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Pitt Law professor and congressional candidate Jerry Dickinson
dozen home flips between 2016 and 2020, which was about half of the home sales that City Paper counted in the area. Beyond changes in property values, displacement and gentrification can disrupt cultural, community, and familial networks as people are pushed out of areas where they’ve historically lived and separated from neighbors and family members. Such disruptions can affect other aspects of life such as commutes and access to affordable childcare, as well as creating significant psychological stress. “If I was a landlord, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night doing this kind of stuff,” says Nikki. “It makes me really sad. I did, I, like, cried about it a couple of times. Because, even right now, it makes me feel like I’m gonna cry.” NRM and Costello Management declined to comment on Nikki and Baird’s experiences, respectively. The disruptions and psychological stresses disproportionately affect Black and Brown people, especially in Pittsburgh. As Dickinson notes in his PublicSource essay “Pittsburgh is America’s apartheid city,” it can have a re-segregating effect on neighborhoods. “Gentrification is tied to the idea of re-segregation by pushing residents of color out and displacing them, and then concentrating them back into a certain neighborhood or within the city, or pushing them outside of the city limits into a different region,” says Dickinson. While both Nikki and Baird were able
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to find housing afterwards, both recognized that they had safety nets or privileges that softened the impact — for one, they are both white — which many people in similar situations lack. And because gentrification is a multifaceted problem, it requires a multifaceted response. Community land trusts, such as the one in the Hill District that Dickinson helped create and the ones in Oakland and Lawrenceville, restrict resale prices to ensure affordability. Housing cooperatives, such as Sheraden Park’s co-op and Belmar Gardens in Lincoln-Lemington, can also keep prices affordable and give tenants more autonomy over their living situation. Tenant councils can help those who still rent by creating accountability for landlords and helping advocate for tenants. Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation executive director Rick Swartz believes neighborhood organizations such as his can also help mitigate gentrification by opening dialogues with landlords, although he also suggests more direct methods such as pushing for inclusionary zoning laws, which requires a minimum percentage of units in new housing to be affordable. “That’s how aggressive you’re going to have to be. ... And you might get resistance, by the way, from developers and real estate companies, of course,” says Swartz. “They may want to go to court and say, ‘We don’t like this ordinance. We think it’s illegal.’ But that’s OK. Let’s have that discussion first.”
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Follow staff writer Kimberly Rooney 냖㵸蔻 on Twitter @kimlypso PITTSBURGH CITY PAPER APRIL 28 - MAY 5, 2021
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