are in limbo and we at POOR Magazine believe first and foremost they should be offered the land for free to live on forever, as some reparations for the decades of work put in by them to the billion-dollar horse-racing industry. At the very least, they should be offered the chance to stay on the land for free until they find other job placements or housing.
“We have no jobs and nowhere to live with our children, we don’t even have trucks to take the RV’s off this lot, what will happen to us?” one of the mamas whispered to me in tears.
We are asking people to please call the Alameda County Board of Supervisors and Pleasanton City Council at (510) 272-6347 and (925) 931-5001 and tell them to keep the fairgrounds open for the families to stay and keep their families and homes and community intact. Thanks to Wood Street Commons and Oakland Homeless Union for research, suppor,t and love.
