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District 7, Coral Gables Senior High
Narratives and drawings by the students of Troy Community Academy. Click an image for larger view.
Jose Alfonso, age 14
I believe that unless something useful is being built, like a hospital or a charity home, no one should be “forced out” of their home. If these contractors and land owners put down their scotch and compared the situation of the people that are getting kicked out of their homes with their own lives, then none of this gentrification would be happening. But since they don’t compare themselves to the people that go through this situation, they will remain insensitive and gentrification will just keep on happening.
Jorge Luis Puente, age 18
I think gentrification has good and bad affects. For example, if I arrive at my home and find that my house is going to be destroyed, I will feel very sad. I would have to change my school; I would have to leave my friends; I would have to change the places near my house that I usually go to for fun. That is the bad part of gentrification. On the other hand, if I live in a place where there are a lot of ugly houses and bad people, I would be happy because with gentrification, all these houses and people will be gone and new people and beautiful houses will replace them. I think that gentrification will be taking place always because technology and new things are being created every day.
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Janessa Ochoa, age 16
If gentrification affected the way I live now, well I would be a mixture of a lot of things; sadness, anger and disappointment. I would feel sadness because I have lived in my house all my life. All my friends are here. My life is here. The anger would be at those developers who decided to ruin our lives for their paycheck. I bet they wouldn’t be too pleased if it happened to them. I would be disappointed in the city for letting this happen. People’s lives would be ruined, jobs lost, changing schools, and more. That’s how gentrification would affect me.
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Jose Osoros, age 16
If gentrification affected me, I would feel very sad and also angry because I have lived in my neighborhood many years. I really like living there and I would be sad if I had to leave my friends and my school to move to another place or maybe another city. I think the developers would feel the same way if it happened to them.
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Gio Lopez, age 16
If someone wanted to tear down my house so they could put up other apartments or a shopping mall, I would be very pissed off. I would not even leave my house unless the people that are going to tear it down gave my family either another house or about a million dollars to buy a bigger house.
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Dayana K. Perez, age 17
In this situation I only have a negative opinion and statement. I honestly don’t think it’s fair. Usually when gentrification occurs it causes the people who aren’t in any good economic situation to have more problems. How can some people only think about what’s only good for them and not others? They should think about others, or at least give those people who are in need a better choice to help them get a better house or place to live, or think about offering them more money.
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Brenna Verner, age 15
Gentrification affects me because some of my favorite shops, which happen to be small businesses, have been shut down. If I were to have to move out of my house due to gentrification, I would be very depressed. Because of my family’s financial situation, we would either have to move into a small apartment which isn’t good for a family of five, or we would have to move out of state. I would have to leave behind the boyfriend I’ve loved for nearly a year now, all my close friends, the school I am doing so well in and the city I’ve been living in and loving my whole life. I would be completely devastated to have to move, especially so another big unnecessary business could take over my neighborhood.
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Erika Sanchez, age 16
It’s not fair for the people that live in the neighborhood to suddenly be told to move out. People these days work hard to pay rent and for someone to come knocking on their door and say, “You need to move out,” that’s just not right. I mean its okay and understandable for a change in the community to make it more appealing, but in my opinion the comfort of some and what others think is the right thing to do, might not be the same for the people that are being negatively affected by it.
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Barry Manilow, age 15
I think that gentrification is really bad when the house you live in is destroyed. You feel attached to your home so there is a feeling of pain when you lose it and hatred for the developer who decided to destroy your living space. I think gentrification should happen only when it affects no one negatively.
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William Kirk, age 17
I feel that gentrification is wrong because if someone wanted to tear down the house that I am currently living in, I would be very upset and sad that I have to move out for builders to put up a big apartment building, a movie theater or any kind of shops. I would feel sad because I would have to go live somewhere else which I wouldn’t feel as comfortable in. I would have to make new friends and adapt to a new neighborhood, but it wouldn’t be the same and that’s what I hate about gentrification.
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Isabelo R. age 16
If someone told me that they wanted to tear down my home for a million dollars I would say yes, it would make me happy. But I would feel bad for the people who rent in my house. I have a friend who lives in a bad neighborhood and someone came to her and offered $445,000 for her house. She said yes right away and is going to move to a nice home with nice people. She is happy for that opportunity.
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Brany Boza, age 16
If I was affected by gentrification I would feel really bad because I live in a place that is close to many stores, like Gamestop, and I also live close to the Metro station, several bus stops, and a Publix Super Market. I live close to Bayside and a mall is being built close to my apartment. I don’t want to move from where I’m living right now because I’m close to everything I need, except clothes.
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Alex Cabrera, age 17
An experience I had with gentrification would be when they closed my mom’s store in the mall to make a better one. I was mad because she lost a job she liked and we had to move. For a while we only had to depend on my step-dad, but now my mom has a new job, but it’s not as fun as the old one.
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Rafael Arevalo, age 15
One day I learned that my apartment building was going to be torn down to make way for some big time office building. I don’t mind my apartment being torn down; I kind of hate where I live. The neighbors are noisy and every once in a while the neighbor on the floor above cooks up something funny smelling and the smell travels its way down to my apartment. Hopefully I can find a place better than where I am now.
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Al, age 16
If a big building was built next door to where I live I would like it to be a shopping mall.
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Allen Dave Salcedo, age 14
Cuando yo uene de sto. Dgo. A vivir a Miami me impato mucho yo no queria venir a vivir por que tenia que dejar mis amigos micholegio yo uine por que mi mama queria venir.
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Juan B. Justo, age 17
Si un dia regresara desde la escuela y mis padres me dijeran que nos tenemos que mudar, me sentiria frustrado porque no me gustan las mudansas. Deveria empezar de nuevo y hacer nuevos amigos.
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Jah’keria Williams, age 14
I believe that it is hard to move out for something else to be built, even though it may be for a good cause. No, it is not okay for someone to tell my family that we have to leave. I would want to have a talk with the manager or someone. It isn’t right that my family would have to move. It would cause a feud. I couldn’t imagine moving out for some stinking mall or roller rink. I believe they would have to pay me!
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Leydi Morales, age 17
A few weeks ago our landlord notified us that we had to move out by February because they were going to destroy the house we live in to build a bigger, better, more expensive house. Gentrification has affected me and my family negatively because we don’t know what to do or where to go. Everything is overly expensive now. I think gentrification is bad for the people who are being “kicked out” from their homes and their comfort.
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Jeniffer, age 15
If someone kicked me out of my house I would be mad. Gentrification is bad, but if you own your own house gentrifying doesn’t make sense because nobody can tell you to get out.
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William Cano, age 15
If I got kicked out of my house because some developers wanted to gentrify my neighborhood I probably would get pissed off. If you tear down my house I’m going to try to tear down your house and see how you like it. That’s the bad part. The good part is that I won’t have to see my obnoxious neighbors. It may be a good thing if I move into a better house, but not a good thing if I have to go to a new school.
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Juan David, age 18
Gentrification does not affect me at all because I’m used to it. I’m not saying that I agree with it, but if I have to leave, I leave. I think if you’ve been living a long time in a place, it is going to be hard to move out, but if you’re used to traveling, moving is okay.
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Cristian Andrades, age 14
I think gentrification is both good and bad. It is good because you get to know other neighborhoods and make new friends. It is bad because you lose all your old friends.
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Edwin Rodriguez, age 17
I haven’t had any experience with gentrification, but if my landlord came and told my parents that we have to move immediately because he has to sell the house, I would feel very bad because my parents might not have the resources to move at that moment. Another thing is that if our landlord doesn’t give us enough time to move, we would be desperate because we can not find another place to live quickly. That’s the way I see this situation and I would feel very bad because I would miss a lot of my neighbors, too.
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Ana L. Hernandez, age 16
One day the owner of the house that my family rents told us we would have to leave because he was selling it to a person with a lot of money who was going to construct a building where the house is. I felt very sad about it because I had to leave the neighborhood, my friends and also the family that lives on the corner. My parents were upset because they had to look for another house and they didn’t have enough money to pay a higher rent. I remember that I cried that week thinking about my future life. After three weeks my parents found a little house that they could afford. We moved there and I felt so lost. I wasn’t accustomed to the new house or the new neighborhood.
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Eva Carbajales, age 16
Last night I went home to my little apartment. My mom was sitting at the table talking to my dad. She had a sad look on her face. She said we had to talk and I suddenly got a bad feeling in my stomach. I sat down and she gave me the bad news. We had to move out. The landlord wanted to sell the apartments to a wealthy investor who was going to build a high rise in that particular place where our apartment building stood. I sat in shock. I was comfortable there and couldn’t imagine having to pack and move out of the place where I had so many memories. Hopefully, things won’t be so bad in the future.
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Anayureidy Lopez, age 14
No one, not even rich people, would like for someone to tell them, “Oh, you have to get your stuff and move out of your home because it is going to be demolished to build apartments worth millions of dollars. So, yeah, get out.” Now is that rude or what? I’d be offended if I was told to move from where I’ve grown up, but that happens in reality. Especially in a place like Miami, a city full of rich investors, doctors, lawyers, and other people who earn a lot of money. Yeah, they love to feed the poor but they love more to build gazillion dollar buildings and make even more money.
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Albert Jerez, age 15
How would you feel if your landlord called you at your house to tell you that you have a month to move out? If it were me, I would feel horrible. I’d feel horrible leaving my neighborhood and my friends. I would hate for this to happen to me because then most likely I would have to go to another school that I don’t know anyone at.
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James Craig, age 15
A few days ago our landlord came to my house and told my family we had until June to move. He said there would be condos popping up where my house is now. When we were told this I felt bad because I had lived in my house for so long.
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