Letters to the Editor: Stop treating new residents of Leimert Park as gentrification pariahs
To the editor: Neighborhood appreciation and integration are not exclusively bad, yet no one would know this reading The Times’ coverage of gentrification in Leimert Park. (“Do you want to sell your house? In historically Black Leimert Park, the question triggers fear and anger,” Jan. 30)
Pieces often appear in this newspaper underscoring the seemingly terrifying threat of a neighborhood diversifying. And who are the villains? It should be structural forces greater than all of us, but that’s too abstract.
Instead, blame falls on the young, new and often non-Black middle-class families (such as mine) who had the audacity to think we could ever try to own a relatively modest home in the city we grew up in.
It’s a shallow take. In a city where the median home price is more than $1 million, most of us are existing within the confines of absurdly limited choices, regardless of race.
My family moved to Leimert Park three years ago, and we love it here. Our entire, interracial and inter-faith block is on a WhatsApp group where we regularly communicate. Last summer we held our second annual block party, spearheaded by two longstanding Black families and one newer non-Black family.
Yet your articles don’t discuss this. Rather, they play up the notion that families like mine are pariahs.
People will continue moving to Leimert Park or anywhere else they can because there is simply not much housing in Los Angeles. So, perhaps we’d all be better served by articles that uplift this community as we evolve. My experience is that there is good happening here.
Hanna Mark, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Leimert Park residents aren’t the only ones pestered by real estate agents and developers.
I live in a predominantly white area, and the pestering to buy my property has escalated to the point of exasperation. I get texts, phone calls (which I no longer answer) and several mailings a week. I even had one couple knock on my door wanting to purchase.
It’s as if they won’t take “no” for an answer. The offers are comical in their low-ball numbers.
I think it’s just a change in business practice, and aggressively obnoxious behavior has become the norm. This has also happened with property I had in another state. The real estate business has taken on the attitude of telemarketing.
Kathy Schmitt, Hemet
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To the editor: I too am sick of Realtors coming to my door.
I have been in my house for 33 years and am not selling. It’s paid for and I like it. I added this to my voicemail: “If you are a Realtor, please stop calling.”
I would never deal with anyone who cold called me or just showed up at my door. I now have a sticker above my doorbell that states, “No solicitors and I am not selling my house.”
Jane Wilkens, Monrovia
