Excerpt:

City leaders got a reminder to help the homeless on Tuesday, just as they are poised to possibly enter into exclusive talks with a team of East Bay agencies to build affordable housing at Alameda Point.

Operation Dignity and other service providers are eyeing a 13-acre parcel at the former U.S. Navy base for the housing, a plan welcomed by students in Wanda Sabir's critical thinking class at College of Alameda.

"A lot of buildings there are vacant," Taleen Qirreh told Mayor Trish Herrera Spencer and other elected officials when they visited the campus to hear about what students have researched on homelessness and other local issues for the class. "We think it needs to be utilized for shelter, as well as transitional housing."