89 Members & Growing
The Oakland Street Vendor Collective (OSVC) is a citywide movement of street vendors organizing to reclaim our right to work in public space — and to build community wealth, safety, and stability for our families and Oakland's flatlands.
The Oakland Street Vendor Collective is a citywide movement of street vendors organizing to reclaim our right to work in public space; and build community wealth, safety, and stability for our families and Oakland's flatlands.
We believe that street vending is an important part of Oakland's identity and cultural legacy — rooted in self-determination. It deserves to be protected, supported, and invested in — not erased, criminalized, and repackaged by and for gentrifiers.
For generations, working-class Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Filipino, Asian, South East Asian, and African community members have created their own economies when traditional systems excluded us. Street vendors are not a problem to be solved — we are entrepreneurs, caregivers, artists, culture bearers, and neighborhood builders.
We envision an Oakland where public spaces belong to the people, where cultural traditions are celebrated rather than criminalized, and where every vendor has access to affordable permits, legal support, capital, financial and business education, and pathways to grow.
Our struggle isn't just about making money. It's about the right to remain in our neighborhoods, the right to participate in decisions that shape our communities, and the right of hard-working people to have a say in the economic systems that affect our lives and livelihoods.
We believe that when street vendors thrive, neighborhoods thrive.
By building solidarity across cultures, generations, and neighborhoods, we are creating an economy rooted in culture, equity, dignity, and stability.
We want to organize street vendors into a powerful collective that builds political power, develops community-controlled economic opportunities, and challenges policies that criminalize poverty, displacement, and informal work.
We reject systems that prioritize corporate development over neighborhood livelihoods, and use public resources that subsidize exclusion while punishing people for creating honest work.
We organize because we know that no vendor should have to stand alone. Together we defend one another from unjust enforcement, educate one another about our rights, share resources, build cooperative businesses, cultivate leadership, and create systems of mutual aid that allow our communities to survive and flourish.
We want the city to be in compliance with state laws (SB 946, SB 635, SB 972) that completely decriminalize street vending and guide cities to invest in the culture. We want Oakland to follow what other California cities like Long Beach and Los Angeles have done to protect, support, and invest in their rich street vending cultures — rather than harm and erase them:
Stop the illegal sweeps and destruction of street vendors' property and livelihoods.
Engage in outreach and education before enforcement, and have street vendors at the decision-making table.
Provide first-year fee waivers, and ongoing fee assistance for low-income vendors.
Free or subsidized compliant carts, trailers, equipment, and trash services.
Multilingual outreach.
Business coaching and financial literacy programs.
Partnerships with community organizations.
Privacy protections for immigrant vendors.
Help facilitate a partnership with food vendors, restaurant industry leaders, and non-profits to create a low-income commissary kitchen.
Designate areas where street vendors can set up without being over-regulated.
Join the Collective
Vendors, allies, and organizations can reach us at info@510day.org. Read our press releases & resources.