A Whistleblower’s Take on the Oakland “Ghost Ship” Fire

A Whistleblower’s Take on the Oakland “Ghost Ship” Fire

On the night of Friday December 2, 2016, an Oakland, California warehouse and artist collective, known as the Ghost Ship, was engulfed in flames, killing 36 persons.  As City officials and others continue to investigate the incident, a story has emerged:

-          The Ghost Ship building had a history of health and safety complaints although it had not been inspected in three decades

-          The building, which was owned by Chor Nar SiuNg, was leased to Derick Ion Almena and Micah Allison who subleased spaces to individuals.  Almena and Allison lived in the building with their three children.

-          Ng has a history of violations in other buildings that she owns

-          Almena resisted calls to improve the safety of the building

-          Illegal housing conversions, such as those at the Ghost Ship warehouse, occur throughout the City of Oakland, where nearly 6,000 habitability complaints and investigations occurred over the past three years and many warehouses have been used for housing and artist spaces.

-          Oakland’s financial difficulties, which have contributed to its long history of high crime, have forced all city services, including building inspections, to compete for resources with an understaffed police force.

-          Oakland’s higher crime rate helps keep apartment rental rates affordable for lower income tenants, such as artists, who welcome cheap, if unsafe, housing in places like the Ghost Ship

-          While the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $2,366 in Oakland and $3,336 in San Francisco, Ghost Ship residential spaces rented for about $700 a month although sometimes without heat or electricity

-          Ghost Ship, where artists concentrated on electronic music, operated like many other Oakland warehouses cum artist communities by providing a space that encouraged artistic creativity and growth

-          The substandard housing provided in artist-warehouses is consistent with a special Oakland culture that deserves sympathy and even protection. 

-          To sustain that culture, public and private money is needed to help arts groups stay in Oakland.

This story arcs from the societal tragedy of high housing prices spurred by income inequality to the human tragedy in the deaths of creative young people, and it sprinkles guilt – legal or not – among those youth, the building owner and manager, and civic leaders.  Then in glides to a vision of a civic and artistic communities comingtogether.

The story, though, need never have been told if more people had become whistleblowers who spoke out forcefully. 

-          More residents should have complained to the Oakland’s Planning and Building Department, which, however feckless, was responsible for code enforcement

-          Performing groups should have complained to police and fire safety officers

-          Department employees should have become small-time whistleblowers by complaining to authorities when officials failed to act on complaints and inspections

-          Department managers should have complained to authorities and media when budget constraints created potential safety risks

-          Entertainment journalists who reported on events at the site should have alerted their companies and the police about unsafe conditions

-          Local residents and local businesses and their employees should have complained more to police, fire safety officers, and media

-          Police and fire safety officers who traveled the main thoroughfare just half a block away should have investigated the property on seeing residents and partygoers entering and leaving the building and on receiving complaints from those in the neighborhood

-          Police and fire staff should have blown the whistle on the failure of officers and management to take action against the property and its owner

Early on the morning of March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese, a 28-year old woman, was brutally murdered in New York City by 29-year old Winston Moseley.  For years afterward, the narrative ran that 38 people in her neighborhood had witnessed Moseley stabbing her repeatedly and had heard her cries for more than half an hour, but no one had called the police under after she was dead.  The incident led to research into the “bystander effect,” which proposed that we are less likely to offer assistance the more other bystanders are present.

Researchers eventually determined that the narrative was wrong: only a handful of people witnessed Moseley’s initial attack, one called out immediately and scared him away, and two others called the police; only one person witnessed a second attack that ended Genovese’s life.  Although the Genovese facts were wrong, social research has provided support for the bystander effect.

Dozens, or even hundreds, were aware of the Ghost Ship problem and failed to act.  One theory shifts blame from individuals to society – valiant if dreamy artists stand against the base economic forces behind high housing costs.  If code requirements were strictly enforced, Ghost Ship and similar buildings could be shut down, the Oakland art community would be decimated, and Oakland itself would lose its vibrant character.  Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has assured residents there will be no witch hunts following the Ghost Ship fire even as other cities crack down on illegal sites like Ghost Ship.

Like Ghost Ship and many other whistleblowing cases, at HomeFirst many people – employees and Board directors – were aware of the problems that I disclosed.  HomeFirst’s managers, like Ghost Ship’s apologists, claimed that its alleged violations should not be seen as black-and-white questions but that the broad societal impact of ceasing the violations should be considered.  As was true with Ghost Ship, HomeFirst’s government investigators often were feckless and had little time for the reported problems.

The silent witnesses to wrongdoing may be hundreds, dozens, or, in the case of Kitty Genovese, one frightened man behind his apartment door.  Political and economic forces can shift the legally drawn line between right and wrong, and whistleblowers face battles that are less about ethics than about values and power.