Housing and Justice

This commentary, written by friend Steve Martinot, sums up my views and reminds me of my fears. We have much to lose when the pursuit of profit is prioritized above human need.

Introduction

Three winds of social concern and discontent are sweeping through the streets of Bay Area cities with a force that is beginning to disrupt the flow of political traffic. The strongest of them is the need and demand for affordable housing. Against the prior plans of various city councils for the construction of fancy high-rise high-income towers (and two such towers, 12 and 18 stories tall, are planned for downtown Berkeley), neighborhoods are organizing, and recognizing themselves in a new way. In Oakland, people took over city council to stop such a tower on public land. In SF, there is a call for a moratorium on market rate housing. In Berkeley, neighbors gather in local townhall meetings to figure out means of defending their communities. Against what? Housing development? Or is it the fact that massive development has been planned by unelected political bodies, ABAG and the MTC, that will flood these cities with above market rate housing and condos. A year ago, when ABAG and the MTC finalized their “Plan Bay Area” in a convention hall in Oakland, and established the Priority Development Areas (PDA) of San Pablo Ave and Adeline (among other), it was against years of protest, and calls to put the Plan to a popular vote – which were ignored.
Now movements have organized around the knowledge that if these new buildings go up in downtown, other neighborhoods will be next. And like all floods, this one will wash away something very important. Even in downtown Berkeley, the 18 story tower will meaning closing a ten-screen multiplex movie theater which brings more people to downtown than any other attraction, and thus is crucial to most other businesses in the area (restaurants, bars, cafes, etc.). With diminished custom, these business will fall like dominos.
Those opposed to the Plan’s development have been called NIMBYs. But they themselves have long been clammoring for development, though for affordable housing instead, as well as justice for the unrich. Is justice a development issue? It is when there is no plan to prevent the coherence and cohesion of community and life-style from being swept into the bay by development that is planned.

Justice and development

Justice is at the core of the other two winds that are gaining in strength. And as we shall see, they are not politically unrelated, though they might seem to be. The second squall that is brewing is a growing popular response and objection to the petty harassment of the homeless that the city has fostered through new piddling regulations. They may seem innocuous, yet that is precisely their meaning and design. They concern the prohibition of small ignorable details of homeless daily existence, which only serve to expand the noticeability horizon of the police. An officer’s mere attention to someone can be escalated at his will to charges of disobedience, should his target merely hesitate or balk at a command, though the person would otherwise be minding his/her own business. The police now have mantras by which they disguise the fact that they have initiated a gratuitous yet aggressive interaction (such as “stop resisting”). Along with this, the city has taken it upon itself to cut budgetary funds for social services and non-profit organizations (particularly in South Berkeley) – organizations that provide benefits for the low income, the impoverished, the homeless, and those in medical and psychological need. It is a move designed to increase destitution and stress, whose ultimate effect will swell the ranks of those inhabiting the streets. Even the poor and the marginalized are showing up in numbers at council meetings to protest, like a wind rattling the windows.
There is a ghost lurking in the shadows, cloaked in euphemism, and trying to fend off the force of these winds with fancy slogans. Its name is "gentrification."
It is the mystical project to build upper income housing in the name of the affordable. Though the city has ordinances requiring that affordable units be included in any new buildings that exceed city size and density limits, it allows developers to buy their way out of that by paying a mitigation fee. And so eager has the city been to have high income development that it has lowered that fee, at the behest of the developers, from $28,000 per non-affordable unit in buildings where affordable units are required, to $20,000. And so malleable are the permit conditions the city requires of developers that they have gotten away with not paying the fee. Thus, many good intentions fade away into an unseen spirit world of political expediency.

Affordable housing

“Affordable housing” means that the rent a family pays is calculated on the basis of the family’s income, and not on the basis of the building’s worth, or the mortgage, or the market. The rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the new downtown buildings will be upwards of $3,000 a month. The concept of "affordable" pertains to those at or below the median income for the county, which is $90,000 a year. HUD defines "affordable" as rent that doesn’t exceed 30% of one’s income. For those at the median, that would be $2,250 a month. Since the median is the "middle," there are as many families earning less than the median as there are earning more. Low income means that which 50% of median income or less. For a family earning $45,000 a year, affordable rent would be $1,125 a month, hardly enough to pay for a small one-bedroom apartment at current rent levels. After taxes (e.g. 15%), which would reduce real income to just over $38,000, that one-bedroom rent would amount to almost 36% of real income. The lower one’s income, the worse these figures get. To house people and families affordably will take political will and political action. Only affordable housing will keep this city livable for half its population. In the PDAs, the opposite is the plan.

Gentrification

Development begins in one of two ways. A developer makes plans with the city, and then buys some land on which to do it. Or the developer buys the land (or buys an option on it), and then talks to city planning, holding its investment as a hole-card (a prior investment the city must protect). In the first case, once word gets around, real estate prices will rise in expectation. In the second case, the developer buys low priced properties, maximizing ultimate profit. Buy low, build, and sell high. The areas where real estate prices are low (and the most profit is to be made) are generally low-income neighborhoods – working class communities, communities of color. They become the primary targets, promising highest return.
Once the word gets out that an area (a PDA) is due for development, however, the disruptions start. Real estate values in the immediate vicinity go up. Speculators come in and buy rental properties, preparing only to sell them at a profit, perhaps evicting all the tenants to prepare for demolition. Among homeowners near the development zone (PDA), competition develops to get the best price from the speculators. As real estate value goes up, so do taxes. The competition to sell increases, and values drop. As more people sell, local residents start to leave the neighborhood.
As this process proceeds, landlords with commercial space raise their rent to open space for stores that cater to a higher income clientele. Local stores close. These are the businesses that local residents depend on for community participation and consumption within their budget. As stores and restaurants close, the community infrastructure decays. Real estate a block or two distant from the PDA falls in value. People start to sell in order not to lose the equity in their house, and to escape the disruptions of construction. Others end up under water, unable to refinance. Some will face foreclosure, defaulting on mortgage rates that are no longer supported by their own real estate values.
Thus, the PDA becomes a machine that chews up community, displaces tenants, contorts real estate values (driving some up and others down), all in order to build new upper income housing. And while it promises new affordable housing (in response to popular demand), it destroys already existing low income housing. Insofar as developers can buy their way out of including affordable housing, it is doubtful that what they build will balance or compensate for what is lost.
In short, new high-rise and high-cost apartments transform the property relations of the community, replacing people of modest means with an elite. Some landowners and landlords get very rich. But many more lose because the infrastructure of their neighborhood has been decimated.
This is what is called gentrification. It is an extreme form of loss of community to corporate displacement of residents and neighborhoods, a loss of community coherence to corporate control.
In the case of West Berkeley, manufacturing, which depends on low rent housing that workers can afford, will be hard hit. The area is the site of most non-high-tech employment outside the university (a state institution). Breweries, food processing, and food distribution companies, for instance, make up a sizable portion of its employment profile. The Berkeley Office of Economic Development has suggested that the employment base needs to be expanded. The San Pablo PDA, however, will replace working class people with upper class, and the jobs landscape will suffer. Along with low income housing, jobs too will be lost.

City budgets and land speculators

Though gentrification may be detrimental to most city residents, it enhances the careers of the political elite. For this reason, against the winds of resistance, the city will foster policies to assist the process, policies designed to move people out of their neighborhoods. It does this through budget cuts and harassment laws.
There are, in every city, a number of non-profits and neighborhood organizations that provide services for the needy – those fallen prey to substance abuse, to homelessness, to varying degrees of impoverishment (requiring rent subsidy or welfare), etc.
When funding for such services is cut, those dependent on them find themselves deprived of essential means of survival. Many turn to more desperate means. Destitution creates social disruption and crime. Policing becomes the first line of attack (requiring higher appropriations for the police). A burgeoning atmosphere of criminalization provides a rationale for evictions, and for generalized social hostility. Real estate values decline, and speculators move in. A general pressure toward exodus will ensue. Thus, budget cuts for a low income neighborhood lay the foundation for high income development. This is the implicit destiny of South Berkeley, for which such funding has been cut, and which is the target of a PDA. We have seen a similar process occurring in West Oakland.
Along with this, Berkeley has been passing various nuisance ordinances to permit greater harassment of the homeless by the police. This too will create greater social tension, providing opportunities for developers to purchase properties cheaply. It works because it occurs in the shadows, and plays on people’s patience through an accumulation of isolated incidents. Residents call on the city for security, and the city responds with proposals for development.
Destitution, homelessness, social chaos, and crime will inevitably lead to community conflict, police control, and an undermining of resident opposition to the onset of gentrification. More people accept their fate and leave the neighborhood.
If, according to international law and treaty obligation, housing is a human right, then, in these terms, the proposal for massive development and gentrification, such as is contained in Plan Bay Area, promises to become a massive violation of human rights, expelling people from their homes for private interest. Against this, the social movements that defend downtown against high-rise high income buildings and call for affordable housing development, the social movements for humane responsibility toward the homeless, and the social movements seeking to maintain city budget support for the alleviation of poverty, all come together.

This was published by my friend Becky O'Malley, who publishes berkeleydailyplanet.com yesterday.  Check out her great, independent news site.