I was invited to a community board meeting down my block earlier this evening.  The weather was nice, so the meeting was held under the setting sun.  The meeting would have been held outdoors either way. This was the community board meeting for my neighbors of the Viaduct Community of Wilson and Lawrence, commonly referred to as, TentCity.

The meeting was about their impending eviction.   It was clear.  The community members do not want to live in their current state of homelessness.

One neighbor, Mark, puts it this way: “Most of us are not even promised any housing by the city and have no hope of getting any in a gentrified world. The exclusivity of the housing and job markets counts them out from the start. We are, therefore, demanding the city house the people under the viaducts to break the cycle of unemployment and homelessness and subsidize the forbidding, exclusive rental rates of the current market.”

I want to keep this conversation going.  I’m visiting my neighbors at the Wilson viaduct again, and I was told it was fine if I brought a friend.

Would you like to join me?  Send me a note that you’re coming: dan@dankleinman.org.