Save Point Breeze Campaign Fighting Gentrification in South Philly
The Save Point Breeze Campaign, a part of the community organization Concerned Citizens of Point Breeze, is an anti-gentrification movement in South Philadelphia fighting to stop market rate housing from pushing out poor and working-class families.
Three neighborhoods in Philadelphia, including Point Breeze, have been designated to receive federal stimulus money through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. This stimulus money comes at a time when concerns about gentrification in the neighborhood have intensified. At both 1741 Federal St. and 23rd and Alter St. there are houses/condos on the market for $300,000. At 1737 Manton St. a penthouse is being built that will be in the high $300,000s. "We can go on and on, those are just some examples. How in the world can people stay in Point Breeze with those houses coming up all around them?" said Betty Beaufort, activist and longtime Point Breeze resident. In one year, from 2008 to 2009, the median home sale price in Point Breeze has gone up 45.7% or $29,500.
The Save Point Breeze Campaign has held two community meetings to discuss the stimulus money and revitalization plan that Philadelphia's Planning Commission has put together for the Point Breeze area. The first meeting was held on October 22nd to the let the community know about the plan and to brainstorm what the community wanted from the city. Over 100 people came together and created a list of community demands. The demands were focused on using the stimulus money to help meet the need for housing that is affordable for low-income and working-class families in the neighborhood rather than using it to subsidize the construction of market rate homes. Then on October 28th, the Save Point Breeze Campaign held a second meeting and requested that city officials attend. Two members from the Planning Commission came. The community members presented the 15 demands that they had come up with at the first meeting.
The demands included:
- to keep Point Breeze as the name for the neighborhood
- not to allow zoning changes that would result in more condo construction
- the city demonstrating a commitment to housing equality by providing money for housing for poor and working-class people
- money for home improvements and repairs for existing residents
- tax amnesty for longtime residents at risk of losing their homes
- improved facilities for all of the neighborhood's recreation buildings
- funding for job training programs
- local residents prioritized in hiring for the new Philly Live entertainment complex
- stimulus money used to encourage the construction of a grocery store and pharmacy in the neighborhood
The Planning Commission claimed to not have the authority to grant most of these demands and did not offer community members any information about who would have that authority.
On November 10th the Planning Commission held their own meeting in Point Breeze about the revitalization plan. Residents were expecting a presentation and the chance to ask questions but were left disappointed and unsatisfied. According to Ms. Beaufort, "as you walked in they had seven easels and each had a poster on it stating what they were representing. It was like an art gallery spectacle. You would walk around like you were looking at art. Our community is more than seven poster boards. There was no community participation."
After attending the Planning Commission meeting one frustrated Point Breeze resident wrote a letter outlining her concerns about gentrification to David Knapton, a planner in the Planning Commission who has focused on Point Breeze. In his letter in response, Mr. Knapton wrote " the Neighborhood Stabilization Program money which can can be used in Point Breeze can only be spent on housing for low to middle-income residents."
But residents' attempts to get clear answers from city officials about how exactly this stimulus money will be used to help low-income residents stay in their homes or find affordable housing have been unsuccessful.
On December 16th, members of Concerned Citizens of Point Breeze met with City Council President Anna Verna and Terri Gillen, the Executive Director of the Redevelopment Authority, to discuss the stimulus money and the revitalization plan. The community members came up with a list of questions including: How much money will be allotted to Point Breeze? How many houses will be built? Where will they be built? What will be the income qualifications to live in the housing? What percentage of the construction will involved minority participation i.e. contractors, developers, workers? What are the vacancy and foreclosure rates for the recent market rate housing built in Point Breeze? "We had basic questions but we didn't get answers to any of them really," said Ms. Beaufort.
The Save Point Breeze Campaign is looking for people throughout the city who have had the experience of being pushed out by developers and can offer some advice about how to fight gentrification. They are also interested in getting more Point Breeze residents involved in the campaign. To get in touch with the Save Point Breeze Campaign you can e-mail ccpointbreeze@gmail.com
They are starting to plan a third community meeting to strategize the Save Point Breeze Campaign's next move. Ms. Beaufort explained that she is hoping more residents will become involved in the campaign "so they can wake up and help fight for the cause. The city is going to try and push us out by raising taxes or using eminent domain. We're going to fight it because we have nowhere else to go."
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Comments
bigotry
i am so sick of you people using gentifications as a means to practice bigotry of fellow residents of this city. its a deceptive attempt to mask the true emotions of bigots in our city. you are just as bad as whites who dont want blacks in their neighborhoods. redlining was a great example of this. you all may not realize it now but my only hope is that some day you will realize and come to terms with the beds that you make. spreading hatred and exploiting others for deviant means is wrong. you might call yourselves community activists, call yourselves what you really are, community terrorists looking for any opportunity to spread hate and alienate those who have nothing to do with what ails these communities. its people like yourselves that keep these neighborhoods riddled with crime, substance abuse and the like. you are the disease and crutch and keeps people ailed. your mission is not to work with communities, your mission is to divide and evoke hatred towards other groups of people, mainly white or any one who sympathizes with whites moving to black communities.
FEDUP!
I too live in this neighborhood, and I am fedup! Not fedup with new people moving in, but fedup with this communtiy and how it is acting around positive change. I have lived here for some time now, and I work everyday to support my family. Do you really think we are going to get any stimulus money, if we give them a list of demands!!! Do you think they will give us any money, if you tell them we don't want anything they have to offer. What is WRONG WITH YOU! People these are professionals creating this plan, they do it for a living, let them create a plan that can help everyone. Not a plan that is unprofessional, unrealistic, and juvenile.
THIS IS JUST A PLAN! WE AS INDIVIDUALS OF THIS COMMUNITY HAVE TO PUT IT IN PLACE!
DO YOU LISTEN AT THE MEETINGS!
An to you you Ms. Beaufort when you said...
"you would walk around like you were looking
at art. Our community is more than seven poster boards. There was no
community participation."
Betty you forgot to mention, that next to the 7 easels, there were 7 HUGE boards w/ markers on them to write thoughts, changes, or anything your little heart desired. So there was plenty of time to participate. I think it was a great that the City Planning Commision decided to do this, because the other meetings turned into bickering battles. Plus it allowed everyone to participate as an individual from the communtity....
I just hope as an African American and a truly "concerned citizen", that my neighborhood CHANGES! The "concerned citizens" you mentioned above, have done nothing but make this community what it is today... nearly abandoned and dilapidated. Why don't you pat yourself on the back!
Sam
You can't have your crack and smoke it too...
really? that's beef number one?
so leave the vacant lots as trash heaps instead...
how's that equal? i pay my mortgage. my neighbor gets the city to. please explain to me the equality in that?
finally! a point worth talking about! here's the kicker: the money's already there, but you have to actually do work to get it.
ummm, the city is broke. you're talking about, on average, letting the people who proportionally use the most city resources (welfare, health clinics, public trans) to not pay for it. how long you've lived somewhere shouldn't determine anything.
again, the city's broke. there are grants for things like this. but YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY APPLY FOR THEM TO GET THEM.
that usually takes private investment. the very private investment you're saying you do not want. make up your mind.
???
how about assuring new business owners they won't be robbed at gunpoint within a week of opening? oh right--that's the element that you're trying to preserve by not allowing people to move in to the neighborhood.
I guess my point is, you can't have your crack and smoke it too. The "gentrifiers" aren't trying to kick you out. In fact, most of them want the same things you want and would bend over backwards to work with you. But unless you're willing to enter into a conversation instead of listing your demands, that's not going to happen.
But, if that fails, I hear properties down by the airport are cheap ;) have fun "gentrifying" that neighborhood...
manifest destiny
oh grand, the phillyblocks bigotry has finally broken out into new territory. trying to take over this site?
Excellent work "Save Point Breeze"!! (and pls watch your back)
This campaign is a great continuation of earlier work in Point Breeze and it is very important to the future of affordability in South Philly. Do the organizers know what garbage the City Paper wrote about their efforts? Check out http://citypaper.net/blogs/clog/author/andrewthompson/.
The writer, Andrew Thompson, reprints the campaign flyer and disrespects the entire community, calling them violent and drugged out. What benefit could he get from attacking our women, children and elders?
Here is his trash:
"February 22
Save Point Breeze; or, Don’t let the Sidecar happen to your neighborhood!
Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 4:03 pm
posted by Andrew Thompson
Back in October, I wrote about simmering tensions between newcomers and old-heads in Point Breeze, the mostly derelict, violent, drugged-out, blighted neighborhood south of Washington Ave on the West side of Broad Street that had accrued such a reputation as to be designated for federal funds to make it slightly more livable. At that point, push-back to the newcomers was more of a tacit sentiment than a force with any organization.
Now, the latent antipathy has become at least as organized as a flier distribution program. The “Save Point Breeze” campaign, started by Concerned Citizens of Point Breeze, is perhaps the most visible sign of resident-rage yet at the prospect of wealthy white folk coming into the area and building condos and living with their dogs - dogs they will, undoubtedly, take for walks. The flier shows the Sidecar cafe at 22nd and Christian Streets as an example of doom that could potentially befall Point Breeze residents, raising their property values and and wreaking havoc on their idyllic Eden.
The link above gives a “list of demands” CCPB has for the Philly Planning Commission, among which is that Point Breeze residents have priority for jobs at the new Philly Live complex, to be built neighborhoods away. Also demanded is tax amnesty for old residents who may be kicked out of their homes and a strict prohibition on condos.
I think we can all agree that the best thing for Point Breeze is to keep it poor and segregated."
|| End of the City Paper's garbage ... ||
If these primitives are crawling out from under their rocks because of what you folks are doing, then you must be doing something right. Keep up the great work!!
this campaign is garbage
Have you seen the video made by PB residents, featuring the same PB residents you're claiming to 'save'?
http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/2010/03/05/southwest-planning-commission-focuses-point-breezes-future/
It's embarassing that civic groups in our hood can campaign against development, acting as if they speak for the entire community. In reality, your group consists of the same tired old people crying out against change. This hood has been trash for years, do something productive because we want to see it! And what's the community you're claiming to save anyway? Trash, abandonment and crime? Good riddens people!