Eminent Domain:
The Power of Government to seize privately owned land and convert it to public use, also referred to as a “taking”. According to the 5th Amendment of the United States Constitution, the government may only exercise this power if it provides “just” compensation to the property owners. A taking can be an outright seizure of land and property by government or in the form of a regulatory taking, which occurs when the state begins to restrict a person’s use of their property to the point it constitutes as a “taking”. In the racialized history of the United States, Eminent Domain has been used as a tool to displace African-American communities in order to prevent potential economic and political power from developing and/or thriving in an area, with many property owners being forced from their land without proper compensation
“Eminent Domain and African Americans,” a 2007 report for the Institute of Justice, found that between “1949 and 1973 … 2,532 projects were carried out in 992 cities that displaced one million people, two-thirds of them African American.” That made Blacks “five times more likely to be displaced than they should have been given their numbers in the population.” Blacks were about 12% of the population then.
AMI (Area Median Income):
is defined as the midpoint of a specific area’s income distribution and is calculated on an annual basis by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). AMI is used as a tool to assess affordable housing eligibility. Specifically for housing under HUD’s Section 8 program, eligibility is determined by three rigid tiers of renters by income:
- Low Income (at or below 80% of AMI)
- Very Low Income (at or below 50% of AMI)
- Extremely Low Income (at or below 30% of AMI)
“ As of 2006, 5.5 million adults lived in “gentrifiable” census tracts, defined as tracts where the median income was less than 80% of the metropolitan region’s area median income. Among this group, approximately 678,000 adults lived in neighborhoods that were gentrifying, and 4.79 million lived in neighborhoods that were not gentrifying. Census tracts that were classified as gentrifying had higher shares of white residents and young adult residents in 2006 compared to tracts that were not gentrifying. Another 11.2 million adults lived in “not gentrifiable” census tracts, which had, on average, higher shares of white households, higher shares of homeowners, and higher median rents and home values.”
Hypergentrification:
Process that occurs when previously gentrified areas begin experiencing a new wave of gentrification that affects not only the original inhabitants, but also the previous gentrifiers. It is often caused by individuals with even higher economic capital (often transnational elites) move to gentrified areas.
Click the link to read more about how hypergentrification affects you:
https://nlihc.org/resource/residents-moving-gentrifying-neighborhoods-experience-worsened-neighborhood-level: Content and GlossaryWorkforce Housing:
The term workforce housing means permanent housing, intended as a primary year-round residence that is available to households regardless of age and is best provided near places of employment.
Workforce housing can include, but is not limited to, subsidized and affordable housing, as well as market-rate and mixed-income housing. It refers to a broad range of places to live for both owners and renters, meeting the needs of families and individuals that represent the majority of an area’s workforce.. Workforce housing includes a variety of housing types suitable for households with different needs and income levels. Work Force housing is affordable to households earning between 60 and 120 percent of area median income (AMI). Workforce housing targets middle-income workers which includes professions such as police officers, firefighters, teachers, health care workers, retail clerks, and the like.
defendharlem.org 