Posted by Deirdre Oakley,
DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA – A repeated stereotype about low income residents is
that they don’t care about investing in their housing and community. Another
one is that they all live off some kind of government subsidy. And yet one more is that private market rental housing is of much better quality than the maligned public housing developments, many of which are currently being
demolished. None of these are true and the peaceful protest I stumbled upon
outside the Kensington Station Apartment complex walking home from the train the
other day provides a loud and clear reality check. With my now apparently obsolete 3G Iphone camera I captured residents -- including men,
women, and children -- chanting and holding up homemade signs aimed at rush-hour passersby protesting the horrible conditions
of these apartments: pervasive mold and pipe leaks, no heat, air conditioning that doesn’t
work regularly, unwanted bugs, lack of safety, and more mold. One resident had
a sign that said “Fix em or condemn”. The local Chanel 2 News was there to
report on the protest, although I couldn’t find the story online.
The manicured lawns outside the complex that I pass by on my way to the train on a daily basis, as well as the
property owners’ advertisements convey an almost utopian version of rental living. This stands in sharp contrast to the reality of Kensington. None of the residents utilize the outdoor amenities because the woods are not
safe, the swimming pools are never clean, and the ‘lake’ a cesspool of mosquitoes.
And the apartments themselves have not been updated in years.
The rent is affordable at Kensington and most of the residents are
lower income working families who rightly expect that their living quarters meet
the standards of the private market rents they pay every month. Yet, the
constant code violations have not been addressed by the property owners. One
resident living on a ground floor apartment told me that the mold is so bad
that despite her efforts at keeping the apartment clean, mushrooms regularly
grow out of her carpet. Another resident said that the kids in the complex
regularly go to bed wearing coats in the winter because the heating system
frequently breaks down. This is despite the fact that residents are responsible
for paying their own utilities. No one paying rent should have to put up with
these conditions.
Policy makers have advocated
for private market-based solutions to the dearth of affordable housing over the
last two decades. But Kensington is
private and it provides substandard housing in exchange for affordable (but not
low) rents. The county has done nothing to address the myriad of code violations
cited against the complex. So where does that leave the residents? Will their
protest yield any change? Not unless code violations are enforced. And there
lies the problem with private market dependence for affordable housing. Likewise,
the proverbial elephant in the room is the issue of race: if this were a white
working lower income community would the responsible government entity and the
land lords be more responsive? To be sure, we certainly do not live in a color-blind
society. Still, I am suspending my cynical perspective because protest means hope. I greatly respect Kensington Station's resident mobilization
because this is the first step towards change.
Deirdre Oakley is the editor of Social Shutter and an
Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at Georgia State University.
She can be contacted at doakley1@gsu.edu.
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