those pesky ’struggling singles’, always trying to find a place to live
Jack at Angry Brown Butch drew my attention to this hilarious column from the Onion, entitled, “Sometimes I Feel Like I’m the Only One Trying to Gentrify This Neighbourhood.”
Speaking of gentrification: yesterday the elderly woman from two houses down dropped off a photocopied letter addressed to ‘local residents’ from ‘concerned local residents’. (A. was the only one home, and instead of ringing the doorbell, the woman came to the living-room window and knocked on it — frightening in an ironic way, given what was in the letter.) It seems that an ex-nursing home a few blocks away has been bough by the Department of Housing, to turn into government-subsidised single-occupant apartments. Now, although our concerned residents ‘acknowledge the need for public housing’, they write,
there is a very real risk that introducing a rooming-house for ’struggling singles’ will make these streets and their back laneways less safe — increasing the risk of violent crime, home break-ins and car theft and vandalism. [sic] We have the right to feel safe in our homes and in our streets. This is a threat to this right.
I see. So single people without homes do not have the right to co-reside near families, but home-owning families with heritage colour paintjobs and lavender bushes have the right to dictate who lives near them. Too easy. But now to the nub of the problem, property values:
A rooming-house with its implied risk of criminality will also greatly reduce the property values in the area….
Now, it’s not just homeless single people who might live here, but homeless single people who are mentally ill, possibly with substance abuse problems:
What is important is the criteria that ’single people’ must meet in order to be eligible to live in a public housing rooming-house. The critera is [sic] cause for concern, as the recurring theme is of violence, poor mental health (linking to alcohol and drug dependency) and past criminal record.
But wait. This is inconsistent. If we’re getting rid of the crazy people and the alcoholics, we better check up on everyone in the neighbourhood, right? Not just those who have already been classed as undesirable by the state itself, and are therefore subject to surveillance and public discussion of their private histories by the state, as well as the nosy ‘community’. Oh, but I forgot. Property ownership (or temporary ‘ownership’ under a lease) also gives you the right to privacy. Yet another right enjoyed by those who don’t need it, but not by those who do.
More badly-worded frothing at the mouth ensues, including the hilarious claim that this rooming-house will make both the local railway station and the public library more unsafe — and the library is already unsafe for children! (Art books with nudes! The gay and lesbian section! Old men reading Italian, Greek and Arabic newspapers! The horror!) This letter is accompanied by a form letter to the local council, phrased in slightly less outrageous language, demanding that the rooming-house not be built.
Most disturbing, though, was our ‘friendly’ neighbour’s comment. She gave A. the letters, and said, “I’ll come back tomorrow to collect your signatures. That’ll give you some time to read about what they’re doing to us!”
What they’re doing to us. I love the victim mentality of people who own property. When you own a house, suddenly you become a hypersensitive entity at risk of all kinds of potential violations, real and virtual. Even the presence of a particular kind of person a few blocks away is violent. It’s bullshit: when I lived on a street with a rooming-house in Brunswick, the increased saturation of people walking on the street made it feel safer, especially at night. Sure, some of these people were obviously unhinged; but you say hello, you roll them a cigarette, you have a chat. We often sat in the window of my room, on the front verandah facing the street, and felt safe. Here in Coburg, people don’t hang out on the street. (Okay, with the exception of the kids opposite who play with their cars weekends, and who are, frankly, obnoxious: loud techno all day, incessant revving, squealing brakes, and no hello.) The blocks in Coburg are big, the front yards are spacious and everyone drives, so the only time you see the neighbours is when they’re climbing into their car. No-one knows what’s happening outside, because everyone keeps their front blinds closed.
Anyhow. We’ve a mind to write some letters to the council ourselves — demanding to be rid of the assholes in the neighbourhood who whip up hysteria about single people to keep property prices high. It’s our right to be free of them and their pesky letters. Isn’t it? Isn’t it?
oh lord… i love the public housing will kill our property values shite. so much concern.
is it a rooming house though or public housing? sounds like the former. heaven help us they should actually build some affordable housing…
god it’s all so fucked up.. i mean, since i’ve been working with public housing the odd thing is i reckon everything she says about who is housed and what happens around estates is true but why the hell does she think she should be protected against such things? right to fucking safety my arse.. as if people living without long-termn housing have that. argh argh argh. anyway i doubt a few apartments=an estate. oh i rant… i’m kinda obsessed with public housing debates at the moment. so fundamental.
(also sorry to be the rain but i reckon probably the library comment was actually in reference to the sexual assault of a child that took place there last month. fucked up shit. not that scaremongering is gonna help any.)
Comment by esther — August 25, 2006 @ 6:05 am
Wow, I had no idea about the library. That makes more sense — although the sense it makes is still wrong.
I think they’re proposing a rooming-house. The building itself is pretty crappy, but divided into small ‘apartments’ already; I imagine they’d just whack a new coat of paint on it and move people straight in. And yeah, it is true that all of that stuff probably happens more in public housing estates — except that Coburg is already the suburb of drug-dealers, petty crims and so forth. Which makes it doubly insane that people are going all “Save Our Suburbs” here, of all places. Besides which, the blocks of flats on both corners opposite are incredibly dingy: publicly-run flats would be better kept.
Comment by Az — August 25, 2006 @ 2:38 pm
I’ll never forget when I moved her, out of the old poor ‘hood, a housing complex funded by HUD (Housing and Urban Development) in the states.
People called it the ghetto, though I could never figure out why. it was a brand new housing complex. What they meant was, it wasn’t majority white.
I moved to a suburb when my kid got recruited to play ball for a wealthy school district.
I was afraid at night! I locked my doors. I only locked my doors in the old hood because of the cops! And I was afraid for the reasons you mention: it was like I had no neighbors.
I got used to it and am not afraid any more, but it was the weirdest experience. Aside from the lack of a public in these neighborhoods, I’m wondering what it is about the way they are designed that makes them so isolating. Because our houses are packed tight together. This is the mostly densely populated county in the state of Florida, and near the beach, so property is not cheap and houses are very close together.
So it feels like there is some kind of spatial construction of a surburan neighborhood or home or both that makes it so isolating.
Comment by Bitch | Lab — August 25, 2006 @ 8:36 pm
Mmmm…. BL, I just wrote a long comment to piny’s post about Coburg, which I’ll post here too, because this suburb isn’t ‘majority white’ at all. There are contradictory influxes of migrant populations and younger, more upwardly mobile white professionals — whose interests may intersect on some questions, such as property values (because doesn’t everyone want their house to be worth more?) but not at all on others. I imagine that the middle-class white professionals frame the threat to property values also in terms of Coburg having a really visible/large Arabic-speaking population. And in ways, this suburb is not isolating at all — it depends where you go, and who you are. Back recently from Bangkok, I think I’m hyperaware of how large the blocks are, and how the immense space of wide streets, front lawns, driveways, backyards, decreases interaction and safety. But I’m also aware of being queer on a mostly hetero street, and aware of neighbourly disapproval over our shaggy lawn and ‘rental’ look. On this street, this house probably lowers property values.
I wonder if that architecture and design thing also has to do with people having more ‘valuable’ possessions in their homes where you’re living now, so using more security systems, bars on windows, lots of trees, high fences etc to protect it? ‘Privacy’ in an architectural sense is about protecting houses from burglaries, not just being private. It also constitutes any visitor as a possible threat…
Comment by Az — August 26, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
Through “high-tech research” I wandered onto this page and I was totally relieved to find it…I live in a neighbourhood that is on the cusp of gentrification. Recently our homeowning neighbours called a “community safety meeting” with the city councillor and police that was essentially a mob scene, with people screaming about the “crack whores” (yes, they actually used those words in a room full of families) in their back lanes. I’ve lived here for a year and never felt unsafe, and in fact the street involved people that I’ve chatted with have always been polite and friendly, as opposed to the SUV drivers who usually try to run me down on my bike (or so it seems).
Things got even more horrible when my roommates and I vocalised our disagreement to their “more cops, less social housing, and shut down the harm reduction clinic” strategy. I’ve had neighbours scream at me, swear at me, and even follow me back to my house with garden shears. Now I actually feel unsafe in my neighbourhood, when I never did before - but because I’m afraid of the housed, not the unhoused.
Anyways, it was a huge relief to stumble upon this collection of posts when I feel intensely disheartened and just like I want to move. I’ve never honestly been face-to-face with people like my wealthy neighbours before, and the whole experience has been shocking and deeply distressng. Trust the internet to revive your faith in human beans…
Comment by Thea — August 26, 2006 @ 8:56 pm
I mean … WTF???
Az, thanks for relaying this story -
disturbing though it is. And certainly it
would seem less likely that your local Mrs Mangel (and myriad ‘Save our Suburbs’ souls) would be concerned if townhouses or a shiny apartment block were being built where the flats are. Because, of course, they’d only help local property prices and not be encouraging ‘undesirables’ to move or stay within the neighbourhood.
I am a northern suburbs resident, and I see Coburg (in which i have never lived, incidentally) as representing some of the very best qualities of Melbourne’s northern suburbia. These include the large (and still relatively inexpensive) blocks and the diversity of people living there. It seems the ‘Save our Suburbs’ people want to change this in their bid for homogeneity and the yuppie dollar.
Comment by Jazza — August 26, 2006 @ 11:52 pm