Looters and Thieves: the art of destroying a neighborhood through gentrification
My neighborhood has been victimized by looters and thieves for years, and I'm not talking about shoplifters or those who smash windows, but those who systematically and strategically exploit the poor so they can structure the neighborhood to meet their goals. In this post, I want to elaborate on what I said in Our Rebellious Mission , where the decisions of a few can be very destructive and harmful to the poor and vulnerable. Right next to CCO we've been sadly watching this old building being torn apart to build a fancy new place. The Wilson Men's Hotel offered cheap rent to people who could barely afford to live anywhere else. All of these older men are now gone, evicted, scattered throughout the city! This demolition caused plenty of tragic tales, but the one that struck me the hardest was how Bart, an 84-year-old blind man, who’d been living there for 15 years, ended up homeless and on our doorstep, alone, seeking shelter. We took him in, but Bart’s story speaks of ho