CITYTEAM provides two different types of programmes. The first is a residential programme for men and women overcoming substance abuse, financial hardship and homelessness. The organisation also provides community services to neighbours here. CityTeam also offers free clothing, food pantry items, food bags, as well as hot meals daily, 365 days a year.

“We rely on partners such as Safeway, Wholefoods, CostCo and others to help us provide essential needs for our community,” said Tracey, but with the caveat that more and more people seems to be arriving at the centre in need of help, after the “crime” here of having lost their jobs, rather than addictions.

“Towards the end of the month, when people run out of their social security money, we probably feed up to 150 people a day,” Tracey explains, adding: “We serve around 100 families from each pantry, so it’s really quite a number when you consider it.”

Food is cooked on the premises which someone tells me was one of the oldest buildings here in Oakland, and used to be a brothel.

Mike and the volunteers including a tall, shaven-haired man called Spencer welcome me to their canteen with a firm handshake and kind words, before offering me lunch of pizza and a cake baked on the premises, along with a soft drink. “Welcome my friend,” says Spencer, with a smile and shakes my hand again. Such warmth is humbling.

I am invited to sit and eat with those who use the facilities as a way of regaining control of their lives.

I meet Enzo who is 20 years old and who spent a short time in county jail after being arrested for being in a stolen car. Enzo is local but his parents are from Brazil. I ask him how he thinks Brazil will do. “I think we’ll get into the last 32 no problem but after that we don’t know.”

He tells me CityTeam are helping him turn his life around. They offer a chance for counselling and things to help him get a job. Not to mention three meals a day.

“I am grateful for CityTeam,” the young lad tells me. He adds: “I spent four days in a county jail. I don’t ever want to go back.”

Riccardo is from the area. A tough, strong man, but with an intelligent and compelling eloquence, he alludes to “big” problems with the police as well as addiction issues, but underlines just how CityTeam is helping him turn his life around.

Charismatic Riccardo is also a tattooist and barber. I ask him how he learned. “In prison,” he replies honestly, and with feeling. “I was in a bad place and CityTeam has helped me turn my life around.”

Later, I mention that I have been trying to get my hair cut since I got to the World Cup, but haven’t had the time. Riccardo offers to shave my hair. I agree, and we go next door in the centre, to a barber’s chair, where he puts a cape around me and proceeds to share his life story. He tells me about his father, like so many back then, who was a member of a union representing those who worked in the fields, Riccardo tells me proudly.

“That was when everyone worked together, united.”

He adds: “CityTeam has helped me change my life. Every day I get up feeling positive and proud, and ready to meet the challenges of the day,” and he proceeds to cut my hair and trim my beard to a very high standard. I have no cash on me, but I offer to find the nearest ATM. Riccardo says to me: “Here, we give, we don’t take.”

At the height of the Ice-inflicted terror back in January, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee signed executive orders to protect the city from the possible deployment of the National Guard and federal immigration enforcement operations. Lee’s orders prevented the violence that unfolded in Minneapolis from coming to Oakland.

“Six months ago, some of the students in our schools here were afraid to go to school because of the threat of Ice,” Tracey explains.

Thankfully, because many in the community simply refused to accept such bullying, barbaric and violent tactics, the all-too-real threat has subsided.

I ask Tracey how she came to work here. “This is my first job in a not-for profit organisation,” she says, adding: “It got to a point where I simply wanted to do something in my life that was more meaningful, instead of simply settling for material things.

“Doing something like this is far more worthwhile in the long run.

“You can see the difference it makes to people in having some sort of support system in their lives.

“I feel proud and humbled to try to help to make a difference every single day.

“When we talk about sobriety, some people say you should just stop. But in reality, it takes all their energy to be able to do so. To even get up in the morning can be a challenge.

“Every day counts. Every single day when they are sober is a chance to renew their physical and emotional state, and restore back to the person they were meant to be.”

I say goodbye to everyone, but not before I am invited to watch America beat Australia with a number of volunteers. I have watched games in bars with so many good people this month, but to do so with such inspirational people was something that I will remember for a long time.

As my cab driver told me with feeling later that night: “That ‘man’ [Trump] does not represent us,” before adding: “The Obama Presidential Centre opening, and the [New York] Knicks parade lifting so many of us. Mamdani. Juneteenth here in the city. The parade [see my next diary for more]. This is the real US.

“Things are starting to heal.”

No-one has been doing more to heal than at the inspirational CityTeam and everyone associated with it in the heart of this gritty, proud Oakland community.