Maybe Do This & Gentrification Hurts Less
Maybe Do This & Gentrification Hurts Less
BEphilly: A strategy to stop making poor Black people pay for the cost of their own displacement
an ecoWURD feature
We need to stop making poor Black folks in places like Philadelphia pay for the cost of their own displacement. It’s problematic enough that developers are targeting low-income Black residents and communities and forcing them out of their homes, but it should be criminal to make these same people pay for the cost of having to leave.
That’s where policy comes in.
The battle to keep residents housed in Philadelphia’s University City Townhomes provides a crystal clear example of how the profit margins of developers are buffered and bolstered by the devaluation of Black lives. The cost of displacement is never truly factored into the purchase price or development contract. Those costs are forced upon residents and communities and those sacrifices are offered up to developers in the forms of discounts and project funding. Maybe that should be done differently.
The University City Townhomes was built on a foundation of displacement. It sits on what was once known as the Black Bottom. This area was targeted for redevelopment and a coalition of developers, politicians, and Penn State representatives. They successfully displaced 2,653 people … 78 percent were Black.
A little more than a decade later, the Altman Group bought the property for $1. As part of a larger deal to secure the entire block, and under pressure from community activist groups, Altman had to maintain the 73 unit, two complex development for section 8 renters for 39 years. That agreement ends on July 8, 2022. Rather than renew their agreement, they have decided to remove the residents – many of whom are elders that have lived there for decades – and sell the property for upwards of $100 million dollars.
With the property valued at $70,000 (according to housing advocate and UC Townhomes residential lawyer Sterling Johnson) that’s close to a 143,000 percent mark-up for those counting.
Here we have a situation where poor Black residents were displaced so that wealthy White developers could take over their property. Those same developers are once again displacing poor Black residents so they turn a profit. Meanwhile, the residents are being treated like little more than cattle and being forced into further poverty and distress.
Black residents should not feel like they exist in this city at the pleasure of White developers. They should not be removed or relocated from their homes at their own expense because it is profitable to a few rich White people. At the very least, the economic cost of displacement should be paid by the developers and the public officials that support them – not the targets of their removal processes.
And there are policies that can be put in place to do just that.
In Montgomery County Maryland, for example, a bill passed in 2020 requires
…Landlords to pay relocation expenses for permanently or temporarily displaced residents in units condemned by the DHCA, which handles code enforcement for the county’s rental housing. For permanently displaced residents — those forced to relocate for 30 days or more — a landlord must pay whichever is greater: three months of the tenant’s actual rent or three months of the fair market rent value for the unit’s ZIP code, as defined by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Seattle’s Relocation Assistance Ordinance reads ….
Property owners and developers must get a Tenant Relocation License if the project meets the criteria listed above. The license covers all renters in your building. Only low-income renters receive relocation assistance of $4,232.00. Property owners pay half of that amount ($2,116.00) and the City of Seattle pays the other half ($2,116.00).
Similar ordinances have also been passed in California and Texas. So why not Philadelphia? Why not expand that assistance beyond relocation costs. The sale of these properties are dependent on the upheaval of residents lives. They should be compensated accordingly. Developers can absolutely afford it.
Recently, the following question was posted on Twitter …
The answer is: Because City Council hasn’t passed legislation to make that happen, yet. Philadelphia Rent Control Coalition responded with that same point …
Low income Black neighborhoods have become the targets for gentrification. Developers move in. Black folks move out. We need to find ways to stop this destructive cycle, which not only wears on Black communities, but also wears on the overall city and regional economy. Black Philadelphians deserve homes and deserve to stay in their communities. They deserve to have investments made in their neighborhoods without being removed to make way for largely white and affluent residents. Where we can’t prevent displacement, policymakers should explore how developers - who are making more than enough in revenue - are compelled to pay for more than just the property. Equity should be centered in development. Black communities and families should not be forced into deeper poverty and longer years of disruption as a result of the displacement caused by profit margins.
More than half of renters in Philly are "cost burdened." More than 40 percent of residents in the U.S. also rent, and many are cost burdened - and the majority of Black renters are cost burdened. That's a crisis. A path to much more secure housing, whether that’s home ownership or just, simply, fair, affordable and protected housing is an ultimate goal. But, we’ll need to ask: what do we do about targeted, displaced and housing insecure Black renters right now? We’ll need to demand policymakers look for protections for them in the here and now so as to not destabilize that long path to homeownership. How exactly are they going to get to homeownership if they are constantly being displaced from development schemes? This level of displacement without funding assistance will cause years-long irreversible damage and prevent these renters from eventually becoming homeowners or much more secure residents.
Legislation can be passed to …
Ensure that relocation fees absorbed by residents are paid, and
A percentage of the profits made on the sale of a property or the securement of funding for a development is passed on to residents
This kind of process can help slow the process of gentrification and begin the process of building up Black communities. It’s time policymakers look into that.