I am writing to express the great disappointment I feel over the new construction projects in San Luis Obispo and the one at Foothill Boulevard and north Chorro in particular. You see, my 94-year-old father lives there and is now being evicted. He is a veteran on a fixed income who has lived in his rental home for 30 years and in SLO for 52 years.
My father is a very vibrant 94-year-old, but this is a very unfortunate event at this stage of his life. For all the obvious reasons, which include age and income, this move is going to be hard. His home is his life. He is married and is a journeyman carpenter with a workshop at his home that keeps him very busy. We all converge on his small modest home, which is the hub for family gatherings. How sad to take that away from him!
To find a place that will fit his needs will be close to impossible. He will have to give up a place to build and fix furniture pieces for family and friends and a gathering place for loved ones.
The projects that I have read about taking place in San Luis Obispo are really affecting longtime residents of San Luis Obispo. In the name of “progress,” they are doing it on the back of elderly and vulnerable people. It’s very sad and unfortunate that my father has to be subjected to this at this late stage of his life.
If you know of any agency names and numbers I can contact to help my father relocate in SLO, it would be greatly appreciated.
Teri Hernandez
Sacramento
This article appears in Education Today 2019.
Welcome to capitalism. The circulation and expansion of capital is more important than your father.
This is not capitalism. Capital is what a business needs to start up and continue in business. No economy exists without capital.
What we have in the U.S is
a mixed economy, some capital and lots of government intervention and control of that capital and
corporations that only exist because government set ups the rules allowing them to be created to avoid personal responsibility for the actions of the business and it’s owners or board of directors.
What we have is more properly ‘crony capitalism’ where the rich aid the rich and the government aids them all.
Meanwhile what the writer is actually talking about is
1. the city or county managing growth without regard for the misplaced
2. and rental properties subject to sale by owners displacing renters.
The city and county can factor in displacing families etc when rezoning and/or permitting new development. Property owners have no such obligation. Property owners are free to sell to the bidder they favor without regard for renters.
To be safe you have to own your home and be willing to stand up against eminent domain.
Laissez Faire
gail lightfoot
Anyone who says capitalism is more important than an elderly Veteran is the scum of the earth.
Contact SLO Veterans Services at 1-805-781-5766 AND 1-877-4AID-VET a National Call Center for homeless vets and tell them you want to speak to a HUD- VASH social worker. In addition to the San Luis Obispo Housing Authority for help or referrals.(805-543-4478)
Gail, with all due respect and I understand why you came to believe these bourgeois myths, but what you believe is why everything you have fought for will never be achieved under that system.
Crony capitalism IS capitalism. There is no special enlightened type of capitalism where the contradictions suddenly don’t exist because rich people decide to be nice after seeing a documentary or reading a bumper sticker slogan.