I have a cousin who lives in the city. He’s been there about 30 years. I remember when he first moved. I went to see him and I told him, “Dude, this is the worst part of town. No one lives here but derelicts and poor people.” He smiled and said, “Well, I qualify on both counts.”
He fixed up the place real nice and was happy there until recently. Gentrification has reared its ugly head. All of a sudden rich people have “discovered” his neighborhood and they are buying up the buildings, moving out the tenants, fixing up the places. Some people see this as improving the neighborhood, upgrading. But for those who are forced to move out it is devastating.
Renters never have any security when it comes to permanence. Landlords can raise rents or sell the property and the renter is at the mercy of the new owner.
Some areas have tried rent control, some have tried moratoriums on building, but in our society money rules, capitalism triumphs and poor people suffer. The moral in America is, “Don’t be poor.”
My cousin tries to complain. He says, “The people that made this city great, the artists, musicians, performers; the reason people come to this city is for the vibe and the people creating the vibe can no longer afford to live here.”
I don’t have an answer for him. If I did I’d share it with us who live in Sonoma County, because we too are starting to suffer from a form of gentrification. We are seeing people from other areas that have “discovered” Sonoma County coming here and buying up property. They pay more than we are used to and sometimes tear the house down completely to build a whole new one. This happened around the corner from me. I have to admit the old house needed to be torn down and the new house is gorgeous. But, obviously those new people have way more money than the rest of us in the neighborhood, or at least us regular folks.
These events are hard to reconcile. People should have the right to buy property where they choose and pay whatever they want. Sellers should have a right to get as much for their property as the market will bear. But where does this lead?
Most of our children cannot afford to buy property near us. Many of our friends are being forced to move away.
I hear people clamor for more affordable housing, but what does that mean? In much of California today nothing seems affordable.
When I hear people discussing housing I seldom hear anyone including the discussion of resources. We just went through a horrible drought. Do we have the water to sustain more people, more housing? What about waste products, what about infrastructure, are our resources unlimited, can we keep just adding more and more people to the island?
At some point the answer will be, “No.” Then those with all the money will toss the rest of us out to sea.
A country like ours, that is ruled by money, will never be able to solve the housing problem, because for the people in control higher rents and more expensive property is not a problem. For the rich, escalating values is a windfall.
It would take a paradigm shift to fix issues like housing (or hunger, or environmental poisoning). We as a culture would have to decide that there are issues more important than money. I think that will be almost impossible to achieve. Money is our god, we shall not have false profits.
Gabriel A. Fraire has been a writer more than 45 years. He can be reached at www.gabrielfraire.com.
