Story Archives 2013

Wesearch:

Poor people led research and pro-active media deconstructing the lies told about criminalized and mythologized communities.

Click here for Spanish Translation:   http://poormagazine.org/node/4714

Ingrid De Leon

I am a migrant woman, mother that day by day I look at the sun

to guide me through this World. I have lived in San Francisco

for nine years. I see how things here are changing in the Misión

district. Before, there were a lot of stores and Latin restaurants.

But everything is changing. Everyday, they build new buildings

for businesses and other races that we cannot afford to buy.

When I walk through 24th street, I see new houses, businesses and

cafes with people who have money, everyone has their coffee cup

and everyone with their own laptops. They all appear quiet,

each in their own world. Us, Raza and those that don’t have a lot of

money cannot go in there. We have no money or computer. Little

by little our spaces are shrinking. And when we are surrounded

by rich houses and rich people, we feel like fish out of water

and we want to move out of here. Our space is already full of

things that us, the poor, cannot have. I am in horror, because I

feel that at any moment I will no longer have a home, because my

current home is very old.  These are the houses that are being

destroyed for new condominiums. I get chills every time I see a new

construction site. I feel as if I’m drowning, since I cannot swim.

Usuario for change (Enrique)- Gentrification

When I arrived in this country, into the city of San Francisco, a

decade ago, I saw how the renters and people that lived in shelters

were being forced into eviction from where we lived by the owners

of the buildings. Forced into eviction by the creation of “CHANGES” by the city of

San Francisco.

During a mass protest, I announced that the ones that should be

criminalized are the originators of Gentrification.  In other

words- the owners of the units and the legislators that approved the

ELLIS ACT.  Just like those who approved the program

“CHANGES,” because those are the originators of this problem.

Me, in my part, I was going to fight for a system of subsidized

housing by the city. Fight for the particular persons that have low income or

temporarily no income who could have good worthy housing according to

their earnings.

Today I live at Casa Quezada where I pay 25 dollars a month for

rent and when I do not have money, I do not pay. This program

was developed with the participation of many non-profit

organizations and other neighborhood centers in the Misión.

Gentrification- Julio Chaves

Gentrification of a neighborhood affects my economy because the

rent of apartments and rooms increase in price.  The owners of the

houses or apartments take advantage of the situation, feeling like mini kings in

their kingdom where they live and pressure the people who live in

their units.  The rent every day is more expensive.  It pushes us to live in places

far from our work centers, making life more difficult. Like

my grandmother says “what doesn’t leave with tears, leaves

with a sigh.”  This is due to the fact that is you have cheap housing,

you have to deal with many stupid discomforts from the mini King

and Esther with how you spend more money on gasoline or on the bus transportation. Gentrification is a silent Invasion, but without bullets-where the one with the most money takes possession of the best commercial places with the great ability to do

business.

Gentrification increases the rent and also the food.  It is a race where

he takes himself out of the race when he has little money or low

paying jobs. It’s a race where the poor get poorer and the rich get

richer.

This economic war grows bigger and bigger each moment like

Monsanto (Monster.) Where the one with money can live where he

wants and the poor where ever we can, or survive if we can.

I like the apartment where I live because it’s cheap, but it is located

on the first floor and I can hear the drainage system from the

neighbors upstairs.  And I can hear them making love with a

rik rik of their mattress. But all these noises and discomforts are

part of my environment.

Gentri- Lex Horan

I'm a young white person who's living in Oakland on a short-term basis. I am passing through, essentially, for four months of my life. Most of the time I live in Minneapolis, MN. Here in this city I am mostly a learner--I came here for training to bring home with me. It feels like a very strange way to be in a place.

Moving here was very easy for me. I am living in an apartment near Lake Merritt with my best friend and another person I hadn't met before moving here. The building I'm staying in was recently renovated and many other people in my building are Black and Latino. (Two of us in my household are white, and one of my housemates is Black. We all went to college; none of us are from the Bay Area.) Gentrification has made it very easy for me to move to Oakland. I know a lot of other people who live here--almost none of them are from here--who have helped me by giving me rides, showing me around, lending me a bike, letting me live with them for low rent. It's like the rails were greased to help me land here easily. I'm also impacted by gentrification in a different way, but how it feels to live here. I'm not used to it yet, if that's ever possible. I think a lot of people like me get used to the way displacement feels in the air, on BART, walking past the people who've been stolen from. I'm afraid that I might too, if I stayed here. But for now it rubs me, feels exhausting and heartbreaking and makes me feel nauseous and uneasy. I am impacted because I watch the way people like me are cogs in the machine of displacement and I feel angry, hopeless, judgmental, confused. It's important for me to grapple with all these feelings and also--at the end of the day, I'm housed, period.

Noa Grayevsky- Gentrification

I am a rich, white queer person living in San Francisco. I'm not from here. My parents immigrated to the United States from Israel where my Palestinian- Jewish ancestors colluded with the British colonizers and became white and rich off of land theft, displacement of their neighbors, and "real estate development." I am a graduate student with owning class parents. I graduated from Harvard and have a lot of educational privilege. I am a housemate to four young, white, queer people, an older sister to my very tall younger brother Eyal, a child of my parents Eli and Tami, a lover of my partner, Ro. My father and brother are business owners, and my mother, like her grandfather, is a real estate agent. This means the money in my family comes from other peoples' labor, from stealing land, from maintaining kkkapitalism and from gentrification and colonization. I moved to San Francisco five years ago to be closer to dear friends of mine, and I am embarrassed to share, to find other young, queer people like myself.

I am impacted by gentrification in San Francisco mostly in that money and access have been funneling to me without almost any effort on my part as a result of it. My parents bought me a house on Bernal Hill this year without me knowing about it, and gave it to me as a surprise, while my friends who are queer, poor folks of color were displaced from Bernal Hill to Oakland. Gentrification and displacement of poor folks downtown was a result of the building of the luxury condo my dad just bought. As the businesses change, I see more people who look like me all around. The police smile at me, It's all set up so that they'll be here to protect me from noticing or feeling the harm I am doing to others by being here in this way. I am a commercial for gentrification, as a young, white, class privileged, queer artist. I walk around and then rich, white, older men want to move here, like my dad, to be hip. My parents, between the two of them, own 6 condos and houses now in this country none of us are from, and each time my mom closes a deal on a "luxury" house or condo she gets paid lots of money, which she then uses to fund my brother's tech start up, my fancy grad school tuition, and my living here and gentrifying this place. I feel like the expectations, access, and inertia in place in my owning class family and culture set me up to displace others and benefit from their harm, and pushing against this feels both necessary to my humanity, like my duty to the earth and to those living around me, and also incredibly confusing- like doing a task that almost all my socialization worked hard to prevent me from doing. Here I am, humbled and hurting, confused and loving inside of it.

The Existentiality of Gentrification

by: Asik the Pirate

I think I might just have hustled rent for this month.

(Perpetual Refrain) I get three extra days next time!

I don’t come from here…it’s obvious.  My hat belongs sixty years in the past, my kicks have had intimate relations with several (I imagine bruised) feet, my shirt has a collar, and my gait betrays an admittedly desperate confidence.

Plus the folks that are left have seen it all after generally 40+ years on the plantation.  They know the new horse on the track.

“How you like the neighborhood?”

“Love it.”

“That’s good.  I’m Andre.  Been here my whole life.  I’ll see you.”

They see that I’m not a gentri-fuckerbut I know that I am sometimes reckless-eyeballed.  I am grateful for the cautious welcome.  I can locate and appreciate the fear.  Yet I wonder about my wife and roommate.  They don’t address them, they just let them pass by.  They might hopethey pass by.

You see I took no home from any man or woman.  I moved in from being briefly homeless to a place where my wife had moved to avoid a bad roommate situation, into an apartment rented by a young lesbian of Chinese descent, who happened to live in one of the last remaining Black sides of town.

Our rent is significantlybelow market rate, which amounts to just a little more than I can pay, and we have not and will not help to raise it!

But did my roommate know she was moving into a neighborhoodor did she just like the flat and the fish-shop on the corner?  Did she want to know and contribute to a community, or build an isolated fort on the Bay for sex and other thought experiments?  How was this space opened for me?

You see I knew this hood before I landed here, have friends, a few enemies perhaps, and have celebrated, cried, and struggled here. My entry was a strange homecoming, and I mean every syllable when I say I love it.  I don’t live in a hip spot, get no cool points for my domicile, yet I am surrounded by one of the most creative, resilient, strong communities that I’ve ever encountered.  But is it visible?  To Who?

And my roommate (my sweet, generous roommate)…Does she know that she is invisible not by race but by perceived class, translucent and gentile, not only able to dodge bullets but able to dodge us all?  Who is more afraid, my roommate, or the people who see a foreclosure sign hanging off of her “general good intentions”, and the bulldozer of green-washed upwardmobility as homespirals further and further from the atmosphere into the deepest recesses of space?

Jenny - Gentrification

Who am I in this City?

I am a class and education privileged (I have a master’s degree) 27-year old queer, White/Puerto Rican/Filipina mixed race woman, not from California.  I am trying to substitute teach in the city to create a more-flexible schedule compared to having more traditional jobs. I live with my Filipina-immigrant, college-educated partner in Berkeley/Oakland border.  I moved to California around 1 and a half years from Chicago with my sister who moved to San Francisco for her residency program as a gynecologist.  Before Chicago, I had lived in Michigan for 13 years.  Before Michigan, I lived in Japan, where I was born.

How am I impacted by gentrification?

 I am impacted by gentrification.  I must be profiting from it.  It allows me to live in a place with affordable rent for me and where a lot of young, like-minded queer people live around me.  I was not raised in California and it was my privilege that gave me a choice to move here.  It was my privilege that helped me find a place to live.  Because I have lighter skin, a masters degree, was a public school teacher, can speak English fluently without an accent, etc…landlords favor people like me and make it easier for me to move in compared to someone else who may not have those privileges.  My P.O.C. family (chosen and nuclear) without class/education privilege would have had a lot harder time renting the place.   They probably would have been denied. You have to show pay check stubs and bank account statements to prove you can pay the rent.  As a result, for the landlords, the more people like me they rent to, the more white people with more money will feel comfortable moving in and the more the rent will rise and the more poor people and people of color are pushed out of the area.  With this said, I am profiting from gentrification and I am being used by the landlords/developers to raise the property value for their profit.

HOW GENTRIFICATION AFFECTS ME

                                                 Ethan Davidson

    I have lived in a section 8 studio apartment since 1988.  It has a nice place with good security.

    Although the Tenderloin is relatively resistant to gentrification, there are definitely people who want it gentrified. 

     It is no longer possible to get section 8 units in San Francisco.  If I lost my unit, I would have to move north to either Marin or Sonoma County.

      I have serious health problems, but I have found good health care providers that accept medical.  In Marin and Sonoma County, it is much harder.  Things are also very dispersed, and the public transportation system is not very good.  It would be hard to get to whatever health care providers I had without a car, especially when I am sick.

HERBERT HOTEL

by

Dennis Gary

I am a resident of the Herbert Hotel on Powell Street.  It is being transformed from a residential hotel (SRO) to a tourist and student hotel.

As my fellow residents die off, their rooms are upgraded to tourist rooms, complete with hardwood floors and built-in televisions.  My room has an aging rug and no TV.

But I can get the Internet after a fight with management, which stated that the free wi-fi was not meant for residents – just tourists and students.

For a month, I could not get on the hotel’s wi-fi because they would not give me a password.  Then Sari of Central City SRO Collaborative appeared on the scene and suddenly I was given the password.

When the light fixture above my mirror burned out, my chest of drawers started falling apart, and paint started peeling from the ceiling, maintenance was suddenly too busy working on tourist and student rooms.

Then Jeannie of  the “In Home Support Services Collaborative” called the general manager and two hours later I had a new light fixture, a new chest of drawers, and a fresh coat of paint on my ceiling.

Zoe Bender

Gentrification Blog                                       

I am 26 year old white girl with an asymmetrical hair cut who gets in free to most clubs because I dance so good. I am an unemployed college graduate. I have 84 cents in my bank account and I just applied to graduate school that will cost tens of thousands of dollars. I am a radical queer hipster who uses my foodstamps at health food stores. I am an artist and an aspiring revolutionary. I don’t own a car or bike, so I walk most places, at all hours of the day and night, and never feel unsafe.

Two years ago, my parents decided to move out of their rural beach-town house and back to San Francisco. My Dad is a painter who makes his money doing tech support for small businesses and my Mom is a writer who makes money as a development director for a non-profit arts organization. They found a place on 7^th and Market that was not zoned for residential, but convinced the property manager to let them move into what used to be a garment factory. Over the course of a few months, they worked with the property manager to design a community of live-work spaces for artists. Most of the people that moved in are art students in their 20s, about two-thirds of whom are white. In exchange for her work in designing and managing the project, my Mom got a small additional studio rent-free for a year.  When I lost my job and house in October, my mom offered to let me move into her office space.

Gentrification is the reason I live where I do. Rent is very affordable, which is why my parents can live there, and why they have an extra room that I can live in. Part of the reason my parents were able to convince the property manager to let them move in was that the presence of artists in the neighborhood will eventually increase the property value. This neighborhood is a burgeoning hub of gentrification. Some of my wealthy, white friends don’t want to come visit me in this ‘scary’ part of town. Over the last two years I’ve seen bicycle shops, coffee shops and art galleries open up all over the neighborhood. About a year ago, a new nightclub opened up on 6^th and Market. The club is called Monarch, and was recently voted one of the best sound systems in America. Every Tuesday I walk down 6^th Street from Mission to Market to go dance to trap and dubstep at Monarch. I avoid making eye contact with the people I pass who are hanging outside the SROs and liquor stores. When they talk to me, I mostly ignore them. When I get to monarch, it’s like walking into a different universe, with chic Victorian era design and a mostly white crowd. Inside Monarch, I relax, surrounded by my fellow perpetrators of gentrification.  

Theresa Hays -Who am I in this City?

How am I impacted by gentrification?

I am Theresa Hays, an African American woman who about 12 years ago was living with my husband in a 1BR apartment in the Hunter’s Point section of the city…right near the Navy Shipyard.  I had become very ill due to a condition I suffered with which left me so weak from anemia that I wasn’t able to hold down a job.  My husband’s job laid him off so often and so sporadically until our bills and our rent began to get behind and then unpaid.

I feel that there was a blessing in our storm.  The white man assigned to us from the Property Management Company harassed us so much until we felt uneasy whenever we would leave the apartment to go somewhere wondering if we’d be able to get back in when we came home.  I wrote a letter to the apartment owner, (an African American man), which I pointed out some unhealthy conditions that we had been suffering with in the apartment. We had never talked to them about it because we were behind in our rent.  It was put on that owner’s heart to let us sign a “consensual agreement”, that he wouldn’t report us as an Eviction, and he would forgive the now $11,000 in back rents if we just left.  We looked at it to be a blessing in the storm, and we left.

During the time all this was going on, the Navy Shipyard and Lennar Properties were slowly moving in the area, “cleaning up” things.  I attended meetings where Lannar representatives were trying to “push” their cause on the community and San Francisco and the Mayor’s Office.

My husband and I put everything in Storage other than ample clothes that we stacked up and camouflaged behind us inside the back of the truck.  This began our first night of being “HOMELESS”, a word I never thought would describe me/us.  We led this life for 3 years sleeping in our little green pick-up truck not letting anyone know that we were “HOMELESS”.  It was important that we keep our lives looking like “business as usual” and most importantly consistently continuing to give praises to God through it all.

We read articles and heard stories about some shady things happening with Lennar Properties and began to again see that what seemed to be so bad and uncertain, was actually a blessing in the storm.  We were able to escape the experience of being caught up in the clutches of Lennar Properties which we now know is a HUGE EXAMPLE OF GENTRIFICATION in the San Francisco Hunter’s Point section of the city.

Marinette

I am Marinette Tovar Sanchez, Mexican immigrant, living in the Fruitvale area, in the city of Oakland. I am a worker and an artist, an activist, a woman of color. I am, in few or many words, a professional everything-ologist. I am in the constant move to earn the daily bread, in the constant struggle to keep a roof over my head. I rent a room in a warehouse, which I share with 4 other people, also artists, activists and educators who share a space to afford rent.

I have seen gentrification from a couple of different perspectives. The first one is that of an artist who struggles, like many, to make ends meet and pay rent and living expenses. The second perspective is that of a working immigrant woman of color with limited resources and opportunities.

The first perspective helped me understand the impact and effect, negative in many ways, that artists have had in the gentrification of neighborhoods. Women and men who dedicate themselves to creating art often, and in most cases, struggle financially. The money flow of an artist tends to be sporadic, unreliable and unpredictable; this drives artists to look for options that are affordable. Most of the time, the living quarters that artists can afford end up being in low income neighborhoods, considered by many as the ghettos. Little by little, more and more artists move in, following the example and trend of others before them and slowly, the area starts becoming “cool, artsy, hip, quirky, colorful”; as a result, more and more people suddenly want to move in as well, thus driving the demand for housing in those neighborhoods up, along with rent prices and the cost of living in general, making it nearly impossible for the original tenants to afford to stay. Indirectly, especially in places like the Bay Area, artists have been the indirect spear-headers of gentrification; ironically, once other people begin to move in who have the resources that artists don’t have financially, the prices keep escalating and eventually, the artists who moved in to begin with, end up being pushed out of the neighborhood as well.

Iris

Who are you- white, Jewish, owning class, queer, woman, living in Berkeley

How does gentrifukation impact you? I currently live in a mostly gentrified neighborhood in Berkeley, close to 4th street shopping area. This area is less "hip" and close to "cool" places than my old house, near Macarthur bart. At my old place we were the only white people on the block, I felt pretty unsafe and scared, witnessed violence and heard gunshots a couple times, heard a woman moaning outside of my window, and witnessed a sexual assault. It became pretty unbearable to me so I moved out, both because of how scared I felt, and because of how unwanted I knew we all were. Our neighbors were not happy we were there. Part of my decision was also informed by the Rev change session. I know I will be a part of gentrification in my life but I have enough money to avoid being at the forefront of it. I no longer feel at the forefront of gentrification because of where I live, but I do frequently participate in consumerism related to gentrification, such as buying expensive lattes in the Mission or in Oakland, etc. 

Nuestra Investigación:

Gente de el pueblo conduce medios de communicacion y investogacion sobre aburguesamiento

For English, click here:

http://www.poormagazine.org/node/4713

Ingrid De Leon

Yo soy una mujer migrante, madre que día a día miro el sol para guiarme en el mundo. Vivo desde hace nueve años en San Francisco. Veo como todo está cambiando en el barrio de la Misión. Antes, habían muchas tiendas y restaurantes latinas. Pero todo está cambiando. Cada día construyen edificios para negocios de otras razas, donde nosotros no podemos comprar. Cuando paso por la calle 24, veo casas nuevas, negocios, y café con gente con dinero, con una taza de café y todos con sus propias computadoras. Se ven todos callados, pues todos están en su propio mundo. Los latinos y los que no tenemos tanto dinero no podemos entrar allí, pues no tenemos computadoras ni dinero. Y poco a poco el espacio se va reduciendo. Y cuando nos sentimos rodeados de tantas casas y gente rica con mucho dinero, nos sentimos como peces sin agua y queremos movernos de allí. Pues nuestro espacio ya está invahido por las cosas que nosotros, los pobres, no podemos tener. Yo me siento temerosa, pues pienso que en cualquier momento no voy a tener ni donde vivir, porque donde vivo son casas viejas y estas son las que están tirando por los nuevos edificios. Me de escalofrío ver mas construcciones. Me empiezo ahogar, pues no se nadar.

Usuario del Cambio- Aburguesamiento

Cuando lluegé a este país, a este ciudad de san Francisco, hace una decada ví como los inquilinos y los que vivíamos en refugios estabamos siendo obligados a DESALOJARNOS de allí donde vivíamos por los dueños de las viviendas y por la creación de CHANGES por la ciudad de San Francisco.

En una manifestación popular dije que a los que deberian criminalizar es a los que estan originando el aburgesamiento, es decir, a los dueños de las viviendas y a los legisladores que aprobaron la ELLIS ACT. Así como, a los que aprobaron el programa de CHANGES, porque ellos son los que han originado esta problema.

Yo, por mi parte, iba a luchar por una sistema de vivienda subsidiado por la ciudad o personas particulares para que los que tengan bajos ingresos o temporalmente, ningunos, pudieran tener vivienda decorosa, y digna de acuerdo a sus ingresos.

Hoy, vivo en Casa Quezada donde pago 25 dolares mensuales por renta y cuando no tengo ingresos, no pago. Esté programa se desarrollo con la participación de varios organizaciones sin fines de lucro y otras centros de vecindarios de la Misión.

Julio Chaves

El aburguesamieto

Aburguresamiento del vecindario afecta mi economia pues la renta de los apartamentos y cuartos, aumentan de precio, los dueños de casa o apartmentos agravan la situación sintiendose como pequeños reyes y su reino es el lugar en que viven y presionan a las personas que viven con ellos.

La renta cada ves es más cara empuja a vivir en lugares alejados de los centros de trabajo, esto hace la vida más difícil y como dice mi abuela lo que no se va en lágrimas se va en suspiros, esto es debido que en un lugar barato se debe soportar muchas incomodidades y estupideces del pequeño rey y además se gasta más en gasolina o en gastos de trasporte por bús.

Aburguesamiento es una invasión silenciosa y sín valores en donde el que tiene dinero toma poseción de mejores lugares comerciales con vocación de negocios.

Aburguesamiento incrementa la renta y también la comida en una carrera donde el se saca del camino a la gene con poco dinero y bajos ingresos econonomicos. Es una carrera donde al pobres se le hace más pobre y al rico más rico

Esta guerra economica se hace cada momento mas grande cómo un monstruo, donde el que tiene dinero puede vivir donde quiera y el pobre donde pueda, o salvese el que pueda.

El apartamento donde vivo me gusta porque es barato pero esta ubicado en primer nivel y escucho el drenaje de los vecinos de arriva, el suitch del baño, cuando toman la ducha y además cuando mis vecinos hacen el amor con el ritmo del rik rik de su colchon: pero todo estos ruidos e incomodidades son ahora parte del medio amviente.

Gentri- Lex Horan

Soy una persona jóven y blanca que vive en Oakland ahora a corto plazo. Estoy pasando por aquí, en esencia, por cuatro mesas de my vida. Por lo general vivo en Minneapolis, Minnesota. Estoy aquí en está ciudad para aprender--vine aquí por entrenamiento para llevar conmigo cuando regreso a Minneapolis. Es una manera muy extraña de estar en un lugar.

Mudarme aquí fue muy facil para mí. Vivo en un apartimiento cerca de Lake Merritt con mi mejor amigo y una persona más que no conocía antes de mudarme aquí. El edificio donde vivo fue recién renovado, y la mayoría de la gente en este edificio es Afro-Americano y Latino. (Dos de nosotros en mi apartimiento somos blancos, y uno de mis compañeros de hogar as Afro-Americano. Todos asistimos a la universidad; ninguno de nosotros somos de la Bahía originalmente.) El aburguesamiento lo ha hecho muy facil mudarme a Oakland. Conozco a mucha gente que vive aquí--casi ningunos de ellos son de aquí--que me han ayudado por conducirme, mostrarme la ciudad, prestarme una bicicleta, dejarme vivir con ellos por renta barata. Es como las vías fueron engrasadas para ayudarma a llegar aquí facilmente.

El aburguesamiento también me afecta de una manera diferente, por como se siente vivir aquí. Ya no estoy acostumbrado al aburguesamiento, si aun es posible. Pienso que mucha gente como yo se acostumbran a la manera en que el desplazamiento siente en el aire, en BART, caminando por delante de las personas que han sido robadas de su tierra. Temo que yo me acostumbraría tambien, si me quedaría aquí. Pero ahora me fronta, siente agotador, desgarrador, me siento con nauseas e intranquilo. Mi impacta porque miro la manera de que la gente como yo somos un eslabón más de la cadena de aburguesamiento y me siento enfadado, inútil, critic, confuso. Pienso que es importante que lidíe con estos sentimientos y también—en fin, tengo vivienda, y punto.

Noa Grayevsky

Soy una lesbiana, rica y blanca viviendo en San Francisco. No soy de aquí. Mis padres imigráron a los Estados Unidos desde Israel, donde mis ancestros Palestinos- Judeos se confabularon con los colonizadores Englateros y se convitaron a estar blancos y ricos en el proseso de robar tierra, desplacar sus vecinos, y desarollo immobilario. Estoy una estudiante universitaria con padres de la clase proprietaria. He graduado de Harvard y tengo mucha privilegia de educacion. Soy una compañera de pisa a cuatro personas homosexuales y blancas de casi mi edad, una hermana mayor a mi hermano pequeño, Eyal, que es mucho más alto que yo, una hija de mis padres Eli y Tami, y una amante a mi pareja, Ro. Mi padre y hermano son dueños de negocios, y my madre, como su abuelo, se trabaja en immobilaria. Este quiere decir que el dinero de mi familia viene del trabajo de otras personas, del robo de tierra, de mantener la sistema capitalista, y de aburguesamiento y colonizacion. He movido a San Francisco hace cinco anos para vivir mas cerca a unas amigas muy amigas, y tambien me da verguenza contar, a encontrar mas jovenes lesbianas y maricones como yo.

Estoy impactada del aburguesimiento principalmente en que dinero y accesso vienen a mi sin casi ningun esfuerzo de mi parte. Mis padres me han comprado una casa en Bernal Hill sin mi conocimiento, y me lo ha regalaron como una sorpresa mientras que mis amigos que son afro y latino americanos y pobres habian dezplacado de Bernal Hill y han tenido mover a Oakland. Aburgezimiento y desplazamiento de gente pobres en el centro resulto de la construccion del condominio de lujo que mi padre recien acaba de comprar. Mientras los negocios cambian, veo mas personas que aparecen como yo en el alrededor. La policia me miran con sonrisas, ellos estan aqui para ayudar a la aburgesimiento y para proteger me de ver o sentir el dueno que estoy haciendo a otras personas en viviendo aqui. Soy un commercial para aburgesamiento, como una joven, lesbiana, blanca artista con privilegia economica. Cuando camino aqui, promoto a gente mas poderoso y rico que yo, como mi papa, que se pueden mover aqui para estar mas modernos. Mis padres, entre las dos, son duenos de seis condominios y casas aqui en este pais que no es nuestra patria, y cada ves que mi mama vende la casa luja de alguien se gana mucho dinero que se usa a invertir en la compania technologica de mi hermano, en mi educacion universitaria lujosa, y en mi abilidad a vivir aqui y contribuyendo al aburgesimiento de este lugar. Siento que las esperanzas de heredar, accesso, y inercia en mi familia de la clase proprietaria y cultura me propelan a desplazar otras personas y aprovechar de su dano. Resistir este siente al mismo tiempo como algo necessario para mi humanidad y mi deber a otras seres humanos y a la tierra y tambien muy confuso- como hacer una tarea que casi todo mi socializacion trabaja fuerte para prevenir. Aqui estoy, humilde y en dano, confundida y amorosa entre todo este.

El aburguesamiento

Pirata Asik

Pienso que acabo de completar la renta para este mes.

(Perpetro Rifran) Pa la otra me dan tres extra dias!

Yo no soy de aqui … es obvio. Mi sombrero pertenece en los anos 60 anos de tras, mis zapatos han tenido carias relaciones intimas con otros pies (me imagino con moretones), mi camisa tiene collar y mi paso traiciona una confianza ciertamente desesperada.

Ademas, la gente que se queda se han visto todo despues de mas de cuarenta anos en la plantacion. Ellos conocen el caballo nuevo en la pista.

“Que te parece el vecindario?”

“Me encanta.”

“Muy bien. Soy Andre. Habia vivido aqui todo mi vida. Nos vemos.”

Ven que no estoy un gentriFUKator (contribuyendo al aburguesamiento) pero yo se que a veces tengo ojos temerarios. Me siento agradecido por la beinvenida cautelosa. Puedo localizer y apreciar el miedo. Aun, me pregunta acerca de mi esposa y companera de habitacion. Ellos no los abordan,  simplemente los dejan pasar. Es possible que ellos esperan que los pasarian de largo.

Ves, no robe ningun casa de ningun hombre ni mujer. Me mude desde estar brevemente sin hogar a un lugar donde mi esposa se ha mudado para evitar una mala situacion con una companera de cuarto, a un lugar alquilado por una lesbiana joven de origen chino, que paso a vivir en uno de los ultimos barrios afro-americanos en la ciudad.

Nuestra renta es significamente menos del precio de Mercado, que equivale a un poco mas de lo que puedo pagar, y nosotros no hemos y no vamos a ayudar a aumentarlo!

Pero, habia sabido mi companera de piso que habia mudido a un barrio, o solo le gustaba el piso y la tienda de pescado en la esquina? Habia querido contribuir a un barrio o queria construir una fortaleza aislada en la bahia para sexo y otros experimentos mentales? Como este espacio habia abierto para mi?

Ves, yo habia conocido este barrio antes del momento que aterrice aqui, tengo amigos, y tal vez algunos enemigos, celebraba, lloraba, y luchaba aqui. Mi entrada habia un regreso a casa, y intento cada silaba cuando digo que me lo encanta. No vivo en un lugar moderno, ni obteno puntos modernos para mi domicilio, pero estoy rodeado por una de las communidades mas creativas, resistentes, y Fuertes que habia encontado. Pero es visible? Y a quien?

Y mi companera de piso (mi companera de piso tan generosa y amable)… Sabe ella que es invisible no por raza pero por clase percibido, translucida y gentil, no soloen capaz de esquivar las balas, pero tambien de esquivar todo nosotros? Quien tiene mas miedo, mi companera de piso, o la gente que veen un un signo de la ejecución hipotecaria que cuelga de sus buenas intenciones, y la excavadora de movilidad ascendente que esta verde lavado mientras hogar se calla mas y mas lejos de la atmosfera al huecos mas profundos del espacio exterior.

Jenny - Gentrification

¿Quien soy en esta ciudad? 

Soy una persona con privilegio de clase y educación (tengo una maestría) 27-años de edad, queer, blanco / Puertoriqueno / Filipina mujer mestiza, y no soy de California. Estoy tratando de sustituir enseñar en la ciudad para tener un horario más flexible en comparación con tener empleos más tradicionales. Vivo con mi pareja quien es filipina-inmigrante con educacion de la Universidad.  Vivimos en la frontera de Berkeley / Oakland. Me mudé a California hace 1 año y medio de Chicago con mi hermana que se mudó a San Francisco para su programa de residencia para la ginecóloga. Antes de Chicago, viví en Michigan por 13 años, antes de Michigan, viví en Japón, donde yo nací. 

 ¿Cómo estoy impactado por aburguesamiento?

Estoy impactado por aburguesamiento. Estoy aprovechando de aburguesamiento.  Lo  me permite vivir en un lugar con la renta barata, donde muchas personas queer que comparten mis mismas ideas viven alrededor de mí. Yo no crecí en California y fue mi privilegio que me dio la oportunidad de mudarse aquí.   Fue mi privilegio que me ayudó a encontrar un lugar para vivir- porque tengo piel clara, tengo una maestría (master's degree), fue una maestra de la escuela pública, puedo hablar en Inglés con fluidez sin acento, etc ... los propietarios a favor las personas como yo y es más fácil para mí para mudarse a mi apartemento en comparación con alguien que no tenga esos privilegios . Mi personas de color familiar  (escogida y nuclear) sin privilegios de clase / educación habría tenido un tiempo mucho más difícil alquilar el apartemento. Probablemente habría sido denegada. Tienes que mostrar los pagos de tu trabajo y los papeles de tu cuenta bancarios para demostrar que puedas pagar la renta.  Más gente como yo, los propietarios pueden alquilar a más personas blancas con más dinero porque ellos se sentirán cómodos vivir allá y la renta aumentará y las personas más pobres y las personas de color son expulsados de la área.  Estoy beneficiando de aburguesamiento y me siento utilizado por los propietarios / desarrolladores para aumentar el valor de la propiedad para su beneficio.

COMO EL ABURGUESAMIENTO ME AFFECTA

Ethan Davidson

Yo he vivido en un apartamento estudio sección 8 desde 1988. Es un bonito lugar con buena seguridad.

     Aunque el Tenderloin es relativamente resistente a la aburguesamiento, hay gente que definitivamente quiere que sea aburguesado.

      Ya no es posible obtener la sección 8 unidades en San Francisco. Si pudiera mi cuarto, yo tendría que mudarse al norte - a Marin o el Condado de Sonoma.

       Tengo serias problemas de salud, pero no he encontrado buenos profesionales de la salud que aceptan médica. En el Condado de Marin y Sonoma, es más difícil. Lugares están lejos, y el sistema de transporte público no es muy buena. Sería difícil llegar a los proveedores de la salud sin coche, especialmente cuando estoy enferma. 

HOTEL HERBERT

Dennis Gary

Soy residente del Hotel Herbert Powell Street. Está transformando de un hotel residencial (SRO) a un hotel de turismo y estudiantes. Mientras mis compañeros residentes mueren, sus habitaciones cambian a las habitaciones turísticas, con suelos de madera y televisiones construidas . Mi habitación tiene una alfombra vieja y no hay televisión.

Pero puedo conseguir a Internet después de un argumento con la la administración que me dijo que el wi-fi no era para residentes - sólo para turistas y estudiantes.

Durante el primer mes, no pude conseguir en el wi-fi del hotel porque no me dieron el código del internet.

ya que me daría una contraseña. Entonces Sari Billinck de Central City SRO Collaborative apareció  y de repente me dieron el código.

Cuando la luz de la lámpara en la encima de mi espejo, se acabó, calzoncillos empezaron a romper, y la pintura empezó a caer del techo, los trabajadores fueron de repente muy ocupados de trabajando en las habitaciones turísticas y estudiantes.

Entonces Jeannie Mon de "En-la-casa de Servicios de Apoyo de Colaboración" llamó el director y dos horas más tarde tuve una lámpara nueva,  calzoncillos nuevos, y una nueva capa de pintura en mi techo.

Zoe Bender- Gentrification Blog

      Soy una güera de 26 años con un peinado asimétrico. Entro gratis en
los clubs por bailar tan bien. Soy una graduada de la univdersidad que
no tiene empleo. Tengo 84 centavos en mi cuenta de banco y acabo de
solicitar mi entrada a la escuela de posgrado que costará miles de
dólares. Soy una hipster queer que usa vales de comida en tiendas de
comida saludable. Soy una artista y una revolucionaria esperanzada. No
tengo ni coche ni bicicleta, pues camino generalmente, a todas horas,
de día y de noche, y nunca me siento insegura.

        Hace dos años, mis padres decidieron mudarse de su casa en un pueblo
rural y playero y regresar a San Francisco. My papá es un pintor que
gana la vida ofreciendo el servicio técnico para negocios pequeños, y
my mamá es una escritora  que gana la vida recaudando fondos para una
organización sin lucro de arte. Encontraron un lugar en la 7 y Market
que no era clasificada para viviendas, pero convencieron al jefe de la
propiedad a dejarles mudarse en lo que había sido una fábrica de ropa.
Dentro de unas meses, trabajaron con el jefe de la propiedad a diseñar
una comunidad de espacios de vivir-trabajar para artistas. La mayoría
de la gente que se mudaron allí son artistas en sus años 20. Dos
tercios de ellos son blancos. A cambio por su trabajo de diseñar y
mantener el proyecto, mi mamá recibió un otro estudio pequeño en que
no tendrá que pagar la renta durante un año. Cuando perdí mi trabajo y
my casa en octubre, my mamá ofreció que vivera en su oficina.
Es por el aburguesamiento que vivo dondo vivo. La renta es muy
razonable: es por eso que mis padres pueden vivir allá, y que tienen
un cuarto extra en el cual puedo vivir. Un parte de la razón que
pudieron convencer al jefe de la propiedad de dejarles mudarse allí
fue que la presencia de artistas en el vedendario va a aumentar el
valor de la propiedad. Este vecendario es un centro creciente del
aburguesamiento. Algunos de mis ricos amigos blancos no me quieren
visitar en este parte “temeroso” de la ciudad. Dentro de los dos años
pasados he visto tiendas de bicicleta, cafés, y galerías de arte que
han abierto por todo el vecendario. Hace un año, un club nuevo abrió
en las 6 y Market. El club se llama Monarch, y fue recién votado uno
de los mejores equipos de sonido en los EEUU. Cada martes caminio por
la calle 6 de Mission a Market para bailar a trance y dubstep en
Monarch. Evito miraro a los ojos con la gente que paso que pasan el
rato afuera de los SROs y las licorerías. Cuando me hablan,
generalment les ignoro. Cuando llego a Monarch, es como entrar en un
universo diferente, con diseño de la época Victoriana y un público en
su mayoría blanco. Dentro de Monarch, me relajo, rodeada por los otros
perpetradores de aburguesamiento.

Theresa Hays –

¿Quién soy en esta ciudad?
¿Cómo me impacta el aburguesamiento?

Me llamo Theresa Hays, una mujer Afro-Americana que, hace doce años,
vivía con mi esposo en una vivienda con un cuarto en Hunter’s Point,
cerca de la astillera del Navy. Me había enfermada debido a una
condición que me dejó tan debil de anemia que no pude durar un
trabajo. El trabajo de mi esposo le despedió frecuentamente: tan
frecuentamente y tan esporádicamente que nuestras cuentas y nuestra
renta pagamos tarde, y pues no las pagamos para nada.

Siento que había una bendición en la tormenta. El güero que la
dirección de la propiedad nos asignó nos atormentó tanto que nos
sintimos intranquilos cuando salíamos del apartimiento, preguntándonos
si podríamos reingresar a nuestra vivienda. Escribí una carta al
dueño, un hombre Afro-Americano, en que indicó unas condiciones
insaludables en que sufríamos en la vivienda, de que nunca le habíamos
avisado porque estábamos tarde con la renta. Fue puesto en la corazón
de este dueño de dejarnos firmar un “acuerdo consentido” que no nos
reportara como un desalojo, y nos perdonaría la $11,000 en renta, si
nos fuéramos de la vivienda. Lo miramos como una bendición en la
tormenta, y nos fuimos.

Mientras todo esto, la Astillera de Navy y Lennar lentamente entraban
en la area, “limpiándola.” Asistí a sus reuniones cuando las
representativas de Lennar trataban de empujar su causa en la
comunidad, en San Francisco, y en la oficina del alcalde.

Mi esposo y yo pusimos todo en un depósito, aparte de ropa abundante
que apilamos y camuflamos detrás de nosotros en la camión. Así empezó
nuestra primera noche de estar “sin hogar:” una palabra que pensaba
que nunca describiría a mí ni a nosotros.  Vivimos así durante tres
años, viviendo en nuestra pequeña camión verde, sin dejar que nadie
sepa que estábamos “sin hogar.”Fue importante que nuestras vidas
aparezcan “normal.” Lo más importante fue continuar a dar alabanzas a
Diós mientras todo.

Leímos artículos y oímos historias de cosas sospechosas ocurriendo con
Lennar Properties, y empezamos a ver otra que lo que parecía tan mal e
incierto fue, de hecho, una bendición en la tormenta. Logramos escapar
la experiencia de atrapados en los agarrados de Lennar Properties—que
sabemos ahora son un GRAN EJEMPLO DEL ABURGUESAMIENTO en la área de
Hunter’s Point en San Francisco.

Marinette

Soy Marinette Tovar Sanchez, inmigrante Mexicana, viviendo en el area de Fruitvale, en la ciudad de Oakland. Soy una trabajadora y artista, una activista, mujer de color. Soy en muchas o pocas palabras, una todologa profesional. Me muevo constantemente en busqueda del pan de todos los dias, en la lucha para mantener un techo sobre mi cabeza. Rento un cuarto en una bodega, la cual comparto con otras 4 personas, tambien artistas, activistas y educadores.

He visto el aburguesamiento de un par de puntos de vista diferentes. La primera es la de una artista que lucha, como muchos, a fin de mes a pagar la renta y los gastos de subsistencia. La segunda perspectiva es la de una mujer trabajadora inmigrante de color con escasos recursos y oportunidades.

La primera perspectiva me ayudó a comprender el impacto y el efecto negativo de muchas maneras, que los artistas han tenido en el aburguesamiento de los barrios. Mujeres y hombres que se dedican a la creación de arte a menudo, y en la mayoría de los casos, tienen dificultades financieras. El flujo de dinero de un artista tiende a ser esporádico, poco fiable e impredecible, lo que impulsa a los artistas a buscar opciones que sean asequibles. La mayoría de las veces, las viviendas que los artistas pueden permitirse pagar están en los barrios de bajos ingresos, considerados por muchos como los guetos. Poco a poco, cada vez más artistas se mueven a estos barrios, siguiendo el ejemplo y la tendencia de otros antes que ellos y poco a poco, la zona comienza a ser "cool, artsy, moderno, peculiar y colorido", y como resultado, más y más gente de repente quiere moverse alli también, por lo que se hace la demanda de vivienda en los barrios mas, junto con arribar los precios de alquiler y el costo de la vida en general, por lo que es casi imposible para los inquilinos originales permitirse el lujo de quedarse. Indirectamente, especialmente en lugares como el Área de la Bahía, los artistas han sido los indirectos iniciadores del aburguesamiento, irónicamente, una vez que la gente comienza a moverse allí que tienen los recursos que los artistas no tienen, los precios siguen aumentando y, finalmente, la artistas que se mudaron allí antes, al fin estan expulsados ​​del barrio.

La segunda perspectiva, o más aún el efecto directo que el aburguesamiento ha tenido en mí, es la que he experimentado como una mujer recien inmigrante de bajos o ningúno ingreso. Después de haber estado sin hogar durante un par de meses, he arreglado de ahorrar un poco de dinero. Cuando busce un lugar para vivir, mis opciones eran increíblemente estrecho y casi específico. Yo, básicamente, tenía que elegir entre las áreas dentro de Oakland, donde la mayoría de las personas han sido desplazadas, gracias al aburguesamiento. Estas áreas eran más o menos del Este de Oakland y el area de West Oakland que todavía no había aburguesada; barrios de bajos ingresos de las personas de color con altos índices de violencia y poco o ningún acceso a alimentos saludables, aunque el acceso fácil a las tiendas de licores. Yo acabé eligiendo este de Oakland, porque por suerte, pasa a estar donde mi gente, personas, latinas se han concentrado. Es una bendición que de todos los barrios en los que podría haber terminado, me encontré con un con un hermoso grupo de gente fuerte que viven en una lucha constante y que están profundamente comprometidos e involucrados en la construcción de una comunidad resiliente y autentica.

Iris

Quien eres- blanca, Judea, clase proprietaria, queer, mujer, viviendo en Berkeley

Como el aburguesamiento

¿Cómo el aburguesamiento me impacta? Actualmente vivo en un barrio de mayoría aburguesado en Berkeley, cerca de la zona comercial del calle 4. Esta área es menos "moderno" y cerca de "cool" lugares que en mi casa de antes, cerca de Macarthur bart. En mi casa vieja eramos  las únicas personas blancas en el bloque, me sentí muy insegura y con miedo, hemos testigos a la violencia y escuchó disparos un par de veces, escuchó a una mujer gimiendo fuera de mi ventana, fue testigo de un asalto sexual. Llegó a ser bastante insoportable para mí, así que me mudé, tanto por el miedo que sentí, y porque sabia que los vecinos no nos querían alli. Nuestros vecinos no estaban contentos que estábamos allí. Parte de mi decisión fue informado también por la sesión de cambio revolucionario de prensa POBRE. Sé que voy a ser parte del aburguesamiento en mi vida, pero tengo dinero suficiente para evitar estar en la vanguardia de la misma. Ya no me siento a la vanguardia del aburguesamiento donde vivo, pero sí participo con frecuencia en el consumo relacionado con el aburguesamiento, como la compra de cafés con leche caros en la Misión o en Oakland, etc.

Going to school at first for me was very overwhelming, not knowing if (after being out of the educational institution for 20+ years) I could succeed at it and feeling inadequate to keep up with those that are fresh out of high school. But now going into my third month, I enjoy going.

Waking up on Tuesday and Thursday mornings feeling fresh ready to see what I will learn today that I hadn't known before makes me feel productive. I normally show up an hour or so early because school is the only place I can go and have that moment of peace without distraction, so when I exit the bus or train I make my way to the ocean campus at 50 Phelan Drive and mount the steps or ramp leading to the Science building then on the elevator to the second floor down the hall and around the curve to room 215 where I am alone for a least 30 to 40 minutes before my fellow classmates join me to wait for our Instructor Neela Chatterjee.

After that class is over, I have a brief break but if I've got food I do as everyone does, eat as you go because I'm rushing to get to my other class which has become my passion: Ethnic Studies 37 with Professor Paliata in Bungalow 706. I rush because I want to get a good seat and I want to be on time. In order to do that I've got to descend 74 steps and a sidewalk that leads to Batmale Hall where I go in and take the elevator to the first floor and out the doors to the sidewalk that separates the track field from the soccer field and down the steps leading to the bungalows.

That all sounds wonderful and it's true for me, but the overall vibe on campus is anything but a smooth transition. It doesn't matter what the forecaster has predicted for the day in the city because at City College it's a whole different "ball game". With rumors swirling around like the fierce winds that push through at any given time without warning and the stress coming from student and faculty alike is overwhelming. Not knowing from one day to the next what's going to happen. Are we closing? Are we staying open? If we're closing then do I get my credits that I've already accumulated? For people like me this being my first semester are wondering, what about us? The faculty are wondering, will my department be cut today? Will I have a job to come to? What about my students? The Professors, Instructors and Teachers aren't here just for a paycheck, they're also here because it's their passion, they love being here, they love what they do and we as students feel that and appreciate them for it.

I am a very talkative people person. I don't really shun away from people but rather embrace them, and that's what I felt when I first entered the campus, I felt that sense of belonging too, no matter what, who or where you come/came from you fit in at "City," like one big family.

While in my classes I talk to my classmates and in passing I talk to different people, I don't know their names but if they want to talk I listen, if they ask questions I answer and the one thing that's been common is, "What's going to happen?" You can't focus on your studies when you're stressed out about the state of affairs at hand. We should no longer be in the dark about where we stand. That's why drastic measures have to be taken, that's why we have the sit-in's, the meetings going on on campus. Is it to much to ask for the truth?

The other day I was in the annex bookstore waiting to make a purchase when a lady walked in and started up a conversation. During our talk she said something interesting to a comment I made. She said "I don't think the Chancellor likes any of us and I have yet to meet her, I don't even know what she looks like". That struck me because, how do you not know what your boss looks like? Yes, that's right, the lady I was talking to is an employee at City and has yet to meet/see her boss. The emails are informational, Dr. Skillman, but your presence would speak volumes. We've seen your representatives on a few occasions but we haven't seen you.

Recently one of our students passed away in a tragic car crash with three of her other siblings (Rachel Fisi'iahi). There was a candlelight vigil held in the Student Union building where friends, teachers, well wishers and family came to share their memories of Rachel. But was the Chancellor in attendance? No, but one of her representatives was.

During the sit-in, students and staff wanted to meet with the Chancellor, some had been there all day long but around 3:00pm her representatives showed up in her place. When asked where was she, we were told "she isn't here, she's out of town at a conference."

What message is she sending out? I know for me it's to say I don't give a damn!

Maybe she is a loving, kind, and compassionate person. I don't know, but if you don't make yourself available to the people how are we really to know who she is? How are we to really know if she is with us or against us? If she never makes herself available. One thing we know she's good at is....laying people off. In my first article I stated that she had laid off 33 staffers. Well, I stand corrected: that number is actually 60 staffers as told to me by Shanell Williams (President-Associated Student Council).

On March 15, 2013 the Acceditation Committee will return to City College, but on the day before (March 14, 2013) there is going to be a walk out @ 1:00pm-RAM PLAZA(Ocean Campus). There will be a BIG RALLY @4:00pm SF-CIVIC CENTER. (All campuses will meet at the Mission Campus(1125 Valencia) at 2pm to march together to City Hall).

We want to make a statement, we want to save our school. City College of San Francisco is widely known and acknowledged to be one of the best community colleges in the country.This current crisis is largely the joint creation of two groups: the Accreditation Commission (ACCIC); secondly the interim administrators who have no long-term commitment to the school. We feel like this is an attack on tens of thousands of Bay Area residents, particularly from low-income, peoples of color and immigrant communites.

Please join us March 14, 2013 to call on the city's ELECTED officials to take immediate action. City Hall must ensure that Prop A funds are used for education as the voters intended. Stand with us in unity and in solidarity!

Wesearch:

Poor people led research and pro-active media deconstructing the lies told about criminalized and mythologized communities.

Click here for Spanish Translation:   http://poormagazine.org/node/4714

Ingrid De Leon

I am a migrant woman, mother that day by day I look at the sun

to guide me through this World. I have lived in San Francisco

for nine years. I see how things here are changing in the Misión

district. Before, there were a lot of stores and Latin restaurants.

But everything is changing. Everyday, they build new buildings

for businesses and other races that we cannot afford to buy.

When I walk through 24th street, I see new houses, businesses and

cafes with people who have money, everyone has their coffee cup

and everyone with their own laptops. They all appear quiet,

each in their own world. Us, Raza and those that don’t have a lot of

money cannot go in there. We have no money or computer. Little

by little our spaces are shrinking. And when we are surrounded

by rich houses and rich people, we feel like fish out of water

and we want to move out of here. Our space is already full of

things that us, the poor, cannot have. I am in horror, because I

feel that at any moment I will no longer have a home, because my

current home is very old.  These are the houses that are being

destroyed for new condominiums. I get chills every time I see a new

construction site. I feel as if I’m drowning, since I cannot swim.

Usuario for change (Enrique)- Gentrification

When I arrived in this country, into the city of San Francisco, a

decade ago, I saw how the renters and people that lived in shelters

were being forced into eviction from where we lived by the owners

of the buildings. Forced into eviction by the creation of “CHANGES” by the city of

San Francisco.

During a mass protest, I announced that the ones that should be

criminalized are the originators of Gentrification.  In other

words- the owners of the units and the legislators that approved the

ELLIS ACT.  Just like those who approved the program

“CHANGES,” because those are the originators of this problem.

Me, in my part, I was going to fight for a system of subsidized

housing by the city. Fight for the particular persons that have low income or

temporarily no income who could have good worthy housing according to

their earnings.

Today I live at Casa Quezada where I pay 25 dollars a month for

rent and when I do not have money, I do not pay. This program

was developed with the participation of many non-profit

organizations and other neighborhood centers in the Misión.

Gentrification- Julio Chaves

Gentrification of a neighborhood affects my economy because the

rent of apartments and rooms increase in price.  The owners of the

houses or apartments take advantage of the situation, feeling like mini kings in

their kingdom where they live and pressure the people who live in

their units.  The rent every day is more expensive.  It pushes us to live in places

far from our work centers, making life more difficult. Like

my grandmother says “what doesn’t leave with tears, leaves

with a sigh.”  This is due to the fact that is you have cheap housing,

you have to deal with many stupid discomforts from the mini King

and Esther with how you spend more money on gasoline or on the bus transportation. Gentrification is a silent Invasion, but without bullets-where the one with the most money takes possession of the best commercial places with the great ability to do

business.

Gentrification increases the rent and also the food.  It is a race where

he takes himself out of the race when he has little money or low

paying jobs. It’s a race where the poor get poorer and the rich get

richer.

This economic war grows bigger and bigger each moment like

Monsanto (Monster.) Where the one with money can live where he

wants and the poor where ever we can, or survive if we can.

I like the apartment where I live because it’s cheap, but it is located

on the first floor and I can hear the drainage system from the

neighbors upstairs.  And I can hear them making love with a

rik rik of their mattress. But all these noises and discomforts are

part of my environment.

Gentri- Lex Horan

I'm a young white person who's living in Oakland on a short-term basis. I am passing through, essentially, for four months of my life. Most of the time I live in Minneapolis, MN. Here in this city I am mostly a learner--I came here for training to bring home with me. It feels like a very strange way to be in a place.

Moving here was very easy for me. I am living in an apartment near Lake Merritt with my best friend and another person I hadn't met before moving here. The building I'm staying in was recently renovated and many other people in my building are Black and Latino. (Two of us in my household are white, and one of my housemates is Black. We all went to college; none of us are from the Bay Area.) Gentrification has made it very easy for me to move to Oakland. I know a lot of other people who live here--almost none of them are from here--who have helped me by giving me rides, showing me around, lending me a bike, letting me live with them for low rent. It's like the rails were greased to help me land here easily. I'm also impacted by gentrification in a different way, but how it feels to live here. I'm not used to it yet, if that's ever possible. I think a lot of people like me get used to the way displacement feels in the air, on BART, walking past the people who've been stolen from. I'm afraid that I might too, if I stayed here. But for now it rubs me, feels exhausting and heartbreaking and makes me feel nauseous and uneasy. I am impacted because I watch the way people like me are cogs in the machine of displacement and I feel angry, hopeless, judgmental, confused. It's important for me to grapple with all these feelings and also--at the end of the day, I'm housed, period.

Noa Grayevsky- Gentrification

I am a rich, white queer person living in San Francisco. I'm not from here. My parents immigrated to the United States from Israel where my Palestinian- Jewish ancestors colluded with the British colonizers and became white and rich off of land theft, displacement of their neighbors, and "real estate development." I am a graduate student with owning class parents. I graduated from Harvard and have a lot of educational privilege. I am a housemate to four young, white, queer people, an older sister to my very tall younger brother Eyal, a child of my parents Eli and Tami, a lover of my partner, Ro. My father and brother are business owners, and my mother, like her grandfather, is a real estate agent. This means the money in my family comes from other peoples' labor, from stealing land, from maintaining kkkapitalism and from gentrification and colonization. I moved to San Francisco five years ago to be closer to dear friends of mine, and I am embarrassed to share, to find other young, queer people like myself.

I am impacted by gentrification in San Francisco mostly in that money and access have been funneling to me without almost any effort on my part as a result of it. My parents bought me a house on Bernal Hill this year without me knowing about it, and gave it to me as a surprise, while my friends who are queer, poor folks of color were displaced from Bernal Hill to Oakland. Gentrification and displacement of poor folks downtown was a result of the building of the luxury condo my dad just bought. As the businesses change, I see more people who look like me all around. The police smile at me, It's all set up so that they'll be here to protect me from noticing or feeling the harm I am doing to others by being here in this way. I am a commercial for gentrification, as a young, white, class privileged, queer artist. I walk around and then rich, white, older men want to move here, like my dad, to be hip. My parents, between the two of them, own 6 condos and houses now in this country none of us are from, and each time my mom closes a deal on a "luxury" house or condo she gets paid lots of money, which she then uses to fund my brother's tech start up, my fancy grad school tuition, and my living here and gentrifying this place. I feel like the expectations, access, and inertia in place in my owning class family and culture set me up to displace others and benefit from their harm, and pushing against this feels both necessary to my humanity, like my duty to the earth and to those living around me, and also incredibly confusing- like doing a task that almost all my socialization worked hard to prevent me from doing. Here I am, humbled and hurting, confused and loving inside of it.

The Existentiality of Gentrification

by: Asik the Pirate

I think I might just have hustled rent for this month.

(Perpetual Refrain) I get three extra days next time!

I don’t come from here…it’s obvious.  My hat belongs sixty years in the past, my kicks have had intimate relations with several (I imagine bruised) feet, my shirt has a collar, and my gait betrays an admittedly desperate confidence.

Plus the folks that are left have seen it all after generally 40+ years on the plantation.  They know the new horse on the track.

“How you like the neighborhood?”

“Love it.”

“That’s good.  I’m Andre.  Been here my whole life.  I’ll see you.”

They see that I’m not a gentri-fuckerbut I know that I am sometimes reckless-eyeballed.  I am grateful for the cautious welcome.  I can locate and appreciate the fear.  Yet I wonder about my wife and roommate.  They don’t address them, they just let them pass by.  They might hopethey pass by.

You see I took no home from any man or woman.  I moved in from being briefly homeless to a place where my wife had moved to avoid a bad roommate situation, into an apartment rented by a young lesbian of Chinese descent, who happened to live in one of the last remaining Black sides of town.

Our rent is significantlybelow market rate, which amounts to just a little more than I can pay, and we have not and will not help to raise it!

But did my roommate know she was moving into a neighborhoodor did she just like the flat and the fish-shop on the corner?  Did she want to know and contribute to a community, or build an isolated fort on the Bay for sex and other thought experiments?  How was this space opened for me?

You see I knew this hood before I landed here, have friends, a few enemies perhaps, and have celebrated, cried, and struggled here. My entry was a strange homecoming, and I mean every syllable when I say I love it.  I don’t live in a hip spot, get no cool points for my domicile, yet I am surrounded by one of the most creative, resilient, strong communities that I’ve ever encountered.  But is it visible?  To Who?

And my roommate (my sweet, generous roommate)…Does she know that she is invisible not by race but by perceived class, translucent and gentile, not only able to dodge bullets but able to dodge us all?  Who is more afraid, my roommate, or the people who see a foreclosure sign hanging off of her “general good intentions”, and the bulldozer of green-washed upwardmobility as homespirals further and further from the atmosphere into the deepest recesses of space?

Jenny - Gentrification

Who am I in this City?

I am a class and education privileged (I have a master’s degree) 27-year old queer, White/Puerto Rican/Filipina mixed race woman, not from California.  I am trying to substitute teach in the city to create a more-flexible schedule compared to having more traditional jobs. I live with my Filipina-immigrant, college-educated partner in Berkeley/Oakland border.  I moved to California around 1 and a half years from Chicago with my sister who moved to San Francisco for her residency program as a gynecologist.  Before Chicago, I had lived in Michigan for 13 years.  Before Michigan, I lived in Japan, where I was born.

How am I impacted by gentrification?

 I am impacted by gentrification.  I must be profiting from it.  It allows me to live in a place with affordable rent for me and where a lot of young, like-minded queer people live around me.  I was not raised in California and it was my privilege that gave me a choice to move here.  It was my privilege that helped me find a place to live.  Because I have lighter skin, a masters degree, was a public school teacher, can speak English fluently without an accent, etc…landlords favor people like me and make it easier for me to move in compared to someone else who may not have those privileges.  My P.O.C. family (chosen and nuclear) without class/education privilege would have had a lot harder time renting the place.   They probably would have been denied. You have to show pay check stubs and bank account statements to prove you can pay the rent.  As a result, for the landlords, the more people like me they rent to, the more white people with more money will feel comfortable moving in and the more the rent will rise and the more poor people and people of color are pushed out of the area.  With this said, I am profiting from gentrification and I am being used by the landlords/developers to raise the property value for their profit.

HOW GENTRIFICATION AFFECTS ME

                                                 Ethan Davidson

    I have lived in a section 8 studio apartment since 1988.  It has a nice place with good security.

    Although the Tenderloin is relatively resistant to gentrification, there are definitely people who want it gentrified. 

     It is no longer possible to get section 8 units in San Francisco.  If I lost my unit, I would have to move north to either Marin or Sonoma County.

      I have serious health problems, but I have found good health care providers that accept medical.  In Marin and Sonoma County, it is much harder.  Things are also very dispersed, and the public transportation system is not very good.  It would be hard to get to whatever health care providers I had without a car, especially when I am sick.

HERBERT HOTEL

by

Dennis Gary

I am a resident of the Herbert Hotel on Powell Street.  It is being transformed from a residential hotel (SRO) to a tourist and student hotel.

As my fellow residents die off, their rooms are upgraded to tourist rooms, complete with hardwood floors and built-in televisions.  My room has an aging rug and no TV.

But I can get the Internet after a fight with management, which stated that the free wi-fi was not meant for residents – just tourists and students.

For a month, I could not get on the hotel’s wi-fi because they would not give me a password.  Then Sari of Central City SRO Collaborative appeared on the scene and suddenly I was given the password.

When the light fixture above my mirror burned out, my chest of drawers started falling apart, and paint started peeling from the ceiling, maintenance was suddenly too busy working on tourist and student rooms.

Then Jeannie of  the “In Home Support Services Collaborative” called the general manager and two hours later I had a new light fixture, a new chest of drawers, and a fresh coat of paint on my ceiling.

Zoe Bender

Gentrification Blog                                       

I am 26 year old white girl with an asymmetrical hair cut who gets in free to most clubs because I dance so good. I am an unemployed college graduate. I have 84 cents in my bank account and I just applied to graduate school that will cost tens of thousands of dollars. I am a radical queer hipster who uses my foodstamps at health food stores. I am an artist and an aspiring revolutionary. I don’t own a car or bike, so I walk most places, at all hours of the day and night, and never feel unsafe.

Two years ago, my parents decided to move out of their rural beach-town house and back to San Francisco. My Dad is a painter who makes his money doing tech support for small businesses and my Mom is a writer who makes money as a development director for a non-profit arts organization. They found a place on 7^thand Market that was not zoned for residential, but convinced the property manager to let them move into what used to be a garment factory. Over the course of a few months, they worked with the property manager to design a community of live-work spaces for artists. Most of the people that moved in are art students in their 20s, about two-thirds of whom are white. In exchange for her work in designing and managing the project, my Mom got a small additional studio rent-free for a year.  When I lost my job and house in October, my mom offered to let me move into her office space.

Gentrification is the reason I live where I do. Rent is very affordable, which is why my parents can live there, and why they have an extra room that I can live in. Part of the reason my parents were able to convince the property manager to let them move in was that the presence of artists in the neighborhood will eventually increase the property value. This neighborhood is a burgeoning hub of gentrification. Some of my wealthy, white friends don’t want to come visit me in this ‘scary’ part of town. Over the last two years I’ve seen bicycle shops, coffee shops and art galleries open up all over the neighborhood. About a year ago, a new nightclub opened up on 6^thand Market. The club is called Monarch, and was recently voted one of the best sound systems in America. Every Tuesday I walk down 6^thStreet from Mission to Market to go dance to trap and dubstep at Monarch. I avoid making eye contact with the people I pass who are hanging outside the SROs and liquor stores. When they talk to me, I mostly ignore them. When I get to monarch, it’s like walking into a different universe, with chic Victorian era design and a mostly white crowd. Inside Monarch, I relax, surrounded by my fellow perpetrators of gentrification.  

Theresa Hays -Who am I in this City?

How am I impacted by gentrification?

I am Theresa Hays, an African American woman who about 12 years ago was living with my husband in a 1BR apartment in the Hunter’s Point section of the city…right near the Navy Shipyard.  I had become very ill due to a condition I suffered with which left me so weak from anemia that I wasn’t able to hold down a job.  My husband’s job laid him off so often and so sporadically until our bills and our rent began to get behind and then unpaid.

I feel that there was a blessing in our storm.  The white man assigned to us from the Property Management Company harassed us so much until we felt uneasy whenever we would leave the apartment to go somewhere wondering if we’d be able to get back in when we came home.  I wrote a letter to the apartment owner, (an African American man), which I pointed out some unhealthy conditions that we had been suffering with in the apartment. We had never talked to them about it because we were behind in our rent.  It was put on that owner’s heart to let us sign a “consensual agreement”, that he wouldn’t report us as an Eviction, and he would forgive the now $11,000 in back rents if we just left.  We looked at it to be a blessing in the storm, and we left.

During the time all this was going on, the Navy Shipyard and Lennar Properties were slowly moving in the area, “cleaning up” things.  I attended meetings where Lannar representatives were trying to “push” their cause on the community and San Francisco and the Mayor’s Office.

My husband and I put everything in Storage other than ample clothes that we stacked up and camouflaged behind us inside the back of the truck.  This began our first night of being “HOMELESS”, a word I never thought would describe me/us.  We led this life for 3 years sleeping in our little green pick-up truck not letting anyone know that we were “HOMELESS”.  It was important that we keep our lives looking like “business as usual” and most importantly consistently continuing to give praises to God through it all.

We read articles and heard stories about some shady things happening with Lennar Properties and began to again see that what seemed to be so bad and uncertain, was actually a blessing in the storm.  We were able to escape the experience of being caught up in the clutches of Lennar Properties which we now know is a HUGE EXAMPLE OF GENTRIFICATION in the San Francisco Hunter’s Point section of the city.

Marinette

I am Marinette Tovar Sanchez, Mexican immigrant, living in the Fruitvale area, in the city of Oakland. I am a worker and an artist, an activist, a woman of color. I am, in few or many words, a professional everything-ologist. I am in the constant move to earn the daily bread, in the constant struggle to keep a roof over my head. I rent a room in a warehouse, which I share with 4 other people, also artists, activists and educators who share a space to afford rent.

I have seen gentrification from a couple of different perspectives. The first one is that of an artist who struggles, like many, to make ends meet and pay rent and living expenses. The second perspective is that of a working immigrant woman of color with limited resources and opportunities.

The first perspective helped me understand the impact and effect, negative in many ways, that artists have had in the gentrification of neighborhoods. Women and men who dedicate themselves to creating art often, and in most cases, struggle financially. The money flow of an artist tends to be sporadic, unreliable and unpredictable; this drives artists to look for options that are affordable. Most of the time, the living quarters that artists can afford end up being in low income neighborhoods, considered by many as the ghettos. Little by little, more and more artists move in, following the example and trend of others before them and slowly, the area starts becoming “cool, artsy, hip, quirky, colorful”; as a result, more and more people suddenly want to move in as well, thus driving the demand for housing in those neighborhoods up, along with rent prices and the cost of living in general, making it nearly impossible for the original tenants to afford to stay. Indirectly, especially in places like the Bay Area, artists have been the indirect spear-headers of gentrification; ironically, once other people begin to move in who have the resources that artists don’t have financially, the prices keep escalating and eventually, the artists who moved in to begin with, end up being pushed out of the neighborhood as well.

The second perspective, or more so the direct effect that gentrification had on me, was which I experienced as a low-to-no-income recent immigrant woman. After being homeless for a couple of months, I managed to save up some money. When looking for a place to live, my options were amazingly narrow and almost specific. I basically had to choose from the areas within Oakland where most of the people have been displaced to, thanks to gentrification. These areas were pretty much East Oakland and the not-gentrified side of West Oakland; low-income neighborhoods of people of color with high rates of violence and little to no access to healthy foods, although high and easy access to liquor stores. I ended up choosing East Oakland because luckily, it happens to be where my people, Latin@ people, have concentrated. It is a blessing that out of all the neighborhoods where I could have ended up, I stumbled upon one with a beautiful group of strong people who live in a constant struggle and who are deeply committed and involved in building a resilient, true community.

Iris

Who are you- white, Jewish, owning class, queer, woman, living in Berkeley

How does gentrifukation impact you? I currently live in a mostly gentrified neighborhood in Berkeley, close to 4th street shopping area. This area is less "hip" and close to "cool" places than my old house, near Macarthur bart. At my old place we were the only white people on the block, I felt pretty unsafe and scared, witnessed violence and heard gunshots a couple times, heard a woman moaning outside of my window, and witnessed a sexual assault. It became pretty unbearable to me so I moved out, both because of how scared I felt, and because of how unwanted I knew we all were. Our neighbors were not happy we were there. Part of my decision was also informed by the Rev change session. I know I will be a part of gentrification in my life but I have enough money to avoid being at the forefront of it. I no longer feel at the forefront of gentrification because of where I live, but I do frequently participate in consumerism related to gentrification, such as buying expensive lattes in the Mission or in Oakland, etc. 

Krip-Hop Nation (KHN): Hello Cassandra, tell us about your work and your new single, “My Time”.

Cassandra Saunders: Hi, Leroy! First of all, I need to clarify something. “My Time” was going to be a single from my upcoming album, but as of right now I’m working with a vocal arranger on material that we are going to be pitching to major/independent labels, and independent artists. I feel like I need to establish myself as a lyrical songwriter before I make albums. As far as the song is concerned, it’s about a girl who is determined to show the world that she is going to make a name for herself in the world and nothing is going to stop her.

KHN: You have, or are starting a label, D Minor Entertainment, tell us more.
Cassandra Saunders: The label is in the development stages, but I can tell you that my reasoning behind its development is to implement what I believe will actually aide in stabilizing the economic side of the industry, and also to help develop and promote other disabled urban artists.

KHN: What is your advise for young women with disabilities who want to sing?

Cassandra Saunders: My advice for disabled women, and really any disabled artists who wish to become singers, rappers, or a combination of the two is simply this; when someone or something knocks you down, get right back up and approach the situation from a different angle. Most importantly, never let yourself become defeated, instead become the defeatest.

KHN: What are the projects that you are working on now?

Cassandra Saunders: Currently, I’m continuously writing songs and in about a month, my team and I will start pitching to different entities. As I said in question three, I’m focusing on the label and the corresponding publishing company formation.

KHN: This upcoming album, what are the main messages of the songs?

Cassandra Saunders: Whenever I do release my album, I will do my best to promote positivity in relationships, despite negative situations. And, overcoming struggles in everyday life. I want to be a role model for all my fans; disabled or not.

KHN: What would you say to a major record labels about your work/music?

Cassandra Saunders: What I want to say to record labels about myself and my music is this; the dynamics of the world has changed. The general public has embraced disabled artistry, it’s time that executives in this industry does as well. I am however, refraining from thinking that all hope is lost in regards to that because of the current American Idol contestant who only stutters when he is not singing. I want to see if a major will pick him up even if he is not the American Idol chosen by the public. (Reference for the American Idol comment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLdg9FMp7f8&feature=youtu.be)

KHN: How can people support you work/music?

Cassandra Saunders: At the present time I am working on developing both my official website (Cassondra Saunders.com) and the label’s website (D Minor Entertainment.com) for now you can support my work by following me on twitter https://twitter.com/IWriteLyrics4U and liking our Facebook page http://facebook.com/dminorentertainment

KHN: As a disabled female musician, what can the music industry learn from your work?

Cassandra Saunders: What this industry can learn from my work is that with the right amount of determination and drive, anyone can do anything that they put their mind to. It does not matter the race, color, color, gender, or disability I will not stop preaching that until I stop breathing.

KHN: Tell us your process, high points, and roadblocks of creating your upcoming album.

Cassandra Saunders: To be completely honest, the two occasions that I had the opportunity to record music were learning experiences. There that have never been any roadblocks and the major ups came in knowing that individuals with clout in the industry gave me tremendous help in starting my career and I’ll never forget them. When I do begin recording an album, I’m going to do two things:
a.) I will continue working with a vocal arranger two and sure that I have the best arrangements possible.
b.) Have several meetings with my production team to ensure that we are all on the same page. Everyone will have notes and everything will be structured the way I need it to be.
Did I mention that my label will have acquired distribution from some major label?

KHN: How can people listen to your music and connect with you?

Cassandra Saunders: As of right now, everyone can listen to my music at http://www.soundclick.com/cassandrasaundersmusic. When that page is no longer available, it means that the official website is complete and all twitter accounts related to me will reflect that. People can always contact me at csaunders@cassandrasaunders.com. However, all label inquiries must go to info@dminorentertainment.com. If you forget my twitter ID just look it up using my name in Google or by entering csaunders@cassandrasaunders.com

Screenings
Not Home Screens at Abilities Expo LA

Saturday, March 16th 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Los Angeles Convention Center
West Hall A
1201 South Figueroa Street
Los Angeles, CA 90015

Screening of “Not Home” A Documentary About Kids Living In Nursing Facilities

Presented by Narcel Reedus, Director
Can you imagine how a child feels growing up in a nursing home? Celebrating Christmas, birthdays and other milestones alongside elderly bedridden patients is the mainstay for thousands of children with a developmental disability throughout America. Award-winning filmmaker, Narcel Reedus, reveals the stories of children growing up without a childhood in the heart-felt documentary, “Not Home.” Abilities Expo is pleased to screen a portion of this 99-minute film that examines the complex national phenomenon of children living in nursing homes and state-run institutions. Often times parents of medically-fragile children feel forced to make the decision to institutionalize their child because some states disproportionately allocate funding for brick and mortar institutions rather than the less expensive home and community based living. Time for questions and answers will be available following the session. Learn more at www.nothomedocumentary.com. A limited number of DVD’s will be available for purchase following the screening.

http://www.abilitiesexpo.com/losangeles/index.html

Not Home: A documentary about kids living in nursing facilities is an official selection of the North Carolina Black Film FestivalMarch 14-17, 2013 in Wilmington, NC. In its 12th year, the four day juried and invitational festival of independent motion pictures by African-American filmmakers will showcase features, shorts, animation, and documentary films at Cameron Art Museum on Thursday and Sunday; Friday at UNCW Warwick Center, and Saturday at the Hannah Block USO Community Arts Center on Saturday.Prizes of $500 will be awarded in each category. Opening night tickets are $10; otherwise admission is $5 per screening block and $25 for ALL-ACCESS festival passes.
North Carolina Black Film Festival March 14-17, 2013 in Wilmington, NC. In its 12th year, the four day juried and invitational festival of independent motion pictures by African-American filmmakers will showcase features, shorts, animation, and documentary films at Cameron Art Museum on Thursday and Sunday; Friday at UNCW Warwick Center, and Saturday at the Hannah Block USO Community Arts Center on Saturday.Prizes of $500 will be awarded in each category. Opening night tickets are $10; otherwise admission is $5 per screening block and $25 for ALL-ACCESS festival passes.

Not Home Documentary Screens UC Berkeley

Narcel Reedus’s documentary “Not at Home” will be shown on Tuesday March 19, 5pm, with a talk by the filmmaker, at UC Berkeley, 300 Wheeler Hall (Media Room).

The documentary follows four people, two young people and two parents, exploring how parents of medically-fragile children (especially but not exclusively in poor families, many of them families of color) feel forced to make the decision to institutionalize their child because some states disproportionately allocate funding for brick and mortar institutions rather than the less expensive home and community based living. Sponsored by UCB’s Disability Studies Research Cluster, Diversity and Health Disparities Research Cluster, and Dean Christopher Edley, Berkeley Law School. Wheelchair accessible. For disability accommodation, contact sschweik@berkeley.edu

Not Home Documentary Screens in San Jose

Silicon Valley Independent Living Center
2202 N. First St, San Jose, CA 95131
Monday, March 18, 2013
Doors Open at 6:30 PM
Film Screening at 7:00 PM
Panel Discussion at 8:30 PM
Program Ends at 9:00 PM

Listen to your soul's voice,

it'll tell you what

you should do”

--Displayed on the screen of

a Wells Fargo Bank ATM

I work as a housing advocate in San Francisco, a city whose soul is under attack by those who have sold their souls in exchange for any number of illusions and delusions.  During my lunch break a couple weeks ago I was walking down Mission Street towards Van Ness Avenue. The sun was out after hiding behind the clouds for a few days. I approached the offices of Goodwill industries when I saw a young African American man of about 22-23 years of age talking to two attractive young women of color. I was within earshot of the conversation. I heard the words, “We want to help you get a bank account. It's easy. Wells Fargo has a good program that can help you”. The young man was taken in by the beauty of the deal, of Wells Fargo or—at the very least—by the beauty of the two young women who were smartly dressed and speaking the company line in sweet coo's meant to seduce even the most stubborn and hardened of men, or men like the young brother—clad in work overalls and a baseball cap shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. Then, as if on cue, another young man joined in the exchange, drawn in like a bee to honey and soon the two young men gave the young women the keys to the kingdom, which included their names, phone numbers, driver license numbers, dates of birth and other important data. One of the two young women glanced at her watch on occasion, while acting quite professional. I stood close by, pretending to wait for the #14 Mission bus. Goodbyes were exchanged and the young brothers walked towards the entrance of Goodwill. It was then that my soul's voice made me call out, “Excuse me brothers..did you know that Wells Fargo...?”

Perhaps it was the soul's voices of those young women who told them to try to enlist the young brothers as bank account holders with Wells Fargo in spite of the fact that Wells Fargo is responsible for more foreclosures than any other lender in California. Or perhaps it was the voice of Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf echoing the dictum of corporate shareholders whose greed has caused evictions and death to elders, communities of color, families and people with disabilities through its predatory and discriminatory lending practices.

The Allliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), The Center for Popular Democracy and the Home Defenders League, released a report on Tuesday March 12^th entitled California in Crisis: How Wells Fargo's Foreclosure Pipeline is Damaging Local Communities. ACCE has been at the forefront of the resistance to the foreclosures and illegal taking of homes on the part of the banks. Representatives from ACCE, which include foreclosure resistors from the community, rallied on Tuesday March 12^th in front of Wells Fargo headquarters in San Francisco's financial district to launch the report and call for Wells Fargo to halt foreclosures and commit to a principal reduction program. The report cites Wells Fargo as providing less principal reductions than both Chase and Bank of America—two banks that could themselves—be doing more.

The report's findings show the damage that has been inflicted on the state by Wells Fargo and warns that if the bank does not reverse this course, the financial damage it will cause will further cripple the state's economy and increase the financial severity brought upon communities and communities of color.

According to the study, of the 65,466 loans in California's foreclosure pipeline, 20% of them are serviced by Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo has nearly 12 thousand distressed loans. If those loans go through foreclosure, California will suffer even more than it already has. Homes will lose 22% of their value for a loss of $1.07 billion. Surrounding neighborhood values will go down for an additional loss of $2.2 billion and the tax revenues lost due to depreciation will amount to $20 million. The report includes maps for 7 big cities, focusing on communities of color. Clusters of homes with distressed loans are located in hard hit communities of color.

San Francisco Supervisor David Campos echoed the concerns and expressed support in a statement: “Our communities and our entire state are still reeling from the housing crisis, and will be for years to come. As the report shows, the numbers of homes still facing foreclosure is enormous. Principal reduction is clearly a critical strategy for saving homes and stabilizing the economy. Wells Fargo and the other major banks should be doing more of it.”

Reccommondations of the Report:

Wells Fargo should commit to a broad principal reduction program: Wells Fargo has the legal authority to offer every homeowner facing hardship a loan modification. The modification should be based on an affordable debt-to-income ratio, achieved through a waterfall that prioritizes principal reduction and interest rate reductions.

Wells Fargo should report data on its principal reduction, short sales and foreclosures by race, income and zip code

Wells Fargo should immediately stop all foreclosures until the first 2 demands are met:

ACCE is pushing Wells Fargo to save homes through compliance with the Attorney's General Settlement and homeowner bill of rights and beyond.

To read the report by ACCE: http://www.calorganize.org/sites/default/files/CA%20in%20Crisis%20-%20Wells%20Fargo%20Report.web_.pdf

To send a letter to Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf:  http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6267/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7456

KHN: I’m so excited to finally interview you. I read your work and listen to some of your poetry and it makes me warm inside knowing that you are doing your work and art. Kay Ulanday Barrett: 
Aw, thanks KHN. You’re work has laid the groundwork for artists like me and it’s dope to know that my words can resonate with multiple audiences who do some fresh and thought provoking artistic impact. I have your cd and it is on my laptop soundin’ on-point. Also, the fact that I can bring the warm and fuzzies is a big compliment for me.

KHN: In a rad magazine, Make/shift you explain your injustice with the workplace and worker’s comp. Can you share some highlights, what is new today and how that experience influence your activism today?

Kay Ulanday Barrett: I contributed to The Azolla Project edited by Stacey Milbern, Mia Mingus, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and it was one of the largescale public ways where I came out as someone receiving public assistance as well as where I explored the multiple affects of transphobia, queerphobia, racism, fatphobia, and ableism. I’m now more akin to realizing how all of my identities are pitted against one another. It seems that I received little support medically from my former job and I’d wager from the Worker’s Comp System (WCS), because I read hella queer and genderqueer. You can’t miss it. I’m gender non-conforming, kinda butch, hmmmm what is that? to people who have mainstream understandings of gender. The evaluators feel naturally inclined to misgender me and use “she” pronouns when that isn’t how I identify myself. The doctors shame me by talking about how my body is fat or how I might not be healing or hire-able due to my physical attributes of short hair, no make up. I realize that so many of their interactions are based in heterosexism and a “fix it” mentality, that I must be an absolute puzzle to them. Once in an evaluation, a doctor laughed in my face after looking at my I.D. where I presented as femme and actually said, “Is that really you?! What happened?!” Often, this is how I start my all evaluations, already shamed for being who I am. The system quantifies and divvies up your body by assigning you a ratio that affects your compensation. Depending on how kind or thoughtful or say, queerphobic an evaluator might be, that impacts my financial sustenance. One aspect of my identity is used to shame me and reinforce ableism.

KHN: As a trans man of color with a disability, what do you see in your community, in the activist’s/art’s arena and how do you use your activism/cultural work to create that mirror that many of us strive for?

Kay Ulanday Barrett: I wasn’t born disabled and in chronic pain, so I was (and still am in current ways) privileged as having a predominantly able-bodied existence. In an ableist supremacist world, I was attacked and suddenly, my body became a stranger. We had to unlearn all of our assumptions from function to flirting. All my coping mechanisms, the simplest forms of socializing and act of loving had to be re-negotiated. My masculinity and viability as a trans guy were implicitly in question for some reason. So much of American binary masculinity relies heavily on ableist tropes and limited understandings of physical prowess. Friends who had limited experience with interdependence responded with harmful reactions from saviorism, pity, to the infamous “buck up,” method. I became everyone’s teacher when I was faced with a lonely experience being de-sexualized, emasculated, and an onslaught of unwelcomed paternalism from people in my own community. The general response was that I will “get better,” and so many people couldn’t stay present with me as I faced pain, limited mobility, and surgery. I don’t think activist circles that are predominantly able-bodied are accountable to their privilege. I think they are trying and in many ways, allyship is a hard road yet to be traveled on the east coast. I’m speaking for the anti-racist, progressive, and queer people of color community I have experience in. Often, I feel that there’s little discussion on interdependence as people no matter how collective organizations are, they have not addressed competition and individualist behaviors that are fueled by ableism. Living in New York City is inaccessible. It encourages an impersonal, shrewd, fast-paced climate for those faster, stronger, and other boring unimaginative elitist definitions of accomplishment. I think everyone just wanted my disability to just go away. There’s a fear of the paused and the slow, here. Wrongfully, I feel a general approach has been one of “if you ignore disability and sickness enough, someone will heal up magically.” My disability hasn’t gone away. It continues to lead to others’ ablebodied discomfort and I hope that incites awareness. There are moments where I challenge myself to be patient with interactions like these, as I try to remember that I was able-bodied and had such a tremendous room for learning too. What being disabled has done is enhance my love networks and my politics. Just like when I came out as politically queer or trans, I’ve had to choose to let go f loved ones who just couldn’t understand my politically crip/krip existence and how systematic oppression inform my life as a newly disabled API mixed race queer person.

KHN: In your cultural work what are your main goals for your audience and do you collaborate with others that share your identities on the stage and page?

Kay Ulanday Barrett: My art and cultural work have fine-tuned their worth in the recent years. I like to hope that my audience and I work in a kinship to dare. Dare new dynamics of social change, dare new dynamics that re-assesses and re-imagine what beautiful and handsome are. Dare to take a fucking break when everyone else says go go go! Due to physical limitations and needs, I cannot just do things on a whim. I cannot travel or book performances in quick advance or sleep just anywhere. I’ve had to learn to be more intentional and collaborate with people who are more intentional, more accessible, willing to negotiate new models of political art and aesthetic. I I’m down with cultural work and collaborators who bend conventional aspirations of body and the way we question innovation. I cannot afford to align in social justice and change that’s selectively plucks out the sick ones, the broken, the crips, the awkward, the queer, the disabled. I encourage everyone to feel this loss, mourn it, it’s something visceral to feel it in the pulse and practice dedicated to freedom. We've been doing the work. This erasure of our ancestors, of my family, is not liberation. Come on now, let us call it what it is: a systematic tool of alienation and subordination that purposely leaves so many of us behind.

KHN: Like me, you are on the college lecture/cultural scene what do you see in that scene that is creative and on the other end might be cultural theft from academia? And what do you think about when cultural expression gets into academia like Hip-Hop and others?

Kay Ulanday Barrett: That is a necessary and fly question, if I may say. Academia like other realms of elite and privilege is an arena where I am the most skeptical guy. But I find that disabled people and those of multiple communities in struggle have had to utilize academia for one way or another. I think in the community and culture of hip-hop, many of us as former spoken word poets, emcees, djs, B-people, and graf artists have aged into academic thresholds as a means to maintain a collective archive. How many of us POCS, poor people, queer, immigrant and children of immigrants, and/or physically disabled people have had to be the token at the fancy wine and cheese event? We code-switch, sharpen or bite our tongues based on our access to resources and it is a wary exhausting dance. The trick is to find those like you to help you center and buoy the relevance of your work, the larger work you want to be a part of.

KHN: You are aware of Krip-Hop Nation. As a trans man of color with a disability what do you see in Hip-Hop and if you had a magic wand what will you change in that arena mainstream and underground?

Kay Ulanday Barrett: Underground hip-hop helped raise me as a little brown amerikan queer kinda guy. It helped lend a voice to survive poverty and racism in a very segregated Chicago. Somewhere in me is a secret emcee and an even more bashful beatboxer. Later, as a prominent force in theater and spoken word, hip-hop enlightened so much of my work even though it's pretty heteronormative. Brown political hip-hop still is shady to queer folks, women, disabled folks. Even during the late 90's and early 2000's with the ascendence of homo-hop and gifted women of color like Queen GodIs and DJ Kuttin' Kandi who hype up the stage, there was a gap of understanding ableism and specific forms of body policing. Learning about Krip-Hop Nation has helped me interrogate how hip-hop as a medium glorifies able-bodied hustle. KHN responds to the call of a hip-hop that involves care, involves various bodies and braveries that I think really resonate with hip-hop at its core. Hip-hop is an organizing force for low-income, poor, people of color and people on the margins to reinvent the world with interdisciplinary finesse. Disabled people are in every facet of this conversation. Based on this, interdependence and Krip/crip empowerment is inevitable with hip-hop, I think. We have to show ourselves and people using art as tools for movement building that our bodies, our rights, our sustenance cannot submit to racist, queerphobic, ableist and american greed and competitive models that work to divide and minimize our communities.

www.kaybarrett.net