Gentrification

Crown Heights Tenants Fight Court Ruling Doubling Their Rent

September 5, 2015 Emma Whitford, www.gothamist.com Resist! Gentrification, Housing, New York City (NYC)

By Emma Whitford in Gothamist - Dozens of Crown Heights tenants and allies gathered for a candlelight vigil near the corner of Schenectady Avenue and Union Street last night, in solidarity with 55 families at 285 Schenectady and 1646 Union who will be evicted on October 1st—unless they agree to sign leases doubling, and in some cases tripling, their rents. In August, after months of tenant organizing, the New York State Supreme Court ruled in favor of the tenants' landlord, Renaissance Realty Group, citing a loophole in the current rent laws that gives Renaissance the right to jack rents. "I've been living in this neighborhood for 26 years," said Natasha Creese, who shares a three-bedroom at 285 Schenectady with three adult siblings, her 18-year-old son, and her five-year-old niece.

Gentrification Protests Squat In Pub For One Month Are Evicted

July 25, 2015 Laura Proto, www.standard.co.uk Resist! Gentrification, Housing, Squat

By Laura Proto in The Standard - Squatters were today evicted from the historic Elephant and Castle pub after a month-long protest about gentrification and the selling off of social housing. Police said bailiffs secured the pub in the early hours of this morning and about 20 squatters were removed. The group took over the pub on Wednesday, June 17, in a protest against gentrification after estate agent Foxtons submitted an application to open a premises at the famous pub site. Kazz Rafi, who works at Elephant and Castle Food and Wine, said five or six police vans and security crews arrived just before 4am today. He told the Standard: "The people were sleeping inside and [police] told them to go. They were illegally inside - it's not their property." The squatters were expected to move on to occupy another vacant building.

Holder’s Legacy: Corp’s Too Big to Jail, Protection Of Killer Cops

July 18, 2015 Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Corporatism, Defense Attorney, Eric Holder, Gentrification, Law, police brutality

By Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo in Black Agenda Report - While the Holder Department of Justice deemed corporations and their millionaire executives as “too big to jail” it equally pursued a position that millions of black folks were not too big to be eviscerated by the mass incarceration prison system. The Holder doctrine of “too big to jail is ethnically indefensible but totally consistent with his legacy. Holder, for his part is satisfied with his political legacy: "I think I go out having accomplished a great deal in the areas that are of importance to me. I'm satisfied with the work we have done." But in the end, Holder’s legacy will be summarized in one sentence: the Attorney General who waltzed with Wall Street robbers and exonerated the killers of two unarmed Black boys, George Zimmerman and Darryl Wilson, which triggered the first African-American mass resistance movement of the 21st century. Period.

London: The City That Ate Itself

July 5, 2015 Rowan Moore, www.theguardian.com Educate! Capitalism, Community, Gentrification, London

By Rowan Moore in The Guardian. London is without question the most popular city for investors,” says Gavin Sung of the international property agents Savills. “There is a trust factor. It has a strong government, a great legal system, the currency is relatively safe. It has a really nice lifestyle, there is the West End, diversity of food, it’s multicultural.” We are in his office in a block in the centre of Singapore and he is explaining why people from that city-state are keen to buy residential property in London. He’s right – London has all these qualities. It has parks, museums and nice houses. Its arts of hedonism are reaching unprecedented levels: its restaurants get better or at least more ambitious and its bars offer cocktails previously unknown to man.

Googler Buys Building, Kicks Out Tenants, Gets Protested

June 13, 2015 Madeline Stone and Matt Rosoff, www.businessinsider.com Resist! Displacement, Gentrification, Google, Housing, Tenants

By Madeline Stone and Matt Rosoff in Business Insider - A group of about 50 protesters swarmed the San Francisco home of Google lawyer Jack Halprin early Wednesday morning. Halprin purchased 812 Guerrero Street, a seven-unit apartment building in the Mission District, for $1.4 million in 2012. In 2014, he served tenants an eviction notice under the Ellis Act, which allows landowners — many of whom had purchased buildings at a discount because of rent-controlled tenants — to push existing tenants out so the buildings can "go out of business" and be converted into condos. According to Mission Local, this week tenant Rebecca Bauknight received a one-page Notice to Vacate that said she could be evicted from her apartment anytime after 6 a.m. Wednesday morning. Bauknight has reportedly lived in the building for more than 25 years.

In Seattle, The Rent Is Too Damn High

June 5, 2015 Katie Herzog, www.grist.org Educate! Cost of living, Gentrification, Housing, Seattle

By Katie Herzog in Grist - The median home price in Seattle is now $535,000, a 19 percent increase since March 2014, and the market is so competitive that bidding wars are common. “I would say about 50 percent of homes are going over the asking price in the first week, and 16 percent are cash offers,” says longtime Seattle real estate agent Penny Bolton. “I just had a client who sold her house for a million-five. She paid $30,000 for it in the late ’70s, early ’80s.” With numbers like that, it’s a good time to be a seller in Seattle. A buyer? Not so much. When asked what the market is like for his clients, realtor Christian Nossum says, “Just today I had a buyer win a situation where there were 33 other offers. They were lucky No. 34 and they had to pay over $150,000 more than the asking price. If that doesn’t show how crazy the market is, I don’t know what does.”

Renewal Vs. Gentrification

June 4, 2015 John Urquiza, www.communitybeaconnews.com Create! Displacement, Education, Gentrification, Housing, Nieghborhoods

By John Urquiza in Community Beacon News - About 26 activists, students and teachers gathered on the corner of Griffin Avenue and Broadway in Lincoln heights. The backdrop was the old abandoned Bi-Rite supermarket and weed covered parking lot. More than half were students from Abraham Lincoln High School who came together to voice their thoughts and dissatisfaction with the state of their neighborhood through their action, “Bye Bye Bi Rite.” 12 students organized this action as part of their internship with the Roots for Peace Program of American Friends Service Committee. This action was their strategic response to counter the effects of gentrification and their final class project. Their study, revealed 44% of the businesses were fast food, while 25% were liquor and convenience stores.

Malcolm X, Gentrification & Housing As A Human Right

May 28, 2015 John Bartlett, www.truth-out.org Educate! Gentrification, History, Housing, Human Rights, Malcolm X

Every day the Metropolitan Tenants Organization works with renters who are facing the negative effects of gentrification and other economic forces that threaten their housing. Thousands of low-income renters and homeowners are displaced every year by a property law system with misplaced priorities. As a society, we all pay when people are involuntarily displaced because of increased crime, skyrocketing medical costs and a failing educational system. It is imperative that as a nation we confront this housing crisis and ensure that everyone has a home. The insights of visionary Black leader Malcolm X, who would have been 90 this year, are key to the discussion around gentrification and housing. Malcolm X championed a new vision, reframing the character of the struggle for equality from civil rights to one of human rights.

Australians Protest Forced Indigenous Community Closures

April 12, 2015 Staff, www.telesurtv.net Resist! Australia, Gentrification, Housing, Indigenous Rights

Thousands of protesters rallied in Australia's two largest cities Friday against government plans to forcefully shut down Indigenous communities. Indigenous elder and activist Jenny Munro said the rallies were a “call to arms” to all Australians. “This is about the community being made aware about the truth of what goes on in this country,” she told progressive news website New Matilda. Munro joined thousands of other protesters in Sydney who marched from Belmore Park to the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy. In a statement issued online, march organizers said they were both frustrated by plans to redevelop the Block – a chunk of the suburb of Redfern earmarked for affordable Indigenous housing. Activists say the very organization charged with providing affordable housing – the Aboriginal Housing Authority (AHC) – is now trying to gentrify the area with commercial office blocks and student accommodation at the expense of Indigenous residents.

7 Cities Expose What Gentrification Is Doing

October 25, 2014 Zak Cheney-Rice, www.mic.com Educate! Gentrification, Housing, Poverty, Racism

Twenty-five years ago, the term "gentrification" was largely unfamiliar to the average American. Today, you can't talk about cities, race, rent or overpriced coffee without bringing it up. It's a hard phenomenon to measure, yet most agree its harbingers include the rapid influx of young, well-to-do white people into once low-income neighborhoods, often in the inner city, usually populated by people of color. The rest is history. Said people show up, the area is flooded with resources, property value goes up and many former residents are forced to move out. We've seen such systems before, those which literally move poor people around, in and out of their homes, at the behest of the wealthy. It's usually called "colonialism." And it's not an inaccurate comparison. This dynamic came to a head last week when a group of Dropbox employees in San Francisco's notoriously gentrifying Mission District tried to kick a group of local kids off a soccer field they had reserved.

Apple Could Lead If It Had An iConscience

September 11, 2014 HeartBeat Earth, www.heartbeatearth.wordpress.com Create! Apple, Gentrification, Human Rights, Labor, Technology

Tim Cook says he wants Apple to be about more than just profit . Among other things the quote “We believe that workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment,” stood out to me. I applaud the sentiment, and when Apple takes positive action and when they make changes after I’m encouraged, but I can’t be silent while this amounts mostly empty rhetoric. I’m looking forward to future Apple where it takes the initiative to better the world. Today I was at the Apple launch event at De Anza College. Rather I was outside. Protesting. Speaking out about Apple’s poor record on human rights. From the small box the De Anza police had designated as our protest zone. Mind you this is MY campus and the building just across the little access road is where we hold our weekly club meetings. Yesterday we weren’t allowed to have our meeting there because of Apples invasion of our campus. For almost a month the corporate bully Apple has intimidated admin, faculty and staff into being silent or scared. What happened to Tim Cook’s recognizing ¨workers everywhere have the right to a safe and fair work environment.¨ Far from safe and fair, palpable fear was evident when we the students asked to speak or even speculate about what this monstrous mystery cube that was dominating campus was about. Today the police said if we crossed the few feet over to where we normally meet we might be arrested. What a crazy situation our corporate overlords have driven this species into. It has to stop. Now. The full list of Apple (among the world’s leading ¨Super Evil Mega Corps¨ human rights violations is lengthy but here’s the summary:

Activists Pour Concrete Over Spikes In Protest

June 15, 2014 Alyssa Figueroa, www.alternet.org Resist! Gentrification, Homeless, Housing, Poverty

As if their city’s failure to provide them with shelter weren’t bad enough, homeless people in London faced further acts of dehumanization recently when a property developer and supermarket erected spikes meant to deter them from sleeping there. A few weeks ago, spikes were assembled outside a grocery store called Tesco as well as in front of the entrance to luxury flats. “There was a homeless man asleep there about six weeks ago,” an anonymous resident told the Telegraph. “Then about two weeks ago all of a sudden studs were put up outside. I presume it is to deter homeless people from sleeping there.” In response to the inhumane construction, activists called the London Black Revolutionaries took to pouring concrete over the spikes outside of Tesco, leaving signs behind that read “Homes Not Spikes.”

Skid Row Residents: Heart Of Hope

June 15, 2014 David Bacon, www.equalvoiceforfamilies.org Organize! Gentrification, Homelessness, Housing, Poverty

As he, Sabo and other tenants organized similar committees in other hotels, they all began to develop a greater sense of themselves as a low-income community. That victory was one of several partial ones at the Frontier from about 2003 to 2008. Together, the tenants also succeeded in getting Los Angeles to pass a hotel preservation ordinance that requires no net loss of low-income housing, covering 17,000 to 18,000 units citywide. That includes about 8,000 downtown. The final ordinance gained approval in 2008. Diaz, who now works for LA CAN, points out that at the Alexandria all the rooms are covered by Section 8, the federal government’s low-income rent subsidy program, and rents start at $56 a month.

What’s Missing In Vancouver’s Anti-Gentrification Movement?

May 26, 2014 Tyson Leonard, www.vancouver.mediacoop.ca Organize! Canada, Gentrification

This is the second in a series of conversations with Vancouver-based anti-gentrification activists. These conversations will culminate in an article with an in-depth look into the effects of gentrification on Vancouver communities and the strategies being proposed to resist and ultimately stop gentrification. In the first interview, I spoke with Karen Ward about the unique community of the Downtown Eastside. In this interview, Richard Marquez speaks on the pressing need for diversity within Vancouver’s anti-gentrification movement. Richard Marquez has lived in Vancouver for the last three years and currently works as a social worker in the Downtown Eastside (DTES). He is a long time anti-gentrification warrior and a Chicano who worked with the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition (MAC) in San Francisco. What lessons can people resisting gentrification in Vancouver draw from San Francisco’s fight against gentrification? The movement begins from below with grassroots organizing, and I think the challenge is not to corral the movement towards a mere legalistic or policy-related response or just making demands on City Hall and other governing structures. Part of it is going from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and expanding the movement city-wide, and not really grounding it in one particular area. What we discovered in San Francisco is that we became very spatially, socially and politically isolated when we only focused on the Mission district and parts of the South of Market [district].

Gentrification’s Insidious Violence: The Truth About American Cities

May 20, 2014 Daniel Jose Older, www.salon.com Educate! Gentrification, Race

A few years back, when I was still a paramedic, we picked up a white guy who had been pistol whipped during a home invasion in Williamsburg. “I can’t believe this happened to me,” he moaned, applying the ice pack I’d given him to a small laceration on his temple. “It’s like a movie!” Indeed. While film narratives of white folks in low-income neighborhoods tend to focus on how endangered they are by a gangland black or brown menace, this patient was singular in that he was literally the only victim of black on white violence I encountered in my entire 10-year career as a medic. “What is distinctively ‘American’ is not necessarily the amount or kind of violence that characterizes our history,” Richard Slotkin writes, “but the mythic significance we have assigned to the kinds of violence we have actually experienced, the forms of symbolic violence we imagine or invent, and the political uses to which we put that symbolism.” Slotkin was talking about the American frontier as a symbolic reference point for justifying expansionist violence throughout history. Today, we can see the mytho-political uses of symbolic violence in mainstream media portrayals of the “hood.”

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