I saw this article in the Denver Post about Globeville residents resisting development and gentrification.
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/18...-neighborhood/
I find some the language quoted in the article interesting:
“The increases in the cost of living leave homeowners severely vulnerable to predators like the real-estate and fix-and-flip companies,” activist Rey Gallegos said at a news conference outside Focus Points Family Resource Center. It was organized by the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea Coalition Organization for Health and Justice.
“Now they send letters, they hang signs, they post fliers, they even call — and sometimes they just knock on your door to try to get people to sell their homes or move out of a neighborhood, just to alleviate financial woes,” he said. “So, all these factors are creating more stress, more pressure, and impact the physical and mental health of our community.”
So persons who come around offering to "buy" a home (now at prices sharply higher from even two years and perhaps a multiple of what owners paid for it) are "predators." These "predatory" practices apparently would "just" allow people to alleviate financial woes.
The sanctimony of Rey Gallegos is sickening. He wants to "protect" people from "just alleviating their financial woes" (which may include things such as paying for critical medical care of a loved one, for care of an elderly person, or for putting a child through college), in order "preserve" his vision of the "community."
It's ironic that, for many in this community, after decades of no real hope for financial advancement in a neighborhood that was completely overlooked, when changing times present real opportunity for many in this neighborhood to finally participate in a booming local economy "activists" who know better than they do what's good for them, step up to prevent that from happening.
I get the need to promote affordable housing and the city needs to think long and hard about how to best do that, and act accordingly. But treating dollars flowing into a community for reinvestment to build infrastructure, parks, apartments, condos, homes, offices,and restaurants as the "enemy", as predators, is utter stupidity.
Ironically, can you imagine the uproar if the development community had taken the opposite tact? If the developer position was that Globeville was a waste of time and that neither public nor private money should be invested there because, what's the point? Who would possibly want to live, work, or spend time in such area?
The city should certainly listen to people about how to promote affordable housing and be willing to back up that commitment with City resources. But I don't think the city should be using valuable resources to promote ill-conceived "land trusts" being driven by fear mongers who see all developers as "predators."
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