An interesting post by Emily Nepon from the website Enough:
In 2001 I bought a house in Philadelphia in partnership with a close friend. We called our new relationship "homownersexual" because we were queers in a committed partnership with each other that had nothing to do with marriage or monogamy. We bought a three story, five bedroom house that was in good shape for $25,000, with a personal loan from her grandparents and an agreement to pay it back at a relatively low interest rate (7%).We and our various friend-housemates were white flamboyantly-gendered queers moving into a neighborhood that was 99% working poor African-American. I had been living for a few years in the Baltimore Ave area of West Philly, where gentrification is a major issue, but where the neighborhood has also been home to a mixed race and class community for a long time.
In the house we bought, it was immediately clear that we were outsiders and probably invaders. We bought the house because we knew the only white people in the neighborhood, a couple with a great reputation among their neighbors which helped people feel a bit more comfortable with us, but we still had a lot of answering to do. I'm thankful for the relationships I built on that block, but if I had it to do over again, I would not move there - the ongoing feeling of being an invader in Philly's Black community never went away. I saw very few white people in that neighborhood in the five years I lived there, but it wasn't just about race, it was also clearly about class. We were from a range of class backgrounds, but as a household we didn't fit the class makeup of our neighborhood any more than we fit it racially.
Read the whole post here. Emily has some really interesting things to say about this dilemma, which I know I think a lot about. I also am very aware of my own role in gentrification as a young professional living in a primarily Latino neighborhood whose demographic is rapidly changing. While I am Latina, I am very obviously part of this new wave of yuppies moving into the neighborhood, mostly because of class and education differences. I can afford to pay a lot more for my housing than most of the Latino immigrant families that have been living in my neighborhood, so I am part of driving up prices and driving these families out. But I also love living in a multi-cultural Latino neighborhood, hearing Spanish in the businesses and on the streets.
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I do think that it's very interesting that they went into something as committed as owning a home together without a commitment to monogamy.
There is something, it seems to me, that is really admirable about a couple that can be that open about their relationship, regardless of the gender.
I don't have any real analysis, but I thought that it was something worth aspiring too, as someone who doesn't think that sexual monogamy is necessarily the be-all and the end-all of a substantial committed relationship.
I may upset some people by saying that (I've brought it up before and pissed some people off), but that's just the way I see it.
I'm saving myself for mortgage (not really).
thanks, FGJ, for making me squirt iced-tea from my nostrils.
My jaw hit the ground when I read "$25,000." I couldn't buy storage shed in my (in the process of gentrifying) neighborhood for that price.
Aaaargh, yes! When I read "$25,000", I assumed it was a typo and she really meant 10 times that. Then I realised it wasn't and thought "wow, I should move to America if houses are that cheap."
But then I read your comment, Luck, and had to re-read the article keeping in mind that that was nothing like a normal price to pay in America. The thing is, if the author and her friends had lived in a city where the market was not so good, then the whole enterprise of the meticulously ethical and conscious use of money would have been next to impossible. Few people have relatives with the money to offer a private, low-interest loan for the entire cost of their house (the way the grandparents could). Which means that if you did still want to do this, from the very beginning you would have to participate in the capitalistic, profiteering world of commercial loans, and be subject to the fluctuations of bank interests and the national economy. This would not only change the way that you managed the financial processes and decided the "rent", it would probably make you more distrustful and opportunistic when it came to your money, as dealing with banks tends to do.
The author and her friends were profoundly lucky that both market prices and generous relatives' financial affairs were in their favour at the time. This article is really inspiring for those who, like me, dream about living a life that is consistently ethical, unselfish, and communitarian. But it's also very, very saddening, because it indirectly illustrates how unfeasible this would be for an average person when undertaking something as big as buying a house.
Wow! I read the whole post and these people are some of the most selfless, thoughtful people I have ever heard of. They are really living their ideals and are truly inspirational.
I agree that gentrification, or any neighborhood demographic shift, is a tricky issue. Loss of a cohesive community is always sad be it Latino, Irish, Japanese, LGBT, etc. I've always thought it odd that people will move into a neighborhood they love for its "otherness" when their moving in will degrade what they like about it, but it's really not as simple as that.