The anti-eviction blues: audio reports from San Francisco's gentrifying streets
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jan/14/anti-eviction-blues-audio-reports-san-francisco-gentrifying-streets
San Francisco experienced a dramatic increase in eviction rates, rental prices and outward migration following the birth of Tech Boom 2.0 back in 2011. Neighbourhoods are becoming more expensive and longtime residents are being pushed out so real estate speculators can create housing for the affluent. Established businesses are evaporating overnight, to be replaced by the newest coffee shop or tech startup.
With big tech companies paying interns six-figure salaries, and with smaller startups aspiring to be bought out by larger corporations, the Bay Area has been flooded with young wealthy technology workers. They are roughly 70% male and 60% white, and generally making enough money to afford what has become the average San Francisco rent: around $2,500 a month. Some could even afford a downpayment on a home. Soon prospective buyers and tenants were outbidding each other in cash.
The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project started in 2013 to document and study the eviction crisis. Our research found that disproportionate property price increases correlated with the placement of private tech bus stops, and the shuttle stops that companies including Google, Facebook to Apple use to transport San Francisco residents to jobs in Silicon Valley. Between 2011 and 2013, 69% of no-fault evictions occurred within four blocks of these private shuttle stops. ...
Our Narratives of Displacement and Resistance project is an attempt to address this. Over the last two years, we have been gathering oral histories of those impacted in different ways by Tech Boom 2.0 – from those evicted by networks of shell companies, to those who have experienced increased racial profiling and those who have fought their evictions through direct action … and won.
