California's New Mayor Sheng Tao Experienced Homelessness, Violence From Intimate Partner Before Becoming Oakland Official

California mayor Sheng Thao was inaugurated on Monday as the new Oakland mayor, promising to build a safe, more affordable, and more equitable city.

Thao is a progressive and was elected mayor of Oakland, California after she beat moderate former councilmember Loren Taylor by less than 700 votes.

Thao noted that her main priorities as the new Oakland mayor are homelessness and crime. Homelessness is reportedly a personal matter for her.

The new California mayor said she experienced homelessness after leaving an abusive relationship and was six and a half months pregnant at the time.

She and her unborn son slept in her car and couch-surfed for months. Thao also admitted to having depended on social services for most of her life.

California New Mayor Sheng Thao's Homelessness Response

Sheng Thao spoke during her inauguration amid the pressure from unhoused residents at the Wood Street encampment.

Wood Street is California's largest homeless encampment, with 300 residents. However, occupants are facing planned eviction from the camp.

The city was scheduled to start evicting residents on Monday. However, a judge granted a temporary restraining order to halt the evictions.

The city aims to clear out the site as a 170-unit affordable housing project as it is preparing to break ground and has warned of losing a "significant amount" of the needed grant funding if it does not start before the end of the month.

The city and encampment residents will go back to court on January 18. Thao noted that she would work on protecting renters who are "one illness and one missed paycheck" from losing their homes.

The newly inaugurated mayor further noted that she promised to make public land available for housing construction.

Thao is also building 30,000 new housing units for the next eight years. Included in her plans is to fill the staff within the city government and hold town halls throughout the city to get feedback from residents.

Oakland has experienced an increase in homelessness to 24% in the past three years, bringing the number to about 5,000 people in 2022.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao

Sheng Thao was born to Hmong refugees who fled Laos due to genocide during the Vietnam war. She then grew up living in poverty in Stockton, California, being the seventh child out of 10 children.

The first Hmong American mayor helped pass legislation extending paid leave policy and make Oakland the first Californian sanctuary city as a city councilmember.

When she was campaigning, she vowed to strengthen renter protections, create recreational vehicle parking sites for those who live in their cars, and expand violence prevention services.

The Oakland mayor said her political career was an accident after needing money for her son's new clothes.

Thao said that she found a program called APAP, which allowed her to earn $1,000 to intern with at-large councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, from whom she learned the policies that legislators passed.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: Watch: Oakland Mayor-Elect Sheng Thao Speaks at City Hall - From NBC Bay Area