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1. How do renters push low-income families out of their homes? 2. How does gentrification steal a community’s identity? 3. Who is to blame? The people buying? Selling? Red-lining? Capitalism? Why?

1. How do renters push low-income families out of their homes? 2. How does gentrification steal a community’s identity? 3. Who is to blame? The people buying? Selling? Red-lining? Capitalism? Why?

Social Psychology (10th Edition)
Social Psychology (10th Edition)
10th Edition
ISBN:9780134641287
Author:Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, Samuel R. Sommers
Publisher:Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, Samuel R. Sommers
Chapter1: Introducing Social Psychology
Section: Chapter Questions
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1. How do renters push low-income families out of their homes? 2. How does gentrification steal a community’s identity? 3. Who is to blame? The people buying? Selling? Red-lining? Capitalism? Why?
They are a living reminder of the challenges facing a city struggling to make room for all its current residents, and all the new ones to come: the people of an older Crown Heights, who cannot afford the new. Like longtime tenants from San Francisco to Harlem, the African-Americans and West Indians who have made their homes for generations in this Brooklyn neighborhood are scattering, muscled out by surging rents and, tenant advocates say, landlords who harass tenants, withhold repairs or use evictions to make room for higher-income renters. Some move in with relatives. Some scrabble for a foothold in one of the city's remaining cheap areas. And some give up on New York altogether. "I would've stayed, of course. New York is my home. I love it," said Kenlin Harris, 34, who left Crown Heights for Virginia after the rent rose and the rats multiplied at her apartment on Park Place. "But you look at it now, it's like, O.K., actually, I can't believe that we were living like that." The prosperity that is remaking New York City one neighborhood after another came to Crown Heights invisibly and then unmistakably - slowly, and then all at once. ... The New York Times interviewed more than three dozen current and former residents of the neighborhood, as well as tenant advocates, lawyers and sociologists, to explore the paths they travel after Crown Heights, to eastern Brooklyn, to the South or even back to the Caribbean. Between 2000 and 2010, Crown Heights and the two neighborhoods to its south and east, Flatbush and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, all areas with large West Indian immigrant populations, each lost from 10 to 14 percent of their black populations, according to an analysis of the 2010 census released by the Department of City Planning. Keisha Jacobs, a community organizer who has rallied tenants to protest predatory landlords, grew up in Crown Heights. Over the past 15 years, she has watched most of her childhood friends and neighbors move away. "I'm one of the few who can still walk to my mom's house," she said. Pricey shops and restaurants have opened in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, as higher-income residents have moved in. The people arriving in Crown Heights are fleeing high rents in Manhattan and elsewhere in Brooklyn. Likewise, the people leaving Crown Heights often go farther east into Brooklyn in search of affordable homes, most commonly to East Flatbush, Canarsie and East New York. The monthly rent on Shirley De Matas's two-bedroom apartment at 1170 Lincoln Place was $800 in 1999, when she, her husband and their three children moved in. By 2014, it had risen to nearly $1,300, a sum that forced Ms. De Matas, a seamstress, and her husband, a mechanic, to skimp on everything else. Compounding the strain were the pipes, which regularly burst in the winter. And the mice. And the rat that died in the wall, decaying until its stench pervaded the apartment. And the superintendent who, they said, did little to help. Tenant advocates and lawyers believe that landlords in gentrifying areas like Crown Heights often withhold repairs or basic services from lower-paying tenants, hoping they will get frustrated enough to leave, then pack the apartments with higher-paying ones. ... At her apartment at 761 Prospect Place, Angelique Coward had battled mold, flies and rats for three years before deciding, finally, to leave. Every time her landlord said the issue had been fixed, the problems came back, she said. She and her four children decamped last year for her mother's apartment, three floors above hers. Her own apartment was promptly renovated and rented to three young women who paid $3,100 a month for it, $1,400 more than Ms. Coward had. A neighbor had similar problems. She moved to Georgia. ...At 930-940 Prospect Place, where tenants took their landlord to court in January last year over what they said was his failure to provide heat and hot water in winter- a tactic designed to push out low-income tenants, they said - Ransworth Blair, one of the plaintiffs, set up five space heaters in his toddler daughter's room to keep her warm. As the case limped through housing court, the landlord sued Mr. Blair over what he said were missing rent payments, though Mr. Blair insisted he did not owe anything. The judge eventually ruled in Mr. Blair's favor, he said, but the stress of juggling two court cases and work was overwhelming. His marriage broke apart, and he left the building. The only affordable places he and his ex-wife could find were in the Bronx. ...Raquel Cruz, who makes a living doing cleaning and other odd jobs, took a $10,000 buyout from her landlord to vacate her apartment on Franklin Avenue in 2010. The agreement included three months of rent at a $1,300-a-month apartment that the landlord found for her in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. When the money ran out, she began pawning her possessions to pay the rent. Ms. Cruz caught a break when her years-old application for public housing was granted a few months later. But most who take buyouts quickly run through even substantial one-time payouts. A few years ago, the owner of 1159 President Street began offering tenants buyouts as much as $70,000 or more. A few took the offer... Donna Mossman, a longtime resident who belongs to the Crown Heights Tenants Union, a local pro-tenant group, shared: "I've been here 38 years; I'm not going anywhere," she said, explaining her decision to refuse the buyout. "But if you've never had $50,000, that seems like a lot of money." Brooklyn was once the home the residents of Crown Heights took for granted. Now, for many, it seems an impossibility, falling out of reach the moment they leave their family's rent-controlled apartment. Glady's, a trendy Caribbean restaurant on Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, opened in 2013. With few options, some are returning to the Caribbean, once their home, or their parents' home. "They just give up on everything," said Tony Blackmun, a metalworker who has lived in Crown Heights for more than 30 years. Several of his neighbors and friends have left for their native Trinidad...
Transcribed Image Text:They are a living reminder of the challenges facing a city struggling to make room for all its current residents, and all the new ones to come: the people of an older Crown Heights, who cannot afford the new. Like longtime tenants from San Francisco to Harlem, the African-Americans and West Indians who have made their homes for generations in this Brooklyn neighborhood are scattering, muscled out by surging rents and, tenant advocates say, landlords who harass tenants, withhold repairs or use evictions to make room for higher-income renters. Some move in with relatives. Some scrabble for a foothold in one of the city's remaining cheap areas. And some give up on New York altogether. "I would've stayed, of course. New York is my home. I love it," said Kenlin Harris, 34, who left Crown Heights for Virginia after the rent rose and the rats multiplied at her apartment on Park Place. "But you look at it now, it's like, O.K., actually, I can't believe that we were living like that." The prosperity that is remaking New York City one neighborhood after another came to Crown Heights invisibly and then unmistakably - slowly, and then all at once. ... The New York Times interviewed more than three dozen current and former residents of the neighborhood, as well as tenant advocates, lawyers and sociologists, to explore the paths they travel after Crown Heights, to eastern Brooklyn, to the South or even back to the Caribbean. Between 2000 and 2010, Crown Heights and the two neighborhoods to its south and east, Flatbush and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, all areas with large West Indian immigrant populations, each lost from 10 to 14 percent of their black populations, according to an analysis of the 2010 census released by the Department of City Planning. Keisha Jacobs, a community organizer who has rallied tenants to protest predatory landlords, grew up in Crown Heights. Over the past 15 years, she has watched most of her childhood friends and neighbors move away. "I'm one of the few who can still walk to my mom's house," she said. Pricey shops and restaurants have opened in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, as higher-income residents have moved in. The people arriving in Crown Heights are fleeing high rents in Manhattan and elsewhere in Brooklyn. Likewise, the people leaving Crown Heights often go farther east into Brooklyn in search of affordable homes, most commonly to East Flatbush, Canarsie and East New York. The monthly rent on Shirley De Matas's two-bedroom apartment at 1170 Lincoln Place was $800 in 1999, when she, her husband and their three children moved in. By 2014, it had risen to nearly $1,300, a sum that forced Ms. De Matas, a seamstress, and her husband, a mechanic, to skimp on everything else. Compounding the strain were the pipes, which regularly burst in the winter. And the mice. And the rat that died in the wall, decaying until its stench pervaded the apartment. And the superintendent who, they said, did little to help. Tenant advocates and lawyers believe that landlords in gentrifying areas like Crown Heights often withhold repairs or basic services from lower-paying tenants, hoping they will get frustrated enough to leave, then pack the apartments with higher-paying ones. ... At her apartment at 761 Prospect Place, Angelique Coward had battled mold, flies and rats for three years before deciding, finally, to leave. Every time her landlord said the issue had been fixed, the problems came back, she said. She and her four children decamped last year for her mother's apartment, three floors above hers. Her own apartment was promptly renovated and rented to three young women who paid $3,100 a month for it, $1,400 more than Ms. Coward had. A neighbor had similar problems. She moved to Georgia. ...At 930-940 Prospect Place, where tenants took their landlord to court in January last year over what they said was his failure to provide heat and hot water in winter- a tactic designed to push out low-income tenants, they said - Ransworth Blair, one of the plaintiffs, set up five space heaters in his toddler daughter's room to keep her warm. As the case limped through housing court, the landlord sued Mr. Blair over what he said were missing rent payments, though Mr. Blair insisted he did not owe anything. The judge eventually ruled in Mr. Blair's favor, he said, but the stress of juggling two court cases and work was overwhelming. His marriage broke apart, and he left the building. The only affordable places he and his ex-wife could find were in the Bronx. ...Raquel Cruz, who makes a living doing cleaning and other odd jobs, took a $10,000 buyout from her landlord to vacate her apartment on Franklin Avenue in 2010. The agreement included three months of rent at a $1,300-a-month apartment that the landlord found for her in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. When the money ran out, she began pawning her possessions to pay the rent. Ms. Cruz caught a break when her years-old application for public housing was granted a few months later. But most who take buyouts quickly run through even substantial one-time payouts. A few years ago, the owner of 1159 President Street began offering tenants buyouts as much as $70,000 or more. A few took the offer... Donna Mossman, a longtime resident who belongs to the Crown Heights Tenants Union, a local pro-tenant group, shared: "I've been here 38 years; I'm not going anywhere," she said, explaining her decision to refuse the buyout. "But if you've never had $50,000, that seems like a lot of money." Brooklyn was once the home the residents of Crown Heights took for granted. Now, for many, it seems an impossibility, falling out of reach the moment they leave their family's rent-controlled apartment. Glady's, a trendy Caribbean restaurant on Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights, opened in 2013. With few options, some are returning to the Caribbean, once their home, or their parents' home. "They just give up on everything," said Tony Blackmun, a metalworker who has lived in Crown Heights for more than 30 years. Several of his neighbors and friends have left for their native Trinidad...
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