14 The Hampton Roads Messenger


Gentrification Takes Toll on Seniors


Volume 9 Number 8


my ability to think and a zest to do things,” she said. “God forbid the day I can’t do that.”


Denise’s family moved to


the Bay Area from Louisiana. Her grandmother couldn’t read or write. When Denise became a mother in her teens, her grandparents took her in and she was able to go back to school and get a college degree. She worked for Bank of America in San Francisco and Concord and raised two children as a single mother.


When she got married later,


Denise moved to Oakland because her husband wanted to be here. Now he has passed away and, she said, “I’m left here all alone.” She says there are “bullets flying” around the transitional housing where she


currently Ortencia, 82, photographed at St. Mary’s Center by Laura McCamy. BY LAURA MCCAMY


At a recent meeting of the Hope and Justice Committee of St. Mary’s Center, in Oakland, the


allowed a reporter to sit in as they discussed their gentrification.


experiences


members with


For Oakland’s many low-income seniors, the escalating cost of living from the influx of technology workers and others able to pay higher rents makes the hope of aging in place more of a dream than a reality.


This problem is not limited to


Oakland, although fast-rising rents and a shortage of affordable housing make the problem more acute here. According to a 2014 report by the National


Low Income Housing


Coalition (NLIHC), the Oakland-Fre- mont metropolitan area was country’s seventh most expensive jurisdiction for housing.


Our Faith


Raise up, Repair, and Rebuild By Rev. Dr. Gregory Headen


How do the trends of society affect ministry? They affect it very much. Everything that happens of significance politi- cally will in some way, directly or in- directly


affect the church and its min- istry.


This is why the church can never be too narrow minded in her approach to life.


Life happens and


unfolds for people whether we like it or not. If our country gets in a war, it affects us. It means that somebody’s son or daughter will be deployed to a war zone, and we will be obligated to pray for them and minister to their families.


If the economy takes a hit causing home foreclosures, loss of employment, and businesses to fold, many of those in need will eventu- ally find their way to the doors of the church. People will need help with food and shelter. If the moral com- pass moves a good distance away from righteousness, justice, and civil- ity, the behaviors of people will affect the church from without and within. When lifestyles become acceptable that once were taboo, the church will feel the effects of different behaviors and folkways. When drugs that were once illegal become legal in a state or


community, the church’s environment changes and she will have to adjust. When money continues to become more and more the god that people worship, the church is affected.


If


family life breaks down, marriages decrease and fall apart, the church has to deal with the aftermath of broken relationships.


The counseling load


increases for couples and individuals, and even children are caught up in the midst of adult conflicts. If bad health and addictions become normative in a community, the church in that com- munity will be affected. All of life is connected.


The spiritual cannot be


completely divorced from the tempo- ral. There is a frightening reality that confronts us, and it is subtle. We are in a kind of revolution of values and morals. This may be happening while the church is asleep.


Most of our children are being born to unwed mothers now.


Think of this. It is almost


normal now for a boy to take a boy to the prom. Violence and scandal have become necessary ingredients in our entertainment, and truth has become a joke. What we accept and celebrate is an indication of where our heads are. God have mercy on all of us includ- ing the church. We must rediscover the Bible and what it teaches us about how to live our lives. I pray for a seri- ous return to the God of the Bible, and mothers are so important.


‘Everybody’s Face Has Changed’


Ortencia is 82 and, like all the members of the group, preferred not to give her last name. She pays $600 for her studio apartment here. She gets a break because she does yard work at her building; the rent would be $850 otherwise.


Veleda was born and raised in


Oakland after her grandmother moved the family here from Oklahoma. “This place


was littered with big hotels


because people was coming here to work in the shipyards” in the 1940s and 1950s, she recalled. “Now we go to Oakland and everybody’s face has changed.”


Today, Veleda, 62, lives at the


San Pablo Hotel, a senior single room occupancy (SRO) hotel. She struggles to manage her diabetes in a unit that shares a bathroom with another apartment. “Thank God I still have


lives.


Still, she wants to make Oakland her home.


Dwindling Affordable, Accessible Senior Housing


Nationally, a 2014 study by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies and the AARP Foundation projects that by 2024, “the number of households aged 65 and over with incomes less than $15,000 is expected to rise 37 percent, or by 1.8 million households.”


supply of affordable senior homes is


while those with


The report also found that the dwindling,


universal design features to make them accessible to older adults with disabilities falls far short of demand.


Growing older in urban areas like


Oakland can be especially difficult for African Americans, according to Zoë Levitt, of the Alameda County Public Health whites, black


Department. Latinos households have


and Asians, when to


neighborhood,” she wrote. Levitt


American seniors,


Unlike move,


they “are more likely to end up in a neighborhood with lower-income residents than their


added, “Thus, if


displaced,


African are


more likely to find themselves in neighborhoods with fewer health- promoting resources and/or lower quality


neighborhood income is closely tied to the availability of neighborhood resources.”


Steve King, senior associate at


the Urban Strategies Council, noted the growing mismatch between the cost of housing and the income of Oakland residents. “At every level, the median income earner…cannot afford the median house, either to own or rent [in their neighborhood],” he said. “It obviously affects everyone, “ he said, but people at the bottom income tiers have a harder time.


The State of Bay Area Blacks Report, prepared by the Council, looked at local population trends between 2000 and 2008.


This report showed population


changes already underway between the 1990 and 2000 census. Their analysis


revealed predominantly that number


neighborhoods black.


of


census tracts with a majority black population declined, although some Oakland


remain In Oakland, amenities, as average current


April 2015


the report found, a declining black population was replaced mostly with an influx of white residents.


percent of its population.”


“We know Oakland lost 24 African


American But teasing out the


reasons, King said, is not so easy. “It’s a complex story.”


Elder Majority in County is Black The story is somewhat different


for black seniors. While the number of Oakland residents over 65 grew by 4 percent from 2000 to 2010, the number of black seniors over 60 increased 12 percent.


Data from the 2000 and 2010 census, as well as from the Council’s study, shows that more than half of Oakland’s senior population is African American.


But staying put in one’s later years is not always easy. King noted that, according


to the Council’s


2012 report, “Who Owns Your Neighborhood?” in some blocks of East Oakland, 90 percent of homes were foreclosed between 2007 and 2011. “When you think about the social fabric of a neighborhood and the social


ties that evaporated,” he said, “we know it’s a huge issue.”


This isn’t the first time Oakland neighborhoods have radical


change. “The word


‘gentrification,’ when I was coming up in Oakland, is a word I didn’t hear a lot,” said Veleda, who is African American: “If the government wanted your property, they would take your property by public domain.”


transition


Veleda remembers an earlier in West Oakland. “We


moved into a neighborhood that was occupied by Italians and whites,” she said. “When they moved out, they took everything of value that was beautiful.”


essential to seniors. At the nonprofit Family


which to health than


Close neighborhood ties are Bridges,


operates


four health centers for older Asians in Alameda County, CEO Corrine Jan observed that isolation is more detrimental


medical diagnoses.


Because seniors make up half the transit-dependent


population


nationwide, according to the Alameda County Public Health Department, many fall prey to social isolation if they are forced to move to neighborhoods poorly served by transit.


The agency’s Levitt said,


“According to a survey of 400-plus transit-dependent


bus riders we


conducted in 2012, seniors were most likely among all age groups to feel socially isolated, with more than half reporting no friends or family within walking distance of their homes.”


Alameda Alliance


A 2013 report prepared for the County Healthy Homes concluded


that, while


Oakland as a whole is very diverse, “the same cannot be said for many neighborhoods in the city.” The data showed a huge correlation between largely ethnic communities, renters and indicators of low income and poor health outcomes.


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many experienced


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