Leimert Park

The historically Black community of Leimert Park/Crenshaw is under serious threat from the agents of gentrification. With the extension of the Metro Rail down Crenshaw Boulevard, developers, landlords, and real estate speculators are rapidly buying up property with the intention of enticing more “affluent” (non-Black) residents into the neighborhood. As a result, swarms of gentrifying-hipsters are descending upon Leimert Park looking to scoop up one of the newly renovated artist studios, “market-rate” condos and apartments, or restored Spanish-style homes in close proximity to the impending subway line. In addition, law enforcement agencies are enabling the entire process by serving as the enforcers of gentrification with their use of gang injunctions, nuisance abatement, predictive policing, and state-sanctioned violence, all to make the community “safer” for newcomers.

Gentrification has already pushed numerous Black residents out of Leimert Park, as they’ve either been evicted, forced to relocate, imprisoned, or rendered houseless due to the steep increase in rental prices. Displacement is most noticeable with the proliferation of houseless encampments in Dedon Kamathi Park (Leimert) and the surrounding streets. This, in turn, intensifies police harassment, repression, and surveillance of the houseless when what’s actually needed are stronger community-based support networks. It’s clear that gentrification is able to flourish in communities that are criminalized, economically marginalized, and where people are oppressed based upon race, gender, class, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, and/or ability. However, it will become harder for these forces to continue displacing and erasing our people if we organize community power and resistance through mutual aid and decentralized solidarity networks.