Last summer I saw one such area where whatever big fancy project they’d been displaced for was conveniently canceled after the houses were bulldozed. Nothing remained but a goose field. Despite the claims that evicting them would raise the tax base, in fact
the tax base has gone down, as that land now lies vacant.

Another of the previous cases there involved public housing. My sister writes: “This last one was a particularly sad case, as what came down was a primarily African American neighborhood, densely populated. It was connected to downtown. But the public housing that replaced it is less densely populated, is severed from downtown by a major road which got built around the same time, and is itself likely to be torn down in the next few years.”

The claim in the most recent case was that people had to be evicted again, so the city can develop the waterfront as a pricy district for hotels and conference centers, to attract clients for Pzifer Corporation. The head of the New London Development Commission, Claire Gaudiani, sympathizes with the sacrifices people have had to make for this effort. She says “Anything that’s working in our great nation is working because somebody left skin on the sidewalk.” Claire is the author of The Greater Good: How Philanthropy Drives the American Economy and Can Save Capitalism. Her husband, David Burnett, is a Pfizer executive.

I have my doubts about the conference centers. I’ve been there. The area is downwind from a sewage plant. They’ve tried fixing it, but the air there still reeks. The only way that location is going to attract anyone is if they evict the whole lot of them and replace them with rich folks whose shit doesn’t stink.

That’s not good enough, though. Last June, the city voted to completely eliminate the Social Services department, so everything fell into the hands of private volunteers. People rallied to the cause, and managed, among other things, to open a shelter for the homeless in December. The fire marshal was sent to inspect (i.e. shut down) the shelter, which he did, but public outcry kept it open.

Now the city attorney has drafted an ordinance which would prohibit any emergency homeless shelters from operating from April 1 to Dec. 1, and limit all shelters to commercially-zoned districts (which are more expensive, less available).

I received this from my sister today: “By the way, the shelter closed March 31 and Friday, one of our homeless died out in the woods.”

One more piece of skin for Claire’s sidewalk.