The Slow Deliberate Process of Gentrification

by Amanda Smiles/Race, Poverty and Media Justice Fellow

Across the room the words "Shipyard News" call at me on the suspiciously crisp newspaper. At the top of the page, in rich colors, are sketches of a community that looks as if it belongs in a fairy tale- or at least every other cookie cutter redeveloped town in America. Below is a headline, "Abandoned and neglected shipyard set for renewal".

On the front page words like 'hope', 'parks', and 'jobs' buzz in glossy black text and on the bottom of the page is "Hunters Point Shipyard Today". Here they are slyly cropped to show dilapidated buildings, rows of broken windows and construction trash laying in the streets. Somehow I feel as if I'm not getting the complete picture.

Then, in quiet letters at the very bottom of the paper are the words 'Lennar Homes of California, Inc.' and I realize this 'newspaper' isn't a paper at all. Instead, it is a cleverly disguised advertisement for Lennar Corporation's newest housing project and most recently targeted gentrification and displacement zone, Bayview/Hunters Point.

Lennar Corporation, a construction company specializing in redeveloping ex-military compounds, has a history of building shoddy homes on toxic land throughout the country. Due to the toxicity of the land, Lennar is able to acquire land in poor areas, such as the Bayview, for close to nothing. Lennar then develops the area, building market value homes that current residents cannot afford, driving them out of their neighborhood.

In the Bayview, Lennar has already acquired 500 acres of land that makes up Hunters Point Shipyard and is expecting to receive hundreds more if their June ballot initiative is passed. This initiative not only would give Lennar access to hundreds of acres more of land but would also provide millions more in tax payer money for the project. The initiative makes no guarantees about providing jobs or affordable housing to Bayview residents, but instead works to promote Lennar's own self-interests.

The word community is smeared all over Shipyard News, citing the broad support Bayview residents have given the project. However, some Bayview residents aren't exactly supporting the project, in fact, some Bayview residents are fighting back.

Residents of the Bayview have created their own initiative expected to accompany Lennar's on the June ballot. This initiative demands that 50% of any of Lennar's new housing developments are affordable to existing residents of the Bayview, that is rented or sold at 30-80% of San Francisco's median income. If passed, this initiative would play a vital role in protecting Bayview residents, many of whom live below San Francisco's median income line, from displacement.

The slow deliberate process of gentrification, which begins years before ground is broken, has already begun in the Bayview. This process, which has systematically wiped out black communities such as the Fillmore, West Oakland, and now New Orleans, occurs in areas where market values are high and land is scare.

"We call it ethnic cleansing, to push people out and not give them anything and no say," say Willy Ratcliff, publisher of the San Francisco Bayview newspaper, "The whole city is pushing people out so rich developers can come in and have wealthy people move in. They squeeze the poor and push them out. It's happening all over the country."

There are certain elements involved that are responsible for the destruction of gentrified communities. One of these elements is keeping communities poor, specifically by keeping jobs out of the community while rents increase. In Bayview/Hunters Point the unemployment rate is at 30% and the city has offered little direct services in this area, forcing residents to leave the city in order to survive.

"The jobs have never been up here," says Radcliff, "There's a conspiracy to keep jobs out of here so they can get the land. They keep jobs away from black people and if you don't have a job you can't live in San Francisco."

Take the hotly debated T-line for example. Initially the project promised jobs to Bayview residents and was touted as a way to promote employment in the area. When ground broke, however, no neighborhood faces were seen working on the line. Instead, in an area that is primarily black, the majority of the construction workers were white.

Jobs weren't the only sacrifice Bayview residents made for the line. In exchange for the T-line Bayview residents gave up the 15 bus line, which ran every 15 minutes in and out of the Bayview. The T-line runs chaotically and some residents have experienced waits up to three hours, leaving them stranded without a dependable way to get to work or school.

"I think cutting off the service to that area is a way to strangle the existing community," says Laure McElroy, a former Bayview resident, "Once they get the people out of there they want then service will get better."

Violence also plays a crucial role in the displacement of communities, where developers and city governments have residents trapped on all fronts. Violence feeds violence and whole communities are killing each other off in desperate and ill fated attempts to negotiate the poverty in their area. Much like the Tenderloin, Bayview Hunters Point is treated like a containment zone, where violence is tolerated in order to prevent it from spreading to other, wealthier parts of the city. The city's refusal to mediate this violence is an active step towards letting a poor community wage civil war on itself, destroying its self from within.

Families who do manage to survive the violence in the Bayview are faced with their only option to stay alive: moving out of the area. Mass media plays a role in advertising sensationalized numbers about the killings and shootings in the Bayview, ensuring that, while families move out seeking sanctuary elsewhere, no one else moves in until the district is thoroughly "cleaned up".

For those families who are victims of violence, Victim Services is an attractive avenue for help. However, in California, anyone applying for Victim Services is required to move out of their county. This is under the guise of being for their own protection, however, most people applying for these services are from poor areas like the Bayview. For these people support services come at a cost: their homes and community. It is no coincidence that the way the government deals with violence, which occurs in marginalized communities, is by getting rid of the community itself.

Then there the actual evictions, which at best are contrived and manipulated and at worst down right illegal. One former Bayview resident was evicted from her apartment days after a rental assistance agency attempted to pay her back rent, offering a guarantee to assist her monthly with her rent payments. The landlord refused, and a day later sent the police to the resident's house, giving her twenty minutes to pack her belongings before being shuttled with her family to a nearby shelter.

"I'm reliving it every single day," she says, "When is it going to come to the time of living like a normal family again? As a mom, going back to work, to school."

For the residents in existing housing projects, such as Hunter's View a 267-unit public housing development, the evictions are far more backhanded. These residents, who are facing the destruction and reconstruction of their current units, are asked to sign agreements and pay down rental payments for their future units. The residents who refuse will be evicted and will not be accepted to live in the new units. Those who do sign are agreeing to additional fees and new criteria, and if unable to meet these conditions, face eviction and will not be allowed to live in the new community either. Very few existing residents will be able to meet the criteria on these contracts.

The Development Committee of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission (SFHA) held a meeting on the relocation of Hunter Point residents. When POOR Magazine arrived at the meeting on the advertised day and time, they were told the meeting had actually taken place the day before, just another example of the length developers and SFHA will go to keep the community out of their negotiations.

There are promises in Shipyard News. Promises of a new and shinier era in Bayview's history, when more green space will be available, the 49ers will have a new stadium to call home, and jobs and housing will be in abundance. Who knows if Lennar will be able to keep these promises, like the T-line, only time will tell. Lennar does have one promise it can keep, however, that when ground breaks on the new plan no existing Bayview residents will be "dislocated". Because, at the rate of displacement in the Bayview/Hunters Point, there will be no residents left to dislocate.