#OperationElephant

WE Are the Elephant In The Room!

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“Population shifts in cities don’t happen by accident. A city’s choices on where to put infrastructure, transit, affordable housing and other resources significantly influence shifts in population, which can occur unequally across income, race, age and other demographic characteristics.”
-Equitable Development and Risk of Displacement Report

Santa Fe is facing a growing equity crisis. Our neighborhoods are becoming increasingly segregated by race and by class. Policies and practices that perpetuate this are being enacted by our elected officials with little more than lip service being paid to equity.

This is the Elephant In the Room. And it is getting too big to ignore any longer.

Some low-income neighborhoods of Color are not receiving the same level of investment of city resources that other areas do. This disinvestment has left areas like the Airport Rd. Corridor lacking parks, transit service, jobs, access to food and other necessary services and amenities.

Other low-income neighborhoods of Color are at risk of becoming gentrified, as interest from outside the community brings in development, but displaces long time residents. Neighborhoods like Hopewell/Mann are at the front line of this right now as new development plans fail to provide protections for the people that currently live there.

But Chainbreaker members believe that Development Without Displacement is possible!

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The Resident’s Bill of Rights was the first step on a long term campaign to address these issues and hold our policy makers accountable. Now we are taking it to the next level by creating physical manifestations of the Elephant In The Room.

Talking about equity may be uncomfortable for some, but failing to address it makes living uncomfortable for all Santa Feans. Our city is at a crossroads. Policy makers can help heal these divisions or continue to ignore the Elephant in the Room and widen the gap between the haves and have nots.

We are all Santa Feans. We must make the Elephant in the Room visible by asking the hard questions and letting policy makers know that equity is important to us!

 

Gentrification is NOT inevitable!

Disinvestment is NOT acceptable!

Development Without Displacement!