Editor’s note: Like many people living in urban communities across the country, residents of the historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati are struggling to stay in their homes and have a voice in the development of their community as gentrification takes hold. Here is one resident’s account of that experience.
This post has been modified from the original version which was published by Streetvibes.
I have lived in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati for over 40 years. I paid $33 a month for my first apartment. Two of the apartments I have lived in still had the owner living next door; or in the building I was living in. There were many more “Mom and Pop” landlords serving people with low incomes back in the early 70’s. We were 99 percent renters and 95 percent of our housing was substandard and needing to be upgraded and improved.
But recently I saw an advertisement for a townhouse rental apartment for $2015 a month.
People in our neighborhood are a “displaced” people—shoved off our lands when someone else found a reason to make a profit on the land we call home. We feared that when our neighborhood became an historic district in 1983, gentrification would follow. It has.
Our people were not resting on our laurels waiting for a hand out. Our neighborhood people organized a movement that tried and still tries to figure out community-based solutions to issues facing us. People were sleeping on our stoops and in our streets, we started the Drop Inn Center; to really end homelessness we knew we needed to maintain and build affordable housing, which Over-the-Rhine Community Housing is doing; and when our Peaslee Elementary School was threatened with closure, we fought hard to save it, lost, but then turned it into a neighborhood educational center for all ages, the Peaslee Neighborhood Center. We created the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition to give voice to those struggling on our streets. We worked for policy changes and fought for ordinances that would help us gain some control or voice over what was going on in our community. We pushed for neighborhood plans like the 5520 Plan in 1985—we called for protecting the 5520 units of affordable housing, wanting development without displacement. And, yes, sometimes we did civil disobedience to make a point.
The housing crisis speaks to this country’s loss of moral fortitude, not caring for our brothers and sisters on the margins. We have become a profit-making consumerist society, not caring whether we condemn those at the bottom to live in squalor, as if it was their fault. Where is our sense of community? Did any one of us make it on our own? If people live in housing security, can’t we see that we all benefit? I am so frustrated with so many neighborhoods crying “not in my back yard.”
Part of the problem is that people with more power rarely see the beauty and assets of a community that looks and lives differently. How we live is going to “look differently” because we don’t have the same amount of resources to spend on our dreams. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t do the best we can with what we have. We know the importance of leaning on our neighbors in time of need. We know the value of coming together to figure things out collectively, rather than individually. We know how to pool our resources so we can create a communal garden in our affordable housing project. We watch out for each other’s children because we know the stressors of living in poverty. We don’t weigh our success on how much we spend, but by the relationships we have built and whether we feel a sense of belonging. We don’t know what it’s like to have the arrogance to just bombard a neighborhood with a plan that suits one’s self-interest. We have quietly inhabited spaces that others have abandoned or discarded, and made it our home. We put our sweat labor and tears into this less than a square mile of land and every day work hard to build something for ourselves that we are proud of.
And now, because we don’t have the almighty dollar, or enough political quarterbacks to stand up for our rights, someone with more money can steal it from us overnight. Now that Over-the-Rhine land has become valuable, we experience that no one regards the people as valuable.
I miss the people that used to live around me. I miss neighborhood-serving businesses that cared we had a place to shop for an aspirin, a curtain rod, socks and underwear, or a place to do laundry. Mostly our families can’t afford to eat in the new restaurants. When I walk down the street, I feel like a stranger in my own land. We’d called for changes— upgrades to our streets and alleys, good recreational places, better lighting—where was all the investment when we the poor and working class asked for these improvements? There is some just anger out in our streets because people see that investment discriminates. And with all the improvements going on now, the question is this: will we still be here to benefit from the changes? We were never too concentrated with the poor until another class of people desired our land.
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I have always felt we need our government, and local government, to legislate our protection through ordinances or policies or something because it’s not going to happen by letting market forces run amok. Developers should not be getting a way with condo development and market rentals without also doing units for people poor and with low incomes. We saved this neighborhood. How is it that corporate Cincinnati can dictate what stays, what goes, when neighborhood people for as long as I’ve been around have been strong actors in our history-making? We created “family” on our neighborhood blocks. Our stories weaved a web of connection.
But it feels like our lives are invisible to planners, developers, and newcomers rushing in to revitalize. We need more allies to help name what’s going on here and to call for more accountability from the City of Cincinnati and the well-financed Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) which is calling the shots. Not long after the civil unrest in Cincinnati in 2001, the City abolished its planning department, essentially allowing corporate Cincinnati to be in the driver’s seat.
We need to ensure that this isn’t just another city that pushes people poor and working class out of its urban core neighborhoods, like many cities across this country have already done. I want to live in a city that values my brothers and sisters who are on the margins. With that core belief in humanity, maybe we can turn things around, because for now we are going somewhere that’s not good for any of us.