Displacement, Segregation (News)

NY Working Class to be Hit Hard by Financial Crisis

Editor2 — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:23:04 -0500

By Nayaba Arinde, Amsterdam News

“When Wall Street catches a cold, the Black community catches pneumonia,” assessed Councilmember Charles Barron. “We are in trouble.”

Before Lehman Brothers was thrown a financial lifeline late on Tuesday, and we, the people, bought an 80 percent share in A.I.G. to save the failing company, Monday saw distressed cardboard box–carrying shirt-sleeved guys and office-smart ladies streaming out of offices on Wall Street. “This fiscal approach to bailing out the rich is a reverse Robin Hood—robbing the poor to give the rich,” charged an angry Barron. “Under Bill Clinton, the conservative Democrat, and Reagan and Bush, the banking and finance industry was deregulated and they were allowed to run amok with the people’s money and make bad decisions and investments. And now, they are coming back to hurt the economy and poor people.”

This is for all our ancestors who were removed, displaced and evicted..

Editor2 — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:22:25 -0500

By Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia

Be bop bebop..bop..bop

A slow mist rose from the ground co-mingling with candlewax, sage, and car exhaust. Bop..bop..be-bop..bop.. Warm breath weaving through the rhythm of a congo drum entwining with words of resistance from African Peoples, Raza Peoples, Celtic peoples, Pilipino peoples, Native peoples, indigenous peoples all.."One.... we are the people..Two....indigenous people...Three .. and we are taking back the land and ONE....We are the Scholars...Two... indigenous scholars and Three... we are taking back OUR land!..."

Citing the articles from the United Nations(UN)Declaration on Indigenous Peoples adopted one year ago by the UN General Assembly, displaced, evicted and removed children, mamaz, daddys, tias and tios, aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, elders, ancestors, and spirits from all across Turtle Island; Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, New Orleans and DQ University gathered to pray, testify and resist on Market street at sunrise in a spiritual, political and revolutionary ceremony of resistance to out of control development, eviction, displacement and criminalization locally and globally.

Report: some Pleasanton apartment complexes discriminate

Editor2 — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:02:44 -0500

by Janet Pelletier

A new study released by ECHO Housing, a nonprofit housing counseling agency, says 30 percent of Pleasanton apartment complexes that were audited showed some form of discrimination based on race.

Foreclosed properties become rentals

Editor2 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

By Eve Mitchell

AS the mortgage meltdown forces more homes into foreclosure in the Bay Area, some of these properties are being picked up by investors who are putting them back into the rental market.

The upshot of this activity is that more single-family houses are starting to show up as rentals in parts of the East Bay — such as Antioch — and in San Joaquin County. In addition, some condo for-sale properties in downtown Oakland — such as the Broadway Grand — are being rented out as apartments because developers are having a hard time finding buyers in today's tough housing market.

Some evicted in 'renewal' may get housing help

Editor2 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Leslie Fulbright, Chronicle Staff Writer

Descendants of people displaced during the redevelopment of San Francisco's Western Addition and Hunters Point decades ago would be given first priority for the city's affordable housing under a measure pending before city leaders.

The proposal, which is scheduled for a vote by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors on Sept. 9, would give housing reparations citywide to people forced out of the Fillmore area in the 1950s and 1960s and Hunters Point in the 1970s, as well as their children and grandchildren. They would be put at the top of the city's lottery system that awards much-coveted affordable housing units.

Despite declines, Silicon Valley still has most costly U.S. housing, survey says

Editor2 — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

STRONG JOB GROWTH SUPPORTS PRICE LEVELS IN SAN JOSE AREA
By Sue McAllister

Don't let those "price reduced" signs get you thinking that homeownership in Silicon Valley is a bargain: The San Jose metro area is still the nation's most expensive housing market, according to a national survey released Thursday.

True, the median price of houses sold in the San Jose metro area in the second quarter fell nearly 13 percent compared with a year earlier. But despite the decline, the median price of $755,000 was the highest of any metropolitan area in the country, a report from the National Association of Realtors said.

Black exodus emergency

Editor2 — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

A task force's plan to stop African American depopulation finally gets a hearing

By Sarah Phelan

San Francisco is losing its black population faster than any other large city in the United States — and the trend is unlikely to stop unless the city takes immediate action.

So says a draft report from an African American out-migration task force put together by the Mayor's Office last year. It wasn't published in final form early enough to have an impact on the June 3 election, when voters green-lighted Lennar Corp.'s plan to develop thousands of luxury condos in Bayview/Candlestick Point, one of the few remaining African American neighborhoods in San Francisco.

Western Addition Displacement Reparations Bill Moves Forward

Editor2 — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

by Ben Malley

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi’s legislation giving descendants of those displaced by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency from the Western Addition priority in obtaining affordable housing, passed the Land Use Committee and will go before the Board of Supervisors on September 9.

The legislation is nicely timed – though not intentionally – with the African American Out-migration Task Force’s report that San Francisco’s black population has dropped faster than any other large U.S. city. While many of those displaced from the Western Addition in the 1960s were Japanese, two-thirds were African American.

Black population deserting S.F., study says

Editor2 — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Leslie Fulbright, Chronicle Staff Writer

African Americans are leaving San Francisco because of substandard schools, a lack of affordable housing and the dearth of jobs and black culture, according to a report by a committee looking into the exodus.

The African American Out-migration Task Force, put together by the mayor's office last year to figure out what can be done to preserve the city's remaining black population and cultivate new residents, presented its findings at a public hearing Thursday called by Supervisor Chris Daly.

Editorial: Probe discrimination in housing practices

Editor2 — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0500

MediaNews editorial

IN THE 21ST CENTURY, one would have thought housing discrimination in the Bay Area was a thing of the past. Unfortunately, that apparently is not the case.

The Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity, a publicly supported nonprofit housing counseling agency, conducted tests in nine Bay Area communities and found landlords discriminated in 29 percent of the cases.

As the group's report concludes, "Although the days of seeing signs displaying the words, 'No coloreds' are long gone, the threads of racism continue to appear in the fabric of our American way of life."