Does Jesus Care About Gentrification?

Wrestling with more questions than answers.

Note: I am republishing this essay with some of my thoughts on gentrification. While my thoughts on this subject have evolved since this was first published in March 2022, I stand by how I wrestled with this issue three years ago. In the coming days, I hope to publish a new essay demonstrating how my thoughts have evolved with practical responses for residents and churches in neighborhoods facing gentrifying forces.

My first job out of college in 2008 was at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC), or Freddie Mac for short. As a young college graduate, I was completely naïve about what owning a home in this country truly meant. I certainly had no clue about the injustices that afflicted many communities and their chances of home ownership. Still, Freddie Mac’s mission was to “Make Home Possible,” which sounded like as good of a mission as any. I took the job thinking that I would be making a positive contribution to our society.

I can still remember when the subprime mortgage crisis exploded that summer. Here, I was just trying to get my career started, and all of my colleagues would talk as if the whole company would be closed down the next day. I did my best to make sense of the news, but my ignorance often got in the way. I had little understanding then of the drastic and longstanding impacts the crisis would have. Looking back now, I can see why so much anger was directed toward my former employer. Their stated mission was in direct opposition to the role they played in an economic disaster that caused immeasurable harm to so many people.

I’ve thought often of my experience at Freddie Mac in recent months. In some strange act of Divine providence, this mission to “Make Home Possible” was implanted deeper on my heart than I had realized.

When our family moved to Indianapolis last year to plant a church, I knew early on that we would need to pay close attention to the kinds of housing and economic injustices that are inevitably at play in the city. Our family has long desired to plant a just Christian community that seeks the flourishing of its immediate neighbors. Having learned more about the legacy of redlining and other unjust practices, as well as the mechanics of gentrification, I was particularly interested in how such a just Christian community might be able to help “Make Home Possible” in a rapidly gentrifying city like Indianapolis.

All these efforts have pressed me repeatedly into wrestling with one question: Does Jesus care about gentrification?

The Trouble of Gentrification

Gentrification is an interesting word in that it is likely to be explained differently depending on the perspective with which one is looking at the process. Some will speak of gentrification as a neutral process of neighborhood change. Others will highlight the mechanics of how gentrification takes place. In one famous scene from the 1991 film Boys N the Hood, Furious Styles (played by Laurence Fishburne) educates his son and several community members on these mechanics. He describes how outside forces will intentionally drive down the economic value of homes in a community to drive residents out, then subsequently buy those same homes to resell them at a much higher price.

Still others will highlight gentrification's often catastrophic impact on a community. In their book How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood, P.E. Moskowitz describes gentrification as

“…a void in a neighborhood, in a city, in a culture. In that way, gentrification is a trauma, one caused by the influx of massive amounts of capital into a city and the consequent destruction following in its wake…

Gentrification is not about individual acts; it’s about systemic violence based on decades of racist housing policy in the United States that has denied people of color, especially black people, access to the same kinds of housing, and therefore the same levels of wealth as white Americans. Gentrification cannot happen without this deeply rooted inequality; if we were all equal, there could be no gentrifier and no gentrified, no perpetrator or victim.”

Regardless of how one explains gentrification, everyone agrees that this process involves not just replacing the old with the new; it is the displacement of what has been for what will be.

A Present Legacy of Injustice

I’ve been learning as much as I can since moving to Indianapolis about how gentrification and various forms of housing injustice have impacted this city, particularly its predominantly Black communities. As in nearly every other major city across the country, historic injustices and systemic racism in Indianapolis have not been dealt with. Black homeownership is lower now than it was in 1968. The values of homes in historically Black and redlined communities continue to go down as their neighborhoods are zoned for the city’s sewage plants and morgues. The city turns a blind eye to decades of needs and requests these communities have had. The rapid, acute impact of gentrification is felt in neighborhoods across the city, as home values continue to skyrocket and long-time residents can no longer afford to live there. Black renters are disproportionately impacted by “weak” tenant laws. As it turns out, Indiana has one of the highest rates of evictions in the country. Indianapolis has the seventh-highest number of evictions in any city in the country. The six higher-ranking cities all have much larger populations than Indianapolis.

Welcome to Haughville

I recently met a couple for lunch at an excellent little Mexican restaurant in the West Side neighborhood of Haughville. To say it plainly, this neighborhood has been long forgotten and ignored by the rest of Indianapolis. As a result, it is a neighborhood filled with much poverty, pain, and despair.

It is also the neighborhood we feel Jesus calling us to plant a church.

This couple has ties to Haughville that date back to 1924. Their love for Haughville was evident, even as they described the hurting state of the neighborhood and what that means for the people they love. I listened as they described Haughville as “the last frontier” of gentrification in Indianapolis; every other side of downtown has seen gentrification's impact for years. They spoke of how Haughville has long been a community where things are done “to” it but not much appears to be done “for” it – at least not for its existing residents. With new street development and bike trails (paving the way for gentrified housing communities), traffic has been pushed to one main street near an elementary school, becoming incredibly dangerous for these young children who must cross it to get to and from school. In a neighborhood with more liquor stores than nearly any other in the city, two pharmacies recently closed, and a new liquor store popped up. The needs of residents have long gone unanswered by city government.

The Intersection of Old and New

At the corner of Michigan and Belmont sits the Haughville public library. Inside its doors you will find a lovely little library, with a beautifully decorated children’s section. Unhoused neighbors are sleeping inside, enjoying the shelter and amenities the library provides.

From outside its doors, you can see the beginning stages of gentrification in Haughville. Positively, a boutique hotel is opening up just north of the library. There, in the middle of several run-down and abandoned buildings, this new hotel (which is catering to the convention center traffic from downtown) is being built by a Black-owned and female-led company whose leadership has roots on the West Side of Indianapolis.

Just a few doors down sits the old building for Judge’s Barbecue, which is now an event center owned by a former resident of the neighborhood. He has also set up a shared kitchen space to be used by restaurant entrepreneurs. In these early stages of gentrification, it is wonderful to see these former residents investing in their community.

In this intersection, the investment of Old Haughville clashes with the development of New Haughville. Immediately to the library’s west sits a large, unused plot of land. I understand that there are competing interests over whether to turn it into a high school or a shopping plaza of some kind. Down the street, several commercial buildings are listed for sale. They are in very poor condition, yet investors are asking more than half a million dollars for each of them.

Several new homes are being built to the northeast, all of which will likely sell for over $350k (note: Our family bought one of these homes in September 2022. Many people would say I am part of the problem). To the southeast, you will see a large new home recently built on a lot where an older home had burned down. This massive home, well over twice the size of anything nearby, was built in its place. It is currently listed for $450k. The average value for existing homes in the area is around $100k or less.

Will the present community of Haughville, together with its people and their history, be able to weather the rapid and massive changes?

Does Jesus care?

Many churches incorporate into their mission statement some kind of “for the city” language. They hope to communicate their desire to love and serve the people and neighborhoods around them. However, like my former employer, many of these same churches and church plants contradict their stated mission by participating in the injustices afflicting the neighbors they claim to serve. I believe this is often unintentional, sometimes even unavoidable. Nevertheless, when Christians benefit from and ignore the unjust systems that cause our neighbors to suffer, how can we continue to say that we exist to love and serve our neighbors?

I still have more questions than answers. How does gentrification really work in Indianapolis? Is it possible to steward the energy of gentrification toward positive ends? What does it look like for our family to consciously make decisions that cause the least harm and give the most life to our neighbors? How could a new church actively seek the good of the community by seeking just housing laws and practices for all? Is it possible to disciple incoming gentrifiers to be agents of repair?

One question, however, has become absolutely settled in my mind.

Does Jesus care about gentrification?

Yes.

In the beginning of John’s gospel, we are told that the Word, that is Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:6). I love how the Message translation words this verse:

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.

Indeed, in Christ’s fleshliness, there was also residency; he belonged to a particular place and community. Jesus was not only born of woman (as we confess in the Apostle’s Creed), but he was also of Nazareth (John 1:45-46). Jesus cares about the flesh we embody and the places we inhabit. The eternal Second Person of the Trinity cares so much about place that he dwelt among a community long enough to take on its identity and all of the labels and associations which came with it.

In so doing, he shows us that loving our neighbor may mean more than just the people in our immediate neighborhoods, but it certainly cannot mean anything less.