NYTimes: What Gentrification Means for Black Homeowners
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Veteran
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/realestate/black-homeowners-gentrification.html#site-content
https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptio...alestate/black-homeowners-gentrification.html
What Gentrification Means for Black Homeowners
In historically Black neighborhoods, owners selling their homes on the open market have to grapple with the fact that accepting the highest bid could mean another step toward Black displacement.
Thomas Holley has lived in his home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for 58 years. He would ideally like to sell it to another Black homeowner, but knows that when he puts it on the market, that may not be possible.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
By Jacquelynn Kerubo
Published Aug. 17, 2021Updated Aug. 18, 2021
Nostalgia isn’t enough to keep Thomas Holley, 74, in the Crown Heights brownstone he has lived in for more than 58 years.
He got married in that home and raised his children there. His basement man cave, complete with a bar and mood lighting, was an oasis where he escaped for alone time.
But now fully retired from his transit job as a bus operator and having suffered health setbacks — a heart attack and spinal surgery — he wants to trade in the brownstone for more quiet and all-year sunshine at the condo he purchased in 2017 in a Florida suburb north of Orlando.
He loves Brooklyn, but the gentrification of Crown Heights has been hard for him to watch and experience. As a Black homeowner, he would like, more than anything else, to see another Black homeowner take over the house. But it’s precisely because gentrification has driven property values up that Mr. Holley may not be able to do that.
Like other Black homeowners selling family homes in competitive ZIP codes, Mr. Holley feels like the sale is freighted with the burden of his race. He had hoped to leave the house to his only living child, a son in New Jersey, but his son isn’t interested in the brownstone. Mr. Holley fears that when he lists the house on the open market, he may unintentionally play a part in the continued displacement of the Black community in Crown Heights. “I can’t turn down a market offer because it’s for my six grandkids,” he said. “I want to leave something behind for them.”
Image
Despite a long history of Black homeownership in New York City, ever-rising real estate prices have made homes in the city inaccessible to many Black New Yorkers. Only 26 percent of Black households in the city owned their homes, compared to 42 percent for white households, 39 percent for Asian households, and 15 percent for Hispanic households.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
The history of racial exclusion, segregation and inequality in real estate has made homeownership for Black people signify much more than basic shelter and financial stability. “There are absolutely unique ways that the Black homeownership experience is different from other experiences,” said Jacob William Faber, a professor of sociology and public service at New York University.
“Black people and Black communities have been excluded from the opportunity to build wealth, and that’s why passing their homes along to a family feels so important,” he added. “There’s so much history that it’s not just a financial transaction. It’s a cultural transaction. And it’s a familial transaction.”
Mr. Holley estimates that the 12-room, two-family house he inherited from his mother may be worth close to $2 million, well beyond what most of his friends or family members could afford. He offered to sell it to a friend at a below-market price, but his friend could not qualify for a mortgage. He knows when he lists the house, he will have to abide by fair housing rules and not discriminate based on race.
Mr. Holley remembers when Crown Heights felt like it was “100 percent Black.” The area is now less than 50 percent Black. “That doesn’t bother me. It’s some of the people moving in that are problematic,” Mr. Holley said.
Not too long ago, he said, “I noticed a neighbor putting up something out front and I was curious. I went over to strike conversation and before I could finish a sentence, he told me that he didn’t have any money.” Being mistaken for a panhandler by one of his new white neighbors sent a clear message about how the neighborhood was evolving. “I’ve lived here all my life. Only three other people on the block who’ve been here longer than I have,” he said.
Mr. Holley has made peace with the fact that his home likely won’t sell to a Black person, but he feels sad and a little guilty. “Once Black people move out, it’s hard for them to get back into the neighborhood because the gentrification completely prices them out.”
To allay the sense of guilt a Black homeowner might feel when selling their home in a gentrifying community, Dr. Faber noted first and foremost that “these longtime homeowners should be congratulated and appropriately compensated for these investments they made in these neighborhoods when white households were fleeing decades ago.”
He added that the problems associated with gentrification, “such as rising costs of living, increased police harassment, political and social displacement, aren’t caused by Black homeowners.” They are caused, he said, “by forces that move property, like speculative real estate purchasing, the consolidation of rental properties, zoning laws, mortgage markets. All of these things are far more influential than the individual homeowner.”
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Despite a long history of Black homeownership in New York City, ever-rising real estate prices have made homes in the city inaccessible to many Black New Yorkers. According to a report on homeownership by the New York University Furman Center, New York City’s homeownership rate in 2014 was just 31 percent, less than half that of the national homeownership rate of 63 percent. Only 26 percent of Black households in the city owned their homes, compared to 42 percent for white households, 39 percent for Asian households, and 15 percent for Hispanic households.
Jeremie Greer, the co-founder and co-executive director of Liberation in a Generation, a nonprofit focused on racial justice, believes that fair housing rules could be used to benefit Black homeowners and buyers. The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act, which requires localities to identify and address patterns of racial segregation outlawed under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, “was degraded during the Trump administration but has recently been restored, and can be used to buttress some of the challenges that Black and brown home buyers are facing,” he said. For example, the act could be used to require communities to examine the legacy of redlining, he said, and “force local jurisdictions to provide remedies like down payment assistance and low interest loans to Black and brown home buyers.”
Image
When Evelyn Polhill and her husband bought their three-family Bedford-Stuyvesant house in 1958, 10 years before the Fair Housing Act was enacted, white families were fleeing the city and heading to the suburbs as Black families moved in next door.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
When it comes to selling her three-family home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Evelyn Polhill, 89, strikes a pragmatic tone. “America is a capitalistic country. It’s all about what the market can bear,” she said. “If you’re selling your house, how are you being displaced? If you’re selling, you must be moving somewhere else. If you’re not factoring that in, then you’re telling yourself a lie. You’re not being honest.”
When Ms. Polhill and her husband bought their three-family Bedford-Stuyvesant house in 1958, 10 years before the Fair Housing Act was enacted, white families were fleeing the city and heading to the suburbs as Black families moved in next door. The German couple who sold them the house left in a hurry. Now their home is highly desirable and out of reach for many Black people in her network. Like Mr. Holley’s son, Ms. Polhill’s children, a son who lives in Maryland and a daughter who has traveled the world through her airline job and who lives elsewhere in New York, have no interest in the brownstone.
Image
Ms. Polhill’s children, a son and a daughter, have no interest in the brownstone.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
Image
When it comes to selling her three-family home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ms. Polhill strikes a pragmatic tone. “America is a capitalistic country. It’s all about what the market can bear,” she said.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
“You know there was that song after World War I, ‘How ya you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?’ You don’t want to come back to a place where people are doing the same old same old,” Ms. Polhill said. “My children have experienced other places and I don’t blame them for not wanting to come back.”
https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptio...alestate/black-homeowners-gentrification.html
What Gentrification Means for Black Homeowners
In historically Black neighborhoods, owners selling their homes on the open market have to grapple with the fact that accepting the highest bid could mean another step toward Black displacement.
Thomas Holley has lived in his home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for 58 years. He would ideally like to sell it to another Black homeowner, but knows that when he puts it on the market, that may not be possible.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
By Jacquelynn Kerubo
Published Aug. 17, 2021Updated Aug. 18, 2021
Nostalgia isn’t enough to keep Thomas Holley, 74, in the Crown Heights brownstone he has lived in for more than 58 years.
He got married in that home and raised his children there. His basement man cave, complete with a bar and mood lighting, was an oasis where he escaped for alone time.
But now fully retired from his transit job as a bus operator and having suffered health setbacks — a heart attack and spinal surgery — he wants to trade in the brownstone for more quiet and all-year sunshine at the condo he purchased in 2017 in a Florida suburb north of Orlando.
He loves Brooklyn, but the gentrification of Crown Heights has been hard for him to watch and experience. As a Black homeowner, he would like, more than anything else, to see another Black homeowner take over the house. But it’s precisely because gentrification has driven property values up that Mr. Holley may not be able to do that.
Like other Black homeowners selling family homes in competitive ZIP codes, Mr. Holley feels like the sale is freighted with the burden of his race. He had hoped to leave the house to his only living child, a son in New Jersey, but his son isn’t interested in the brownstone. Mr. Holley fears that when he lists the house on the open market, he may unintentionally play a part in the continued displacement of the Black community in Crown Heights. “I can’t turn down a market offer because it’s for my six grandkids,” he said. “I want to leave something behind for them.”
Image
Despite a long history of Black homeownership in New York City, ever-rising real estate prices have made homes in the city inaccessible to many Black New Yorkers. Only 26 percent of Black households in the city owned their homes, compared to 42 percent for white households, 39 percent for Asian households, and 15 percent for Hispanic households.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
The history of racial exclusion, segregation and inequality in real estate has made homeownership for Black people signify much more than basic shelter and financial stability. “There are absolutely unique ways that the Black homeownership experience is different from other experiences,” said Jacob William Faber, a professor of sociology and public service at New York University.
“Black people and Black communities have been excluded from the opportunity to build wealth, and that’s why passing their homes along to a family feels so important,” he added. “There’s so much history that it’s not just a financial transaction. It’s a cultural transaction. And it’s a familial transaction.”
Mr. Holley estimates that the 12-room, two-family house he inherited from his mother may be worth close to $2 million, well beyond what most of his friends or family members could afford. He offered to sell it to a friend at a below-market price, but his friend could not qualify for a mortgage. He knows when he lists the house, he will have to abide by fair housing rules and not discriminate based on race.
Mr. Holley remembers when Crown Heights felt like it was “100 percent Black.” The area is now less than 50 percent Black. “That doesn’t bother me. It’s some of the people moving in that are problematic,” Mr. Holley said.
Not too long ago, he said, “I noticed a neighbor putting up something out front and I was curious. I went over to strike conversation and before I could finish a sentence, he told me that he didn’t have any money.” Being mistaken for a panhandler by one of his new white neighbors sent a clear message about how the neighborhood was evolving. “I’ve lived here all my life. Only three other people on the block who’ve been here longer than I have,” he said.
Mr. Holley has made peace with the fact that his home likely won’t sell to a Black person, but he feels sad and a little guilty. “Once Black people move out, it’s hard for them to get back into the neighborhood because the gentrification completely prices them out.”
To allay the sense of guilt a Black homeowner might feel when selling their home in a gentrifying community, Dr. Faber noted first and foremost that “these longtime homeowners should be congratulated and appropriately compensated for these investments they made in these neighborhoods when white households were fleeing decades ago.”
He added that the problems associated with gentrification, “such as rising costs of living, increased police harassment, political and social displacement, aren’t caused by Black homeowners.” They are caused, he said, “by forces that move property, like speculative real estate purchasing, the consolidation of rental properties, zoning laws, mortgage markets. All of these things are far more influential than the individual homeowner.”
Subscriber-only Live Event
What's Next for New York City
Thursday, August 19 1 p.m. E.T. | 10 a.m. P.T. | 6 p.m. B.S.T.
Subscribe to attend
Despite a long history of Black homeownership in New York City, ever-rising real estate prices have made homes in the city inaccessible to many Black New Yorkers. According to a report on homeownership by the New York University Furman Center, New York City’s homeownership rate in 2014 was just 31 percent, less than half that of the national homeownership rate of 63 percent. Only 26 percent of Black households in the city owned their homes, compared to 42 percent for white households, 39 percent for Asian households, and 15 percent for Hispanic households.
Jeremie Greer, the co-founder and co-executive director of Liberation in a Generation, a nonprofit focused on racial justice, believes that fair housing rules could be used to benefit Black homeowners and buyers. The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Act, which requires localities to identify and address patterns of racial segregation outlawed under the Fair Housing Act of 1968, “was degraded during the Trump administration but has recently been restored, and can be used to buttress some of the challenges that Black and brown home buyers are facing,” he said. For example, the act could be used to require communities to examine the legacy of redlining, he said, and “force local jurisdictions to provide remedies like down payment assistance and low interest loans to Black and brown home buyers.”
Image
When Evelyn Polhill and her husband bought their three-family Bedford-Stuyvesant house in 1958, 10 years before the Fair Housing Act was enacted, white families were fleeing the city and heading to the suburbs as Black families moved in next door.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
When it comes to selling her three-family home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Evelyn Polhill, 89, strikes a pragmatic tone. “America is a capitalistic country. It’s all about what the market can bear,” she said. “If you’re selling your house, how are you being displaced? If you’re selling, you must be moving somewhere else. If you’re not factoring that in, then you’re telling yourself a lie. You’re not being honest.”
When Ms. Polhill and her husband bought their three-family Bedford-Stuyvesant house in 1958, 10 years before the Fair Housing Act was enacted, white families were fleeing the city and heading to the suburbs as Black families moved in next door. The German couple who sold them the house left in a hurry. Now their home is highly desirable and out of reach for many Black people in her network. Like Mr. Holley’s son, Ms. Polhill’s children, a son who lives in Maryland and a daughter who has traveled the world through her airline job and who lives elsewhere in New York, have no interest in the brownstone.
Image
Ms. Polhill’s children, a son and a daughter, have no interest in the brownstone.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
Image
When it comes to selling her three-family home in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ms. Polhill strikes a pragmatic tone. “America is a capitalistic country. It’s all about what the market can bear,” she said.Credit...Douglas Segars for The New York Times
“You know there was that song after World War I, ‘How ya you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?’ You don’t want to come back to a place where people are doing the same old same old,” Ms. Polhill said. “My children have experienced other places and I don’t blame them for not wanting to come back.”
I stopped reading at “he wants to leave the brownstone to his owner child “son” but his son lives in New Jersey and isn’t interested in the brownstone”
I’m sorry but his kid is an ALL TIME DUMB ASS nikka to turn down complete ownership of a brownstone worth well over 1.5 mill
The son could rent that bad boy out or wait it out and sell for upwards of 2-3 mill … fukk is wrong with dude?
Kinda pops fault to a certain degree if son doesn’t understand what he’s missing. How can u not understand wealth management if u haven’t been taught?I stopped reading at “he wants to leave the brownstone to his owner child “son” but his son lives in New Jersey and isn’t interested in the brownstone”
I’m sorry but his kid is an ALL TIME DUMB ASS nikka to turn down complete ownership of a brownstone worth well over 1.5 mill
The son could rent that bad boy out or wait it out and sell for upwards of 2-3 mill … fukk is wrong with dude?
The Radiant One
Superstar
Black displacement is only pad when we don’t have money if we’re getting paid then fukk yeah
get these nets
Veteran
When you're right, you're right. The elders quoted in the article pretty much said what you pointed out in the other thread.
The Radiant One
Superstar
You don’t have to live there to own the home
I tell other Black sistas and brothers around my age own your own shyt when it comes to land and homes whenever possible.
A lot of us want to go rent and lease from a White man though. When they own the property they have autonomy to do whatever they please. If they want to tear the residence down, put you out, and build a strip mall then they can do that. As long as they give you proper notice it’s perfectly legal too. If they want to renovate and drive up the property values they can do that to when they own it.
Where a lot of us mess up our parents and grandparents leave us land and homes, but a lot of times especially with heir property where a dozen or more people have an interest in it, we won’t pay the property taxes or keep up the property and property that’s been in the family 100 years ends up going to some White man a decade or two later in a tax sell.
There is power in property ownership White males learn that very young, but a lot of us have the mindset of a renter/borrower. We have to change our mindset.
A lot of us want to go rent and lease from a White man though. When they own the property they have autonomy to do whatever they please. If they want to tear the residence down, put you out, and build a strip mall then they can do that. As long as they give you proper notice it’s perfectly legal too. If they want to renovate and drive up the property values they can do that to when they own it.
Where a lot of us mess up our parents and grandparents leave us land and homes, but a lot of times especially with heir property where a dozen or more people have an interest in it, we won’t pay the property taxes or keep up the property and property that’s been in the family 100 years ends up going to some White man a decade or two later in a tax sell.
There is power in property ownership White males learn that very young, but a lot of us have the mindset of a renter/borrower. We have to change our mindset.
Same thing is happening in my DC neighborhood…the elderly are dying or going to nursing homes and families are not interested in the property.
the homes are then sold-as-is and developers swoop in, sell it for $800-$1M and that prices out many Black families.
if we waited another year to buy…we probably could not afford to buy in this neighborhood.
the homes are then sold-as-is and developers swoop in, sell it for $800-$1M and that prices out many Black families.
if we waited another year to buy…we probably could not afford to buy in this neighborhood.
this happened to my husbands family…owned land and homes all throughout NY, the whites even burned the family home…they lost everything (except for the family queens home) because after my husband great grandmother passed, the daughter didn’t pay property taxes and watched as the govt auction land and homes. It’s pretty sad
I can only SPECULATE that they don't have a good relationship. I can't imagine someone turning down that opportunity.
CreepyMcCreeperson
Veteran
I stopped reading at “he wants to leave the brownstone to his owner child “son” but his son lives in New Jersey and isn’t interested in the brownstone”
I’m sorry but his kid is an ALL TIME DUMB ASS nikka to turn down complete ownership of a brownstone worth well over 1.5 mill
The son could rent that bad boy out or wait it out and sell for upwards of 2-3 mill … fukk is wrong with dude?
I read that and thought he failed as a father. He didn’t drill the importance of ownership, and passing things down. If the son doesn’t want to live there, he could at least use it as an Air Bnb or a rental. That way, the money stays in black hands.
This is what happened to Sag Harbor in the Hamptons. It was the first place black people were able to buy waterfront property, and the younger generation of kids either let the property go, or moved to the city, and sold the homes. Now, white people jumped on the lower priced property in the HAMPTONS.
Owning and attempting to pass down wealth is hopeless when your kids can’t afford the home in the first place. I always go back to my wife’s uncle in Cali that owns a 2 story house 2 miles from the Apple campus. shyt was valued at $2M like 5 years ago and probably worth >$5M now. His sons are barely making it as it is and they are in their 50s, so no way in hell they’ll be able to afford the house, much less the taxes. He’s on his way out unfortunately...his wife not far behind, and that gorgeous house will go to some Asian/cac and his legacy erased.
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
Damn @ the number of kids willing/wanting to just let these properties go. They’re gonna regret that. We need an app to connect black sellers and buyers, I don’t have interest in owning in NY, but as someone who purchased my first building from an older black lady who wanted to sell to a back person, even taking less money than offers she had from white people, it’s important we build these networks where people can connect with folks willing to cut somewhat of a deal to maintain black ownership
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