Take Back The Block

Take Back The Block

Juvenile fiction
You know your home is more than shelter. It's a space that your
family has made their own. It combines memory and promise with the
here and now. For many of us--especially kids and teens--it's
embedded in a wider neighborhood of neighbors, friends, school, and
special places.
Now I want you to think back to your eleven-year-old self and
imagine how you'd feel if you suddenly learned that your neighborhood
was going to be broken up. Stay in that frame of mind as you read
Chrystal D. Giles' Take Back The Block to walk a mile in her
protagonist Wes' shoes.
Wes is the only child in an activist family. Sometimes he gets
tired of marching and protesting while his peers chill. He has to
spend part of his eleventh birthday out in the heat fighting the
erection of a luxury condominium.
"I wasn't sure what the big deal was--I thought it sounded
pretty cool. The apartment buildings on this street were old and beat-
up. New stores would be nice..."
It's not long, though, before gentrification gets up close and
personal for Wes. He's lived in a close knit neighborhood, Kensington
Oaks, all his life. Suddenly there's a development group that wants
to buy the land it's on and redevelop it. They are sending all the
homeowners out offers they hope they can't refuse.
The adults tell the kids not to worry. They're going to pull
the neighborhood together. Only a community meeting turns ugly. A
split between those who want to preserve the neighborhood and its
history and those who feel that they'll benefit from taking the offer
and moving is turning into an abyss.
With the adults stalemated it seems that the kids must come to
the rescue. But what can a middle schoolers do?
A whole lot it turns out. You'll want to find out.
Giles first saw gentrification at work in the historic
culturally rich Black neighborhoods of Harlem. Returning home to
Charlotte, North Carolina, she saw the same process. She wondered
what happens to the displaced families. That question was the source
of her fine debut novel.
Charlotte isn't the only place facing an affordable housing
crisis for which gentrification is partly to blame. Now that a lot of
rich people can telecommute Portland, Maine is under seige and
becoming nearly impossible for lower income workers to find a place to
live in. Anywhere where you live?
On a purrrsonal note, this book really lit a fire under me. About a
decade ago my trailer park was almost broken apart.
Veazie is mostly a bedroom community for people who work in Orono and
Bangor. It came into being when a railroad tycoon named Samuel Veazie
carved out his own little fiefdom rather than pay taxes to Bangor.
Unlike more rural areas it has bus service. And, lacking a high
school, it offers teens school choice which includes access to some
top notch institutions.
For most of its history the trailor parked was outside owned. One day
the owner decided to put in on the market. We'd just seen the
residents of a Bangor trailer park have the land sold out from under
them with dire consequences for many, especially the poorer and more
medically frail. Most people were sure we were doomed to a similar
fate. A small group of us decided to explore the prospect of becoming
an owner operated cooperative. Coastal Enterprises said they'd work
with us if a majority of residents would vote to go coop. It took a
lot of educating, but we got our vote. About eleven years later we
are here and so much better off. We wrote our own rules. We elect
our officers. And we're one of the spots of affordable housing in a
place where lower income kids can get top quality education. Every
time I look at the newer suburban sprawl stretches I think, thank God
developers didn't steal our home. (Jules)
Not only hoomans. Lots of us cats and dogs need our homes. (Tobago)
A great big shout goes out to all who raise awareness of and fight
gentrification and other forms of housing displacement.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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