A ballcap shading his eyes from the morning sun, Michael Bowen on Monday took stock of his surroundings: an elevated shack he built with tarps and wooden planks, a garden with potted succulents and a plum tree, and stacks of the rusted scrap metal he recycles for income.
Eight years ago, the 60-year-old man moved onto an unusual wedge of vacant land near Interstate 880 in Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood, which he thought had no owner. He established a small encampment where he lived with several friends and more than a dozen cats as BART trains rumbled overhead. For a long while, no one seemed to mind that he claimed the spot.
But Bowen and his community will likely soon be displaced from their roadside settlement as the owner — the city of Oakland, it turns out — moves to reclaim the land to accommodate a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. construction project. Officials plan to evict the occupants next week despite an attempt by Bowen to challenge his forced removal in federal court…