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Pros And Cons Of Gentrification

Decent Essays

Safety and shelter, food and water- basic human needs to sustain life. Yet, these needs go increasingly unmet for large portions of the population, often starting with housing, from which a host of problems stems. Health and housing are ineradicably linked, as the stories told in CPR’s podcast Place and Privilege exemplify. The evidence is even closer than one might think- Sacramento, California has already begun to feel the impact of gentrification and it’s low-income residents, unable to “compete” for housing they already live in, are essentially pushed out of housing and pushed out of any positives gentrifying a neighborhood might create. Gentrification, which develops and invests in housing to suit middle-class tastes and create a sense …show more content…

However, the human cost of gentrification is mass displacement of lower & even middle-income residents, which pushes their quality of life downward and negatively impacts physical and mental health. This coincides with the privatization of other industries that fulfill human need over several years, most notably the healthcare industry, inadequate access to which goes hand in hand with poor quality housing.
There is an illusory choice in both healthcare and housing, a sense that options do exist in regards to what kind of medical treatment one gets or where one lives. Realities of the limitations of the current healthcare and housing system and the overwhelming power of private industry undercut the impression of choice. In several ways over the past few decades, social services have been gutted and replaced by the sway of private investors. In Two Dollars A Day, Edin & Schafer explore the process of dismantling the so-called welfare state and the rise of private charity. The latter refers to resources like the Salvation Army or Red Cross, which do participate in helping those in need, however, are not as widely accessible or regulated as state/federal programs. …show more content…

The specter of homelessness creates a psychological burden, and trauma created by physical displacement has influence over health. The benefits of gentrification are only distributed to a few residents, the demographics of which skew affluent white professionals, lower-income residents (often people of color) mostly remain cut off from the “good” of neighborhood revitalization. There is an undercurrent implication that a better neighborhood is one without them, exemplified by Section 8 voucher discrimination, like Lynda’s story. Landlords, private building owners in California currently have the right to deny voucher recipients housing on the basis that decreases the desirability of neighborhoods. While laws have been proposed to criminalize such discrimination, pro-business attitudes and advocacy have ultimately won out in the past, prioritizing the needs of few under private business over human interests. Physiological effects of this on vulnerable populations, like a member of the older population such as Lynda. “Like many people her age, Lynda no longer works, and her health is not great. She has glaucoma and anxiety.” Financial stress over housing woes exacerbates already present health problems and present health-impacted residents as a potential liability for landlords, a situation familiar to

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