gentrification is “the purchase and renovation by upper- or middle-income families or individuals of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighbourhoods
According to Webster’s dictionary, gentrification is “the purchase and renovation by upper- or middle-income families or individuals of houses and stores in deteriorated urban neighbourhoods, thus improving property values but often displacing low-income families and small businesses.”
It’s inevitable that if you go to a big city, you’re going to see the homeless, but do you ever think I wonder what the life of this person was like before they were homeless? Throughout the text, I will look at the reasons why gentrification harms homeless rates.
When the economy can only support more upper-class jobs than lower-class jobs, the families with an already low income will now not have as many chances for a better job. This is a directly correlated problem to gentrification and homelessness because when the white-collar class can only afford neighbourhoods and homes, it becomes harder. It’s vital to know that gentrification is defined in many different ways; each shows either positive or negative effects in their way.
Although this description may sound airtight, in “The Fine Arts of Gentrification,” author Rosalyn Deutsche argues that “gentrification cannot be defined until we first isolate the economic forces that are destroying neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city, the traditional working classes”. With this said, let’s take a look at what could destroy neighbourhoods, cities and the working classes and another significant part of the growing homelessness population, jobs. For survival in a low wage blue-collar community.
If there is a rising influx of people who are unable to afford to house, and the few housing left affordable to low-income families are being gentrified, we should not be surprised at the growing number of homeless people in our society.
When someone loses their home, all their possessions and they sleep on a cold dark street instead of sleeping in a house and bed, their dignity and self-esteem are thinly spread. A family living in a gentrifying neighbourhood would see an increase in living costs, and as that is happening, the chances of finding a decent career are reduced.
It is a vicious cycle that affects many people and, due to gentrification, is, in my opinion, the most significant cause for the overpopulated homeless.
Gentrification benefits do nothing for people who can’t afford to pay any taxes on a home, or can’t afford to pay the garbage bill, the only way it affects the poor, or lower-income society is negative. It also serves to place another family on the streets and kills their chance of surviving as a regular family.
We need to search as a society for ways to support our people and strengthen their dignity, rather than finding ways to take things from them. Stop making a living in a home more difficult for our people, and start looking for ways to make it easier. The government needs to turn its attention to those who need help. Instead of gentrifying neighbourhoods where the poor and low-income people live, building a neighbourhood public school, cleaning up the streets with the help of the people living there and helping them find better jobs and careers.
If the government were willing to assist, the homeless problem would not be as bad as it is today!.