Gentrification: Opinions in Little Armenia
The neighborhood is gentrifying and we’re asking the community ‘experts’ how they feel about it.
Gentrification is the invisible wall keeping immigrants out of our cities.
The Rock of the Neighborhood
“Let’s look at the definition of gentrification: ‘the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste.’” This is how my interview began with Mr.Ed, a well-known leader of local organization in East Hollywood which feeds the homeless and needy in the area.
Ed has been living in Little Armenia for over twenty years, he makes, lives, and breathes this community. Being a key leader of a homeless feeding organization he sees the effects of gentrification first hand. He told me when he first started the organization, 50 people would come for a feeding and of that total only 45 were homeless. Currently, he is feeding four times as many people and nearly the same amount are homeless while the other 125 are struggling families and individuals who are looking for a wholesome meal. Yes the neighborhood maybe be getting “better” and there’s an influx of wealthy millennials, but its all at the expense of the communities original residents…and Ed has bared witness to it all.
According to Ed, gentrification is the “invisible wall” around our city. He finds it funny how California is the leading state for immigration rights, constantly protesting against Trump’s Wall; while at the same time it is also giving rise to invisible walls in our “sanctuary cities.” It is these same immigrants that are we are inviting into our state that we are pushing out and keeping out of our cities because of gentrification.
“Nobody asks where are these people are going! Nobody Cares!” — Ed
It is this hypocrisy that upsets Ed. California claims to care for the welfare of the underserved and runs on the basis of that platform but it’s not doing anything to stop. Most of the people coming into Little Armenia are not even from Los Angeles; Little Armenia is traditionally a Latino Community, but if you look around now it’s all affluent white people waiting outside in one-hour-lines for their $20 breakfasts. And the influx of people and development are not slowing down Ed fears.
“Would you like to go on a walk through the neighborhood with me?”, Ed asked. We walked out of the organization and he walked me up the street, he showed apartments that have been completely remodeled with a tripled rent. Investors have been buying up old buildings and buying out the tenants in order to completely remodel the place. “Developers are taking advantage of people who have never seen that type of money before,” he said, “they’ll offer families that have been paying a $600 rent a $20,000 payout to move out.” The traditionally poor families are basically being exploited because they end up taking the cash offer only to realize their new rents are going to be $1650 a month and that some of the money will only get them buy for about 10 months.
We walked down Fountain Blvd., a street that I would walk on all the time as a child, nearly all of the stores that used to be there have changed. Ed showed me what used to be a Latino church had been bought and turned into an art studio, a thrift store had become a boutique, and right now they are in the process of putting in a 5-star restaurant from New York that is sure to be busy.
He then took me across the street to one of the remaining small business, a family restaurant, that is being caved in by the land developer in the area. The restaurant is located next to a popular brunch place, since its establishment, the developer then bought the rest of the building on the block and the restaurants rent has nearly tripled. The owner told us that the developer told him that he had plans to change the whole block. The restaurant was basically the only thing standing in the way. The brunch place has taken away so much business the owner needs to work the restaurant full time and drive Uber just to keep his family afloat. The developer has already bought out the business, the family has 3 months left at the restaurant before they too will be will be pushed out and moved out.
“This is no longer the community it used to be…all the people are gone,” Ed stated. Gentrification has transformed our neighborhood and it’s not slowing down. So long as there is greed in our cities gentrification will only persist and serve to fortify the “invisible wall” around our cities.
Mr.Ed / Leader of a Homeless Feeding Organization / Homeless Activist / DOB: 10/8/44
The Neighborhood Know-all
First I interviewed my neighbor Bart Larson. He is the General Manager at Malo restaurant on Sunset Blvd. and well, sometimes it feels like he’s the GM of our block too.
Ever since I was a little girl I would remember my neighbor Bart spending long days in front of his apartment, stained black in grease, working on his old school car. Every time anyone one would pass by he would pull his head out the hood of the car and wave hello with his wrench. From the cholos to the hipsters Bart made friends of everyone and served as an ambassador for the block.
When I asked Bart about how gentrification in the area made him feel, he had a lot to say on the topic.
Although the neighborhood has gotten better, Bart feels like gentrification has ruined our neighborhood’s culture and worries him for the future of Little Armenia residents. In the interview he told us how when he moved here, sure there was a turf war with the cholos, but he and a lot of his artist friends came to Little Armenia because the rent was $500 right in the here in the heart of Hollywood.
He however doesn’t blame gentrification for this outcome but feel that it is merely a “symptom” of wealth distribution were experiencing here in LA. People are living off the same salary he had 20 years ago but with four times the rent cost. This paired with all the investors coming into the community offering to buy out historic homes to give rise to illegal condominiums is making Little Armenia more and more gentrified.
His main concerns with everything is that the city is just allowing foreign investors come in and buy land and allowing contractors to build condos with permission. In the last year we had 3 construction site on our block, causing heavy noise pollution and traffic. According to Bart the city did not consult the community before giving rise to these condos and after doing some research he discovered that the contractors were not even fined for putting up an un permitted structure. Bart told me how he was actively talking to congress men, council members, public officials, and community leaders to try to bring justice to the abusive contractors, but there was little he could do because of something called a “By Right Law”, which basically states if you own the land you could do whatever you want to it by right, and at the expense of the people around the property.
It appears that the city is aware of a lot of the questionable things happening in gentrified areas and its not doing anything to stop it. How long will it be till another home is bought on our block and over-night turned into a construction site, I’m not sure. But the question is clear, further investigation into the “By Right Law” and gentrification legislation needs to be done in order to answer it.
Bart Larson
General Manager @ Malo Restaurant
Community Activist
B.Larson@gmail.com
4/12/1972
