This past weekend I attended an open house held by my city’s Redevelopment Committee at the elementary school around the corner from my apartment.

The elementary school is around the corner now that I had to find a place to live when, after buying the building in which I lived, the tenants of the 24 apartments were given 30 days to get out or face eviction by the new owner so the ghost company could remodel the building and charge higher rents.

 In this process it was the building that counted as an investment and the existing tenants were just in the way. Tenant removal was impersonal and insulting even though their having lived in the building kept it occupied and not derelict so the seller could get a higher price.

The notice I received about the event in an email said,

 “The event allows everyone a chance to drop-in and provide their input on the city’s comprehensive plan. Additionally, representatives from City departments will be present, and family-friendly activities, raffles, and lunch will be included. Translation services will also be available.”

And, so, having just gone through the experience of being unhoused for the sake of city improvement and having experienced my own search and observing those of others, some of whom ended worse off because of the forced move, I was interested in what the city had come up with for renters who can so easily become displaced in the name of progress in what was said to be a comprehensive plan for the city and its future.

Upon entering the school, I signed in and signed up to get more information as time goes on and, while skipping all the tables that I am sure were interesting when relevant, like employment and healthcare, headed straight to the table with the sign that had the word “housing” on it.

I looked at all the printed forms and pamphlets, but these only dealt with assistance when buying property, remodeling what you bought, or repairing what needs it.

When I asked for renter information there was none and, by way of explanation, I was told that this committee dealt with housing and I felt I had to explain that for renters, apartments are their housing, and did.

 Not only were renters ignored when it came to housing, but there were, basically, forms and instructions on how to purchase property in a city beginning its rebirth, a process that usually results in tenants becoming unhoused as the new landlords raise rents.

The instructions were all the ways to have this displacement happen with nothing for the benefit or protection of renters.

The city might be talking about dealing with the homeless, it has already put slanted Belgian Stones at a major intersection so standing is next to impossible for panhandlers so they just moved, but unfortunately, the only information at the Community Development open house was on how to begin creating the homeless.

In seeking a solution to homelessness, besides eliminating those already homeless, the other consideration should be how to prevent homelessness, or at least reduce it, in the first place.

The best way to deal with a problem is to prevent it.

The section of the city I live in now has a rich history. There had been a bustling main street with merchants, social clubs, a movie theater, and all those things one would see in a small town center. To reduce the traffic congestion caused by the trucks from the fish processing plants clogging city streets, the state built a highway from the interstate to a traffic light in the South End and in the process wiped out a large chunk of the neighborhood and its people, replacing them with a four-lane highway that separates the city from its waterfront.

To me, it is the New Bedford street level version of Boston’s elevated Expressway before it was replaced with the Rose Kennedy Greenway, it, too, having been a good idea at the time.

Having seen historical pictures of the area from the days before the highway was built, I have wondered where the people went, and may have accidentally found what was done to clear the area of houses, businesses, and, more importantly, the people or, at least, I saw in practice what an attitude did and, although in different form, continues to do.

My car is somewhat comatose as the glowing check engine light seems to be a permanent fixture in spite of repeated work on the engine and after a brake pad fell off, so I have learned the bus routes by buying a monthly pass and taking each bus to see where each went. I found that all routes, save one, go to places people want to go, places with stores, medical centers, and schools. This one route, however, after going in a straight line through a typical city neighborhood as if it needed to get somewhere fast, veers off the main road and spends a great amount of time weaving through what were obvious the projects, low income, and elderly housing.

The buildings were well kept and the area clean, but the idea that people of certain demographics seem to have most likely been moved to what, at the time, was empty land with no reason to be there other than that is where in the city they could afford to live, seemed an effective way of removing people while the land was available whereas now it calls for those displaced and unwanted to not be seen by getting out of Dodge .

If the people there need things, there is that one bus that can take them from Siberia to downtown and then, thankfully, back home again and away from where they are not wanted once every hour for 12 hours.

The ride on that bus brought to mind the time in Oklahoma City, when, gathering historic information about the school at which I taught to get it on the Historic Register, I had the occasion to sit with someone at city hall to go over old maps of the school’s area and in the process learned a lot about the city.

As generally happened in cities that had streetcars and inter-urban lines as that city did, the oil companies and automobile companies got enough control, often by buying the existing system and letting it deteriorate, successfully moving people to automobiles, and this led to the elimination of street cars and brought in their replacement, the bus.

The original purpose of the streetcar system in that city as it was built by those who had somehow gotten quite a bit of land and resulting power during the Land Run that produced the city was to have people take the streetcars to various recreational areas, usually with a lake used to generate the power that ran the system that just so happened to pass through all the plots of land for sale by the same people who owned the streetcar company. This resulted in new neighborhoods springing up in new areas further away from down town and with that a need to get domestics to those areas.

The city would get federal money if it, rather than private companies, owned the transportation system, and to keep the funds coming while not overusing the buses, thus saving on repairs, the bus routes were laid out so that, while very inconvenient for those who needed domestics, it was the way the domestics in a Jim Crow city could get from the Black side of town to work.

I saw this bus route like that.

They had displaced the people but, as many were the working backbone of the city, still needed their labor even if they did not want their presence.

I could be wrong, but sometimes new eyes see the old things others close to it do not.

A few years ago, at a community meeting about the planned commuter rail to Boston presented by local people and some from Boston, when I asked about the displacement of present residents by gentrification, something I had no idea at the time was in my future, I was told by the MBTA representative that the train was all about economics as the train will bring improvements to the economy and that meant some people simply would just have to move.

These people would no longer be useful.

This idea, right or wrong, yet obviously and publicly announced as a given, should have figured into the plan for community development from that point on as, knowing people would have to move, the city should have established a department to help make the necessary and known move less painful and difficult.

It has been about five years.

When I needed to find a new place, as a 72-year-old, retired, cis-gender, Gay, White male I should not have had to contact city hall only to be given a list of agencies I might want to contact, the same list given to a young, single mother.

I was advised to do what I had already stumbled on and had done.

It was stated publicly that moving, voluntarily or otherwise no matter the negative hardships on the person displaced was expected and, apparently, would be allowed with nothing done to prepare for the known which shows clearly that the people here, the ones who kept the city alive even in its lowest days, are not of the caliber the city would like to attract because of the better incomes and disposable incomes of others.

And those displaced?

As the MBTA gentleman informed the room, they could move to Fall River.

And here, at an open house to get people all jazzed about the city and its future, it was clear that renters were of no consideration.

The owner of my building, an 1884 two family house which, like so many of the big old houses in town, was broken into apartments decades ago that are presently affordable, is getting close to 70 and, if he sold his property for its evaluated price, could retire on what he gets. I would not blame him if he sold the building to do this, but then the question comes in regarding what protects the tenants from eviction so the new owner can remodel the place for higher rents, or save time and money by just jacking up the rents and weeding people out.

For renters in the city the selling, buying, and upgrading of rental property too often for rents higher than present tenants can afford is a HOUSING issue and should be addressed when housing in the city is addressed.

It is almost as if renters in the city are a source-commodity. They benefit the city by their existence which brings in tax dollars and supports local businesses, but like a right-to-work employee, they can be easily replaced and forgotten by others who are seen as more desirable until they too are replaced by the next group deemed more useful to the economy.

The urge to convert old mills to high end condos and luxury apartments to attract money should be tempered by the need to turn some of them into low rent housing based on local realities not national averages for those slated for planned displacement from the more gentrifiable sections of town, and small temporary residences for homeless people who will then have an address when applying for work or having them easily located for healthcare.

Fix up the Ash Street jail, get rid of the bars and replace them with regular doors after remodeling the cells as small apartments with the cafeteria being refurbished along with recreational areas if the Charles Street Jail in Boston can become a luxury hotel, Ash Street conversion could be a simple matter of will.

Just as with Homeless encampments cities bulldoze as they do little to house those whose communities they destroy so it is removal without concern, the city seems intent on first ignoring their existence and then helping in getting rid of the housed great-unwashed, the renter, for the higher moneyed people with no concern where they might go.

The MBTA made it known that people will be removed, people who live here now, for the benefit of those whom the city would rather have for financial reasons, so it seems only right, moral, if you will, that the city deal with the people being affected.

I found when I was displaced that there are few if any laws in Massachusetts that actually protect renters and was reminded of this at the open house by having it suggested that a state law would be effective and was needed when it came to renters as most rental laws favor landlords not tenants,

I go to an open house about the community, its strengths, and its future and not only do I find the city does not even count my demographic as being worth attention and inclusion, but I seemed to have been given homework if I expect visibility and respect.

If I want protections as a renter, it is suggested that I work on getting a state law passed.

High school teaching payback.

I don’t see why New Bedford can’t be the leader in renter protection and a model in that for other cities and ultimately the state.

Homeowners are not the only citizens of a city, renters are too.

It seems to be a betrayal of the public trust if elected city leaders ignore their present citizens they have been elected to represent and for whom they have been entrusted to run a city beneficial to all citizens giving more loyalty to people still to arrive, if they do in the numbers imagines.

Renters should be included in community development, not ignored.

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