A Home Visit with Eli and Rebecca

Rebecca, Eli, and I went on an adventure to Client X’s house last night. Client X is one of Bread for the City’s legal clients, and Client X lives in the Northeast section of the city. As we drove from our Southeast office across the Anacostia and back into Northeast, the area looked familiar. My roommate Jordan and I had biked to that very intersection during one of our biking expeditions a few weeks prior and had commented on the presence of stores, chain stores, etc… in an area we might not have expected them.

Perhaps one block from this area, an area whose façade looks like chain stores and development is the house of client X. From the outside façade of the client’s building, life looked normal and average – nothing out of the ordinary. As Eli opened the door of the apartment building, I was transported into another world – trash was the first thing I saw in the hallways of the building… cigarette butts lined the floors… We arrived at the top of the stairs to meet Client X, who told Eli to walk around back to meet. We walked back into the sunshine, around the building, and up a flight of stairs.

This morning I was fishing for a word to describe walking up those back stairs. I think eerie describes the way I felt walking into a home that had large holes in the walls… that was dark and messy. The doors had violent images of death and corpses graffitied on them. We stepped through a large pile of garbage as we walked in – that garbage could have been the home to rats and bed bugs for all I know. We handed Client X a bag of food, chatted for a second, and said goodbye.

This is the aspect of poverty I don’t have to see at Bread for the Cit. The image of Client X’s house is imprinted in my mind as a sign of mental illness, the effects of drugs and prostitution, lack of opportunity, hopelessness… the effects of the poverty cycle that is present in our society.

The funny part is that I was more struck here than I was in Zambia. Zambia, an African nation, a nation full of the images of absolute world poverty. Walking along the dirt streets of Zambezi, glances at homes with thatch roofs and no running water, with children wearing second or third hand clothing from America, with the people staring at the white outsiders. That is an image of poverty too, an image of some of the world’s most absolute poverty.

I think as Americans, with our media coverage, we’ve been conditioned to know that to be Africa. That is the African poverty we expect when we travel there. It is no surprise to us when we see it. Though it tugs at our hearts and we grapple with the site of the poverty, it is exactly what we expected to see.

I live in Washington, DC. The capital of the United States of America, the “richest country in the world.” I live in the same city as the U.S. Capitol building, the White House, the Smithsonian Institution Museums, the Memorials, and the National Monument. But I also live in a city where Client X lives perhaps worse than the people of Zambia. Client X’s home is just hidden by the brick exterior. Bricks are hard and sturdy. Bricks don’t reveal what is inside.

To borrow a phrase from Norman Maclean and adapt it to my own experience, I am haunted by the image of Client X’s house. I have not lost hope, however. Instead, my experience with Client X makes clear my vocation to act with justice, to love tenderly, to serve one another, and to walk humbly with God.

Clybourne Park

Since coming to the District of Columbia, I have been fascinated with this idea of gentrification. How can we let development occur without raising property values so high that tenants are displaced? How do we help rejuvenate neighborhoods in the District without forcing tenants to move or without changing the character of the neighborhood?

These questions and more have been on the forefront of my questions since coming to D.C. To deepen my understanding of gentrification, I recently attended the play, Clybourne Park, at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre, here in D.C. Gaining its inspiration from the play, A Raisin in the Sand, the play explored heavy concepts of race in the United States. The first began in 1959, in a beautiful bungalow, with a white family moving out of their Chicago neighborhood. Their neighbors were furious to find out that an African American family was moving into the neighborhood; their fear, based out of racism, fueled the belief that their community would deteriorate as soon, more African American families would move into the neighborhood. In an emotionally charged act, I felt the real experience of both Caucasian and African American families struggling with the realities of both individual prejudice and institutional racism.

The first act closes and the second act opens; the home is the same bungalow, but it is no longer beautiful. The wood panelling is gone. The floor has patches of discolored hardwood floor which has been replaced. The light fixtures are gone. The home is in decrepit shape. Now, the tables are turned. The neighborhood is predominately African American and a Caucasian family wants to move into the home. Living in the city is suddenly glamorous again and this young Caucasian family wants to start their own family in this home. The price are low, and they see an opportunity to demolish the home and build their dream home. The act is equally, if not more, emotionally charged, with both African American and Caucasian Americans powerfully expressing their ties to the neighborhood and their economic interests.

In the end, there is no answer to the gentrification. Repeated in each act is the statement, "Change happens. Some change is good. Too much change is not." It is true - change does happen. It is the reality of life, it is the reality of neighborhoods. It is what happened to the District of Columbia, and what continues to happen as new families move in and out of the District, as wealth allows development to happen... in some ways it cannot be stopped.

But in other ways - I think about the African American families in the play who are displaced and who watch their neighborhood change due to the economic interests of the wealthy re-emerging into the city. It is the same picture we are observing here in the District of Columbia. The juxtaposition of the Caucasian family leaving in 1959 while a new one returns in 2009 is a powerful statement to the continued effects of past racism and current inequality.

The play continues to stretch my mind and ask, how can positive development happen? I suppose in many ways, I too am like the Caucasian family of 2009, wanting to move back into the glamorous city, wanting to capture the "good deal."

Gentrification is a topic I am continually interested in. I have no answers from the play. But I will continue to search for answers on how we can make development and tenant preservation both priorities in our cities today.