church hill Archives

There Goes The Neighborhood: Combating Displacement in Richmond’s Historically Black Neighborhoods

Richmond Racial Equity Essays | November 12, 2021

Topics: affordable housing, church hill, disinvestment, displacement, gentrification, housing policy, Jackson Ward, Jackson Ward Collective, Mariah Williams, redlining, Richmond Racial Equity Essays, The JXN Project, urban renewal

I grew up in the old Harlem, New York. Where the hot summers would bring the kids outside to run through the fire hydrants that we turned into sprinklers, stoops and railings became the porches that we didn’t have, and the corner store was our very own Walmart of snacks. 125th street, home of the famous Apollo Theater, was the place to get bootleg CDs and DVDs, and the latest Air Force One sneakers.

I had the opportunity to traverse many cultural spaces by way of being a smart Black kid from the hood, but even after the long days of summer camps and evenings of violin lessons on the lower east side, nothing felt quite like home as much as the 1.4 square miles of my Black, Harlem community.

In the summer of 2017, Wholefoods came to Harlem, right on 125th street and just a few avenues away from the Apollo. And well, there went the neighborhood. Its arrival was indicative of a different Harlem. Up until then, Harlem felt impenetrable to processes I would later learn about as an urban planner – gentrification and displacement, and the inner workings of policies that drove them.

The change that engulfed Harlem is part of a national trend in gentrifying legacy Black cities and neighborhoods across the country – wealthy, white families are moving to non-white, predominantly Black neighborhoods. According to the New York Times, since the year 2000, white residents moving to non-white communities has affected about one in six predominantly African-American census tracts. Inner cities and downtown centers once plagued by disinvestment, to which minorities were relegated, are attracting new development. The insidious nature of the changes happening in communities like Harlem is not simply the emergence of more white faces on Harlem’s streets or the newly built bike lanes. The changes symbolize renewed interest in communities that have long fought for the very resources and amenities that new residents can now access so easily. They also symbolize an erasure of the very Blackness and cultural and social norms that created such a dynamic community.

The sudden interest in Black communities across the country is not, in fact, a sudden process. While the demographic shifts suggest a pattern of individual white households choosing to move to historically Black and disinvested neighborhoods to spur gentrification and eventually displacement, their accomplices include housing policies that both encourage and intensify changes in these Black communities. The gentrification process and the displacement it incites perpetuates patterns of injustice as Black communities are erased, removed from the fabric of reinvested communities, and priced out of the very neighborhoods that once offered affordability. These injustices are deeply rooted in the United States’ long history of intentional disinvestment in Black communities and other communities of color. This disinvestment was aided by federal, state, and local housing policies throughout the country, beginning in the early 20th century. This included practices such as redlining, blockbusting, urban renewal and highway construction, to name a few – the culmination of these interventions disseminated Black neighborhoods throughout the county. Richmond’s Black communities were no exception.

As the city of Richmond undergoes significant transition, achieving racial equity means implementing policies to combat involuntary displacement of Black residents and to preserve the culture embedded within historic Black communities.

Neighborhood Change in the City of Richmond

In Richmond, gentrification has been pretty significant in neighborhoods such as Jackson Ward, Church Hill, and more recently, the city’s Northside. As each of these neighborhoods have undergone gentrification, both physical and cultural displacement have occurred. This year, Jackson Ward celebrated its 150th anniversary, which prompted reflections on the changes that the neighborhood has undergone over the last century and how it has endured after decades of forcible displacement of its Black residents.

What does it mean for a neighborhood, once known as the Harlem of the South, to have transformed to a majority white community, where African-Americans only comprise about 23% of the population? Or when long time residents are forced to move and are replaced by new and younger ones? History and culture is lost, and we lose the benefit of not only learning about the history of a community from those who lived there, but we risk the history being lost altogether if we do not continuously highlight the historical narratives and markers of its Black culture. Trailblazers such as Maggie Lena Walker and Oliver Hill, who helped make the neighborhood such a staple in Richmond’s Black community, are not just figures of the past. Their legacy can remain even as the community transforms and can even light our path forward.

Church Hill is yet another example of a neighborhood where demographic shifts mirror those happening in historically disinvestment communities throughout the city. Church Hill is one of Richmond’s oldest neighborhoods. Beginning in the late 1950s, the neighborhood experienced significant decline. Development and housing policies gave way to white flight, leaving behind low-income African-Americans to experience decades of disinvestment. That has since changed. Between 2000-2010, the neighborhood began to attract a whiter and more educated population. By 2015, African American households, both renters and homeowners, had declined by 20 percent, after comprising almost 90 percent of households in 2000. Even more striking, in this same period, Black homeowners in Church Hill declined by 23 percent, while white homeowners increased by 159 percent. Home values have grown at the same speed as white folks in the neighborhood. In just four years, between 2010-2014, home values increased by 30 percent, from a median sale price of $165,000 to $215,000 by 2014.

These changes in the demographic make-up of the community should have prompted decision-makers, elected officials, and policymakers to take a closer look at the policies driving such drastic change in the community and attracting residents so unlike the existing ones.

The demographic and housing market shifts are compounded by a contentious cultural shift, a shift that the preservation of Black businesses have been crucial in curtailing. Brookland Park Boulevard, located in Richmond’s Northside and the city’s first streetcar suburb, once served as the physical demarcation of white and Black residents in the neighborhood. Similar to Church Hill, the Northside’s housing market is undergoing significant change and attracting a demographic that was once foreign to the community. However, the presence of Black businesses along this main commercial corridor has been key to the neighborhood maintaining its cultural footprint. These businesses reflect a commitment to making sure that Black culture and families are reflected even as the community changes. More importantly, the types of businesses matter: restaurants, Black hair salons, and barbershops, which in the Black community are of great significance. They have long offered respite for us, serving as gathering spaces to discuss politics, culture, and social issues.

Mobility vs. Displacement

As difficult as it may be, change is a fact of life. Neighborhoods change, and the people within those neighborhoods change as personal and economic factors drive them to move out of one community and into another. I, for one, have moved countless times in my life. For jobs, for school, or simply out of a desire to be somewhere else. But, it’s important to distinguish the process of this change from the havoc it wreaks on the people who have called a community home.

Nothing is as simple as being either for or against something. When I hear gentrification, I have a visceral reaction because of how I’ve seen it change my own community, but I know that it denotes a process, not necessarily an outcome. I do not think any Black person who has lived in an under-resourced or impoverished community is against finally getting those resources we have fought so hard for. It’s about more than being against change or investment, or for it, especially when that investment is long overdue. But it is a matter of not feeling disposable, unseen, or unheard as this investment occurs; of not feeling as though the white people moving in are somehow more deserving of paved sidewalks, greenspace, bike paths and grocery stores.

I don’t believe gentrification has to lead to displacement, and in fact, there are cities across the country where policy has been key to combating involuntary displacement in communities of color.

Policy got us into this, so policy has to get us out.

Creating an equitable Richmond means being intentional about promoting policies that combat involuntary displacement, ensuring that Black households truly have a choice in remaining in their communities and that they can reap the benefits of reinvestment as much as their white counterparts. This includes policies that promote stability for Black homeowners and renters in historically Black neighborhoods.

Property Tax Relief

In places like the District of Columbia and Maryland, caps on property taxes for the elderly or low-income residents, called homestead laws, ensure that they can remain in their homes even as property taxes rise due to revitalization. What if these types of laws were expanded to all homeowners, regardless of age? This might be a solution for ensuring that Black homeowners are not priced out of their homes as their communities are revitalized.

Inclusionary Zoning

Additionally, a shrinking stock of affordable housing throughout the country increases the likelihood of working class families being displaced. In the city of Richmond, a lack of affordable housing in neighborhoods that are rich in resources keeps many families from remaining in those communities. Passing and enforcing inclusionary zoning (IZ) laws that require developers to build a certain percentage of affordable housing in new or renovated buildings or to build more housing for larger families, can help ensure that residents find affordable housing within communities of their choice. Burlington, Vermont was an early adopter of inclusionary zoning in the 1990s. As part of the IZ requirements, at least 15-20 percent of newly built housing has to meet the affordability requirements, and they have to remain affordable for up to 99 years. This policy has allowed the locality to build 270 affordable units, and while it is not a perfect system, enforcing regulations means that people can access affordable housing in changing communities.

Preservation and Celebration

While Jackson Ward still struggles with the legacy of mass displacement of Black residents, the community does provide an example of how historic preservation policies help to combat cultural displacement in legacy Black communities. For example, in 1976, Jackson Ward was nominated for the National Register of Historic Places; efforts driven by those who recognized the need to protect the community’s history. In 1978, it was recognized as a National Historic Landmark, followed by two local designations in 1986. These designations are significant because they not only provide federal and local protections against significant changes to historic properties, they also symbolize a commitment and recognition from officials that this Black community is worth being preserved. More recently, projects such as The JXN Project and the Jackson Ward Collective have been created to preserve Black culture by supporting Black business owners and ensuring that they have the resources needed to thrive. These types of projects help prevent cultural and social displacement by ensuring that minority business owners are embedded in the city’s economy.

Why the moment is now

Black people and neighborhoods have always deserved to be protected from displacement, but the recent health crisis has shown us just how tenuous our circumstances could be without the proper interventions. The COVID-19 crisis hit hard, but Black and Latino communities were hit the hardest. For those who never truly understood the implications of decades of disinvestment and racism in housing within Black communities, the health crisis revealed just how deep these inequities run. As federal eviction moratoria are lifted and forbearance programs end, state and local policies are even more important to curtailing displacement.

If racial equity is to be achieved in Black communities that have long been the epicenter for disinvestment, then as reinvestment occurs, Black households must also be able to reap the benefits of this revitalization. And being able to remain there is simply the starting point, for as neighborhoods transform, we should not be left thinking, “there goes the neighborhood.”

Born and raised in Harlem, New York, Mariah Williams is an urban planner, storyteller, adjunct professor, and researcher dedicated to highlighting the experiences of Black people and spaces in cities. Her work on Black joy, Black women, and community has been featured in Next City, Third Wave Urbanism and For Harriet. Mariah received her B.A in Sociology from the University of Richmond and her Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Commonwealth University.

This essay is part of the Richmond Racial Equity Essays series, exploring what racial equity looks like in Richmond, Virginia. It is reprinted here with permission. Check out the full project, the accompanying videos, and the podcast.

VCU ASPiRE: Engaging Beyond Campus

Jay Guevara | January 31, 2020

Topics: church hill, community engagement, Jeff Davis Highway, Navy Hill, Noah O, Oak Grove-Bellemeade, Richmond Vampire, vcu, VCU ASPiRE

VCU’s ASPiRE program helps students at Richmond’s largest college discover, engage, and make a difference in the city outside their campus.

VCU ASPiRE is a program at Virginia Commonwealth University that focuses on students learning about the history of Richmond, with the aim of sparking community engagement for areas of the city that are in need. Established in 2012, it has expanded its partnerships from campus-based organizations or organizations near the campus to habitat restoration centers in the northside, landscaping and renovations at the Oak Grove-Bellemeade Elementary School and community center, aided in renovations for historic African American East End cemeteries by finding lost grave markers, and more.

During the last two years of my college tenure, I was enrolled in VCU ASPiRE’s community engagement program, and when I graduated last May, I received not only a bachelor’s in Health, Physical Education, and Exercise Science but also a certificate in community engagement through the VCU ASPiRE program. A native of Richmond, Southside born and raised — Jefferson Davis Highway and Terminal Avenue, to be specific — I grew up in the former murder capital all my life, and I have seen the city change. To quote Noah-O from his first visit on Sway in The Morning, “I’m from the RIC before it became RVA.”

I joined VCU ASPiRE because I wanted to bring my own perspective to it from a true local standpoint, having grown up in poverty, in the middle of food deserts and gang influences, living in a part of Richmond that was once highly known for sex and drug trafficking. It was an indirect challenge from an old teacher inspired me to become a part of the program. Mr. Stevens, my old math teacher from Thomas Jefferson High School, said to me months before my high school graduation, “Get out of Richmond — there’s nothing for you here.” Years later, I found a way to challenge what he had told me through working with VCU ASPiRE.

Thanks to the program, I learned more about the story of the African American neighborhood of Navy Hill, how it was torn down to build I-95, and how Jeff Davis (aka Route 1) was I-95 before I-95. I expanded my knowledge about the origins of Oregon Hill, learning that it was a blue-collar neighborhood in the 1900s. I even heard the story of the Richmond Vampire, who ran all the way from Church Hill to the Richmond Cemetery [more on the truth behind this legend coming soon from RVA Mag -ed].

By becoming a part of the program, my love for helping the community that I once starved in truly grew. I went back and volunteered at homeless shelters in Southside, and helped renovate the same community center where I used to work out, which influenced my eventual degree. The program also aided in connecting me to resources in the city that I can refer other people and organizations to.

In my second year at VCU ASPiRE, when I was able to do independent events for my required hours, I used my contributions to Richmond’s hip hop culture, such as organizing events and speaking at WRIR for Lovelace Magazine and HennyNCoke, along with lecturing at VCU, the University of Richmond, and Virginia State University in the same semester. The program even allowed me to get volunteer hours when I organized a community hooping session at the basketball courts in Randolph, where friends from ATL and artists like Mally Goku and Van Silke helped bring people out and donated food and drinks.

Through the program, I was also able to create volunteering opportunities at the Richmond City Health District when I was an intern in the opioid department, during my very last semester of college. In February 2019, I represented the program alongside other classmates at the National Impact Conference at UVA. For a former grade school dropout who once lied about going to college, I never could have imagined myself representing a university in a national conference coming straight out of Richmond. But VCU ASPiRE brought me there.

VCU ASPiRE helps inform students about the city, showing them how to find hidden gems well beyond the campus and the popular downtown and Carytown scenes usually affiliated with the RVA tourist brand. I’m grateful for the opportunities it brought to me and brings to many VCU students, and very appreciative of the program’s staff, including Erin Brown, Michael Rackett, Nanette Bailey, former staff member Samuel Brown, Nerice Lochansky, and everyone else invloved.

If you’re a VCU student and the opportunity to engage with your city beyond the campus sounds appealing, look into the VCU ASPiRE program at community.vcu.edu/aspire.

GRTC Connects: Route 12 – Church Hill to the East End

Wyatt Gordon | July 31, 2019

Topics: affordable housing, bus routes, buses, church hill, East end, GRTC, GRTC Connects, homeownership, housing, population shift, poverty, public transportation, richmond transportation, transportation, wyatt gordon

The fifth installment in a monthly series in which a hometown Richmonder who has spent over a decade abroad explores the many different neighborhoods accessible by GRTC bus lines, to discover the ways transit connects us all.

Church Hill:

Strolling down the tree-lined avenues of historic homes, manicured mini-lawns, and tastefully curated porches of Church Hill, one could be forgiven for thinking they were out on a jaunt in Georgetown or Old Town Alexandria. Alas, a glance down 29th street toward the James River provides a reminder that this is still Richmond; the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument towers here over Libby Hill Park, one of the neighborhood’s grandest green spaces.

*Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Photo by Wyatt Gordon)*

Upon this hill 282 years ago, William Byrd II — a notoriously cruel slaveowner — observed that this bend of the James reminded him of a view from his childhood, that of the Thames from Richmond Hill on the outskirts of London. The name of the neighborhood also derives from a nearby landmark: Saint John’s Episcopal Church. Within its four walls, Patrick Henry persuaded the First Virginia Convention to send its troops to fight the British with a cry of “Give me liberty or give me death!” If Church Hill is a neighborhood with a long memory, then its collective consciousness likely has whiplash from the rapid change that has swept across this part of the city over the past decade and a half.

This past March, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition released a study on gentrification and cultural displacement. In the report’s Richmond section, local urban planner Shekinah Mitchell documents the “racialized wave crashing onto the shores of neighborhoods” in the city’s East End like Church Hill.

In 2016, the number of black and white people in Richmond was roughly equal — clocking in at 47 and 46 percent, respectively, of the city’s population. This equalization marked a drastic shift from the demographics at the turn of the millennium, when blacks made up 57 percent of the River City and whites just 38 percent.

Beyond the identity crisis faced by similar cities once characterized by their large black populations, such as Washington, D.C. — dubbed “the Chocolate City” for this very reason — Richmond’s shrinking black communities are the canaries in the coal mine of widespread physical, economic, and cultural displacement. The southern chunk of Church Hill up to Broad Street has long featured mostly white residents; however, the area’s stock of charming, relatively affordable homes and increasingly expensive amenities like Alewife, WPA Bakery, and Dutch & Co. have drawn in ever-greater numbers of homebuyers with purchasing power beyond that of longtime residents.

Such rapid gentrification means the majority of homebuyers in black neighborhoods today are white people. The New York Times recently created an interactive map to document this phenomenon down to the census tract level. In the area increasingly marketed as Church Hill North, whites made up just one in four residents in 2012; yet over the period from 2000-2017, comprised 61 percent of those who received home loans. In Chimborazo and Oakwood, the numbers are more alarming still: blacks made up 83 percent of residents, but whites received 68 percent of mortgages.

New neighbors and amenities is a decidedly positive development for Church Hill. Gentrification need not be a dirty word: the problem with incoming residents is that all too often, the hunt for a place to live is a zero-sum game, resulting in a wave of displacement rather than a tide that lifts all boats. Historic district regulations and zoning laws frequently block the creation of more affordable multi-family housing, like the three-to-four story apartment buildings that make the Museum District so charming.

In this willfully sleepy neighborhood where bars close early and the sidewalks are still historic brick, it can be easy to squint and envision Richmond as it was centuries ago. The boxy, modernist homes springing up in every vacant lot are a preview of the city’s certain future. Whether neighborhoods like Church Hill — and Richmond at large — will grow denser or less diverse remains an open question.

The Ride:

After gorging myself on both savory and sweet pies from Proper Pie Co., I stood at the corner of 25th and Broad waiting on GRTC’s Route 12 bus. A woman randomly walked up to me and asked if I needed a daily pass for the bus. She had accidentally bought multiple, not realizing that she could not activate the passes another day, but rather they were only good for the day of purchase. Thanks to the kindness of this stranger named Carrie, the ride was off to a good start.

Lacking active GPS data, the Transit app and GRTC’s app both showed the same arrival time. Yet no bus came. Instead of waiting thirty minutes for the next bus to possibly not show, my friend Amber and I decided to walk the ten blocks to the new Market at 25th. After exploring this corner of the East End, we walked to the stop at 22nd and Fairmount Avenue to see what the experience of a shopper headed back to public housing’s Mosby, Whitcomb, Fairfield, and Creighton Courts would be like.

Transit app had live tracking for two westbound buses. Buses on Route 12 are supposed to come every thirty minutes, but due to bunching, this day a westbound passenger would have to wait either 12 or 48 minutes between buses. There was no live data for eastbound buses at all. The first bus we wanted to take never appeared. As we waited thirty minutes for the next scheduled eastbound 12 bus, two westbound buses drove past.

After a half an hour sitting on the curb (this stop has no bench, shelter, or even a sidewalk), the next scheduled bus also failed to arrive. Frustrated, I tweeted at GRTC asking if something was wrong with the eastbound route. Their prompt response informed me that only two buses were running that day, and they had no information of any disturbances along the route.

During this final half hour waiting on the next scheduled bus, I witnessed both buses disappear from the Transit app’s tracking at Route 12’s westbound terminus and reappear in Shockoe Bottom, again heading westbound. After both buses passed our stop heading west a second time, Amber and I became too exasperated by the lack of a bus or answers, and gave up on the 12 — we took the Route 7 bus back to Church Hill.

For someone riding the bus simply to write an article, the failure of four buses to show presents an inexplicable inconvenience. For someone trying to get home after shopping with their family, this would be a disaster. Imagine sitting on the curb for hours with two kids in 98 degree heat, as all your refrigerated goods perished, and your bus home failed to come again and again.

The East End:

Wine tastings of bubbly rosés, fresh caught scallops, and shelves overflowing with rapini, Hokkaido pumpkins, and bok choy could not have been found in the East End just a year ago. For shoppers at the newly opened Market at 25th, such luxuries are becoming commonplace.

As we wandered through aisles named after East End churches, teeming with tons of products sourced from the greater Richmond region, the Market’s desire to make itself approachable to existing residents was almost palpable. The dozens of families packing their carts full on a Friday afternoon seemed to indicate all is going according to plan: for the first time in years, East End residents have access to healthy, affordable groceries at a full-service supermarket. Our conversational cashier concurred; after some initial growing pains and price adjustments, business has been booming.

A block down the road lies Bon Secours’ Sarah Garland Jones Center — another relatively recent neighborhood addition, which painstakingly pays homage to the first black woman who passed the Virginia Medical Board’s exam to become a doctor. Through a partnership with the Robins Foundation, the center is home to the Front Porch Cafe, a coffee house that equips East End youth with life skills and work experience while providing the community an inviting local place to gather.

Go a few blocks in any direction from these top-notch amenities and their placement in the East End begins to feel like an anomaly. Most other streets in this area feature at least one staple of what sociologists refer to as “urban decay”: abandoned homes, boarded-up storefronts, general blight. The poverty and neglect found here can feel so tragic and unavoidable to the untrained observer, but the East End was designed to fail.

It is no coincidence that four of Richmond’s six large public housing communities all lie within one mile of each other in the East End. Altogether, over 9,100 people call Richmond Redevelopment & Housing Authority’s Mosby, Fairfield, Whitcomb, and Creighton Courts home. Over half of the residents are children seventeen and younger; the rest are mothers, grandmothers, and mostly female guardians living below the poverty line.

South of Baltimore, RRHA’s four East End properties comprise the largest cluster of public housing in the country, and thus one of the densest concentrations of poverty in the whole nation, according to the agency’s outgoing head. What began as a New Deal-era ideal to replace slums with quality workforce housing rapidly transformed into a racialized weapon, to warehouse society’s least desirable people — blue collar blacks — in blocks of homes far away from wealthier whites. The six public housing complexes built for black people were never meant to replace the 4,700 housing units the city gutted from historically-black neighborhoods like Jackson Ward and Fulton, not to mention all the homes lost in predominantly black communities to the construction of I-95 and the Downtown Expressway.

In his book, Richmond’s Unhealed History, Rev. Ben Campbell writes, “You cannot separate the history of public housing in Richmond from race. It is the white establishment deciding what they want to do with predominantly black neighborhoods and using language that suggests they are trying to help improve them, while the actual fact is much darker than that. And that set the stage for what we are dealing with now.”

Today, that staggering concentration of poverty means 60 percent of Richmond’s public housing units fall within just one district, and thus have only one advocate for their needs on both a city council and a school board of nine. This intentionally diminished power of low-income voices manifests itself in the way we talk about, maintain, and plan the future of public housing today.

The courts’ maintenance issues and widespread lack of heat in past winters — many units didn’t have a functioning boiler last year — have led new RRHA CEO Damon Duncan to declare that Richmond’s current public housing properties have “exceeded their useful life by a good 15 years.” While current RRHA residents would likely jump at the chance to move into higher-quality housing, Duncan’s plans to demolish Richmond’s courts without guaranteeing current residents affordable units in new constructions has left many in the community worried displacement may soon be on their doorstep.

The boundary between Church Hill and the East End is as vague as it is porous. Although home values in the former may be triple or quadruple those of the latter, both neighborhoods face a similar challenge: how can we as a city welcome new residents without displacing those whose families have lived there for generations? If policymakers can’t solve this problem soon, then in a generation, there may not be much of a difference between Church Hill and the East End anyway.

“Elephant in the Room”: Community Advocates Discuss Race, Gentrification

VCU CNS | February 14, 2019

Topics: church hill, Duron Chavis, gentrification, Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Housing Virginia, Kinfolk Community Empowerment Center, Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, richmond

One of Shekinah Mitchell’s favorite memories in Richmond is walking out of her favorite corner store 10 years ago and serendipitously meeting the man who would become her husband.

Today, that corner store no longer exists.

Mitchell’s story is part of a larger pattern that policy experts said is becoming increasingly common in Richmond and around the nation: gentrification.

“Gentrification is not just physical displacement; it’s cultural displacement,” Mitchell said during a panel Friday afternoon. “In the same way we have to be vigilant in preserving housing that is affordable for all people in our community, we have to do the same with culture.”

Two seats away from her, Arthur Burton, the executive director of Kinfolk Community Empowerment Center, said gentrification is often discussed in a way to keep white people comfortable.

“We tend not to talk about the elephant in the room, and that’s the elephant of race,” Burton said.

According to an analysis by panel member Jonathan Knopf, with Housing Virginia, about 90 percent of households in the Church Hill area were black in 2000, including renters. By 2015, that number fell to about 70 percent.

While the number of black homeowners in Church Hill decreased by almost 25 percent in that same period, the number of white homeowners increased by nearly 160 percent.

Duron Chavis, the community engagement manager at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, said the trend is not new.

“The narrative of Virginia is one where some were given privilege over land and its use, while others were marginalized from its use,” Chavis said. He said displacement “is engrained in the very fabric of this country.”

When a wealthier person moves into a neighborhood and purchases a home at a higher price than its assessed value, Chavis explained, people already living in that area must now pay higher taxes on their homes.

For some families, Mitchell noted, the increasing home value is a wonderful thing, as having more equity can mean building wealth. But that’s not the case for everyone.

“In some cases, it can go from $200 to, maybe, $1,600 in taxes a year,” Chavis said. “If you as a homeowner become delinquent on your taxes, then you’re at threat of losing your home.”

For renters, as home values in an area increase, so does their monthly rent – until, sometimes, they can no longer afford to live there.

It’s a process that some people link to eviction.

According to a report published in April, Richmond has one of the highest eviction rates in the nation. Research by VCU’s Center for Urban and Regional Analysis shows that eviction rates are higher in areas with a higher population of black residents. In fact, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney just introduced a pilot program to help combat high eviction rates. In a 2010 report, the Center for Responsible Lending found that black families also disproportionately lose their homes to foreclosures.

“It’s a modern-day land grab,” said Brian Koziol, the director of research and policy at Housing Opportunities Made Equal, a nonprofit advocacy group. “The result is the same: It took wealth and land from brown and black families.”

For Mitchell, a word that comes to mind when discussing gentrification is colonization. She read in a newspaper article years ago that a local housing official saw a need for urban pioneers – people who will move into areas considered distressed and pioneer to live there.

“A pioneer is someone who goes to an undiscovered place where nothing exists. But our communities are places that already have people and culture,” Mitchell said. “That mentality of coming in and not acknowledging what already exists, not acknowledging the culture in a community – it feels like colonization again.”

Words and Photos by Maryum Elnasseh, Capital News Service

Accusations Of Gentrification Surround Salvation Army Boys & Girls Club Renovation

George Copeland, Jr. | December 6, 2018

Topics: Captain Donald Dohmann, church hill, gentrification, Richmond city council, Sa'ad El-Amin, Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club, Venture Richmond

Deep in the heart of Church Hill, where cobblestone boulevards give way to single-letter street names, the local Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club is in the midst of extensive renovation and expansion, a process that critics say comes at the expense of the area’s black community.

“This is textbook gentrification at it’s best. Anyone that disagrees has a motive that does not consider the impacted community members and legacy of Church Hill and the club,” said Lorraine Wright. Wright used to serve on the advisory board for the club, spearheading youth development workshops and a debate team within the organization, which she says suffered from poor conditions and unusable areas long before 2018. Most recently, the club’s services have moved into a single open space at the Franklin Military Academy while the club’s facility undergoes a year-long, $6.1 million renovation that will herald a shift in the club’s focus toward education, health, and fitness.

Wright brought increased attention to the club’s changes in a Facebook video condemning the firing of longtime club employees Dorothy J. Crenshaw and LaWanda Rowe, formerly the club’s program director (26 years) and administrative assistant to the director (38 years) respectively. The firing occurred with no notification given to the advisory board, and led to two separate work complaints being filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, with help from former Richmond City Council member Sa’ad El-Amin.

Those complaints were eventually denied, however, and Crenshaw and Rowe have both shifted their focus on to other pressing matters in their lives, according to Wright. This marks the latest development in a still-contentious issue, one that Wright sees as a deliberate effort to draw wealthier new residents into the area, at the expense of long-term residents and underrepresented citizens and without the purview or input of the community or those meant to give guidance on the club’s direction.

“I would really propose that this is strategic,” Wright said. “Every single step and everything that’s happened is absolutely intentional. And that’s our concern.”

Despite the club’s name, the Boys and Girls Club of America are involved very little in its operation, leaving the Salvation Army, and local leader Captain Donald Dohmann, to determine its future. For Dohmann, that means leaving any legal challenges to the organization’s lawyers, after what he says have been repeated attempts to reach a compromise with Crenshaw, Rowe and Wright, with no success.

“The only thing I can share with you at this point is that everything has been turned over to our legal department,” Dohmann said. “We feel that we have made good resolve on meeting the individuals and unfortunately, there are some individuals that have not accepted that offer. But we’re moving forward.”

Wright disputes Dohmann’s interpretation of the events leading up to the complaint filings, which she and Rowe have described as being much more dismissive of the former employees’ contributions. They also disagree on a proposed raise of pool fees from $15 annually to $20 monthly, which Wright says was only removed after community pushback, and Dohmann contends was never part of the renovation plans.

Regardless of the complaints’ dismissal, the conflict over the club’s future could have a potentially wider effect on Richmond society, as El-Amin and Wright have discussed introducing ordinances to the City Council that would put “a moratorium on increases in taxes” and restrict how much properties in areas undergoing gentrification can be improved, as a way of mitigating or stopping the impact that rising property values can have on long-time residents with lower incomes.

“We have to be diligent, we have to vigilant and we have to be proactive,” said El-Amin, who recently criticized Venture Richmond’s new ownership of the 2nd Street Festival as part of a conscious effort “to put Jackson Ward on the path of gentrification” in an October opinion piece in the Richmond Free Press. This along with the club’s renovation contributes, in El-Amin’s estimation, to “the complete annihilation of the African-American community as we know it.”

“It already happened in Church Hill,” El-Amin said. “It’s happening in Jackson Ward, it’s happening in Barton Heights, it’s happening everywhere. It is lethal to the black community, and we have to stop it by whatever means are necessary — legislation and whatever else comes up.”

Wright, for her part, expressed her intent to reach out to Councilman Parker Agelasto, formerly of the 5th District, “to discuss his potential support of the ordinance proposals, prior to his term expiration.” She also affirmed her commitment to establishing a community board for the club, made up of and controlled by indigenous or long-term Church Hill area residents. This proposed board would potentially allow Crenshaw and Rowe to continue serving Union Hill’s community, in a space distanced from the organization through which they did that same work for decades.

“For Ms. Rowe and Ms. Crenshaw, they don’t want to go back to the club, they feel so disrespected,” Wright said. “But it’s those kids, and you can even tell every single time I speak to them.”

“They’re talking about the kids. They’re not even talking about themselves, they’re talking about the kids.”

Photo by George Copeland

Best OF RVA Missed Connections: October 2 – October 8

RVA Staff | October 9, 2018

Topics: Chicago, church hill, Cracker Barrel, Fredericksburg, Innsbrook, LA, missed connections, Mustaches, richmond, travel

Is there anything more alluring than the thrill of traveling: the precipice of stepping into the unknown, the enchantment of far away lands, the freedom of an open road? Or just having some stranger at an airport of a roadside rest stop eyeball you up and down like a travel-sized toothpaste? Well, if that’s your bag, then this week’s Missed Connections are right there with you.

From saucy domestic flights with mustachio’d men, road-side encounters at rest-stops, and dashing encounters at a highway Cracker Barrel, there is a little something in here for every discerning adult looking for love.

As Shakespeare once said, “Speak low if you speak love.” Get amongst it, Richmond.

Cute Blonde in the Green Shirt: Michael’s on Midlo Tnpk

I commented on one of your tattoos, would love to have a cuppa with you. Interested? Reply with the tattoo I commented on.

Cracker Barrel – 10/7, 6:30 pm, patron, W, 65+ (Mayland Ct)

You were consuming your pancakes and we engaged in conversation twice.

Once, about a childhood game of yours displayed on the wall. Another, about your prior days of competitive athleticism.

The staff said you’ve been frequenting that establishment for many years, and they all appeared to know you.

In the end, I really enjoyed your conversation about various things of yesteryear.

I wouldn’t mind chatting again sometime?

Walking a little Black Puppy: Church Hill

You were [walking] your puppy, I was looking for my pets. Just want to tell you, thank you for looking with me. I did find them, they were in the basement on the pool table, they never come in the house, weird. But thank you

Old Dominion Concert: Innsbrook

You were the tall blonde with glasses and (I think white shorts). We stared at each other every time we walked by (tall guy).

My friend got sick right as I was about to come over and say hi.

Maybe send me a pic or your name and i’ll find you on FB?

La to Dulles to Richmond / Mustache Man

you – young guy with a mustache that came from LAX to Dulles then to Richmond. we made eyes a couple times on the flight to Dulles. i was thrilled to see you on my flight to Richmond. you were wearing a maroon shirt and were really cute.

me – young brunette in a multicolored sweatshirt that smiled at you

if you’re my mustached man – what item were you carrying on the flight to Richmond?

Rest Stop 95S to 85S: Rest Stop Fredericksburg

I saw you at a rest stop on 95S near Fredericksburg. We made eyes. I followed you back onto 95S, we weaved our way through Richmond and then onto 85S. Totally road flirting! You pulled off into a rest stop I didn’t see and missed.

I was driving a beautiful gray Jeep with a Capitals decal on the back. My hair is strawberry blonde.

Flight from Chicago to Richmond

We sat next to each other waiting on our flight from Chicago to Richmond, love your smile, you caught me few time[s] looking at this beautiful face. Wish I can see you again!