One person’s ghetto is another’s home

A couple of years ago, I was conducting a workshop with women who were low-income earners and lived in Saint John’s priority neighbourhoods – those designated as having high concentrations of poverty. Around the same time, debate was getting heated over the proposed Tannery Court housing development in the city’s South End. Its supporters argued that the project would provide a safe, clean and affordable alternative to low-income earners living in rundown apartments or rooming houses in the neighbourhood. Tannery’s opponents argued it would further concentrate poverty in a neighbourhood that needed mixed-income developments to make the neighbourhood more vibrant and diverse.

In the beginning I was firmly on the side of the opponents, going so far as to speak against the project at a public meeting. At the time I thought the developer Avide and the city government had badly managed the public consultation process (something I believe to this day). I also thought mixed-income developments were the right way to go for the community. I began to soften my stance when I attended the workshop that day after several of women talked about how they felt insulted by the mostly middle-class opponents, who talked about the negative consequences of having a high concentration low-income people in a community. The women, all low-income earners, also welcomed the Tannery development because so much of the housing stock in the priority neighbourhoods was poorly maintained and yet still relatively high-priced.

I now think the Tannery Court opponents are wrong for a number of reasons.

• The immediate area around Tannery Court is actually one of the most diverse neighbourhoods in the Greater Saint John area. There are lawyers, real estate agents, ICT workers, journalists, and, yes, people who work low-wage jobs or are on social assistance.
• The concentration of low-income earners shouldn’t increase because many of the Tannery residents already lived somewhere else in the neighbourhood, or in another priority neighbourhood. In any case, places such as Tannery are not to blame for the high concentration of poverty in the city centre. This has been caused middle- and upper-income earners moving in droves to more suburban areas inside, and outside the city.
• The low-income earners, by and large, must live in a neighbourhood close to the city centre, where core services are within walking distance or a bus route. Most don’t have the financial means to own cars and live in high-priced suburbs.
• There are a number of housing developments in the city centre already completed or under construction – some mixed-income, some not. Leinster Court and the soon-to-be-completed Abbey development are mixed-income developments. Tannery (low-income) and the nearby Water St. condos (high income) are not. No one questions the appropriateness of the condo development, and they shouldn’t question Tannery either, especially considering there are a variety of projects being developed in the neighbourhood.

That brings me to my greatest objection to the critics of Tannery Court – the lack of a respectful dialogue on this issue. At a neighbourhood meeting earlier this month, South End residents took great offence to use of the word “ghetto” in the latest news coverage on the issue. One of them asked if there is such a thing as ghetto for rich people. Technically, the answer is no because low-income is one of the defining features of the word. There are phrases or words for areas populated mainly a single-income group. “Gated communities” are generally upper-income, though we don’t have any of them here. Instead, we have suburbs that are middle-income, or mainly upper-income in the case of parts of Mount Pleasant or the older section of Rothesay.

Sometimes people refer to suburbs or gated communities in a pejorative way (I admit, the urban snob in me is occasionally guilty of this!). Generally, though, they’re viewed as great places to live: safe, clean, with good schools and recreational amenities. Of course there are issues in low-income, urban neighbourhoods that don’t afflict suburban higher-income ones – high unemployment, low levels of education, and high rates of drug crime. But we need to tackle these issues without casting aspersions on entire neighbourhoods. Remember, one person’s ghetto is another person’s home.