(12-17-2021, 10:20 AM)Sneakers Wrote:

(12-16-2021, 11:11 PM)mikesez Wrote: It's not the end of the world when people move.  Gentrification is good.  Crime goes down elsewhere, everyone wins. Affordable housing can be built elsewhere.

Moving certain people out of a neighborhood can change the character of the area.  Relocating those people to a new neighborhood, does not change the character of the people.

When I worked for Habitat for Humanity in Jacksonville for a couple of years I always wondered why people who lived in these neighborhoods we were building in would want to stay in those same neighborhoods. They weren't getting out of the bad neighborhood, they were buying a house in that same environment of crime and drugs and poverty.

So I asked one of the homebuyers and they said it's all they knew. That even among all of the negatives that came with staying there the positive was they were going to own a home as opposed to renting from someone who could kick them out at any time and for any reason. Basically it's "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" mindset when staying there. 

We also saw a similar mindset a couple of times when the homeowners defaulted on their loans and HabiJax bought the houses back. We'd go in to renovate and the inside was destroyed. It didn't look like the brand new house they'd moved into the year before. It looked like the house they described trying to get out of when they applied for a Habitat house. You can change a person's environment but it won't necesarily change who they are if it's a deeply ingrained mindset.

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