Good news: a new subway station/light rail is probably coming to my neighborhood (Cost overruns are making important people like the governor look twice at the project). More Good News: Many car-repair and other businesses dependent upon the fossil-fuel industry which once dominated my neighborhood are, seemingly overnight, being transformed into housing. In other words, the status quo of living in a world dominated by cars, is shifting. Changing. VERY Bad News: This new housing is NOT affordable housing.
“If you want peace, work for justice,” has been my mantra since the 90s. So on Sunday, instead of attending the International Day of Peace on Boston Common, I am abandoning my Quaker peeps to attend a forum on the future of my community, hosted by Union United, a grassroots organization advocating for, you guessed it, affordable housing!
Dear Patricia,
Hello, there, Patricia, my so, so very dearly special and dearest and precious friend and sister who you are For Always so, so very much!!!!!!! What an inspiring and blessed blog post article this is of yours!!!!!! What great news this is about the goings on in your community, sister! Hopefully, the governor and the others will see the great and dire need for and the very wisdom of passing through the new subway station/light rail! I know what you mean in saying how with the car-repair and other businesses dependent on fossil-fuel industry being turned into housing that it is very much a good outcome that these fossil-fuel dependent businesses are gone. I can see like you do as well, sisterfriend, how it is not such a good outcome, however, with the housing that is replacing these businesses not being affordable housing.
Patricia, I so, so very much appreciate and I so admire you with all of your diligent work as an ally in very, very many ways and your very heartfelt, loving, caring, and sensitive advocacy!!!!!! I sure need wondrously wonderful people like you, Patricia, and people like you are so, so very much needed by all people and in order for us to have a better and more equitable country and world. In Iowa City, Iowa where I live I sadly observe the same trends as the trends are in your area, my friend. There isn’t enough affordable housing in Iowa City as well, and the city keeps building more and more fancy and high-priced apartment buildings and condominiums!!!!!! As the indigent woman who I am receiving a low, fixed income with my disability benefits, it is very difficult to find affordable housing and add to that with my many physical disabilities the options decrease even more for finding affordable housing that meets the Section 8 requirements that can meet my accommodations requirements with my physical disabilities. I remember when I was a victim of a natural disaster Summer of 2008 with the great Flood of 2008 when I lost my basement apartment near the Iowa River in that ginormous flood that it took 3 1/2 weeks to find an apartment. It wasn’t the best apartment but my options were so few. During those 3 1/2 weeks I stayed with my local dearest and darling white sisterfriends who are my very heart and who I so, so very much love and cherish, and other friend until I found that apartment. I stayed at that apartment until April 2010 when without warning a new landlord took over who wouldn’t accept Section 8. It was a miracle that I found a new apartment right away after that and this is where I have lived since April 2010. It is such a beautiful apartment complex and the grounds are so beautiful, lovely, and scenic. This is a pleasant surprise for me since it is a low income, elderly and disabled building. I am only 53 but I can live here because I qualify as a disabled person.
Patricia, you are such a joy and a blessing to me, and so are your very insightful, blessed, and inspiring writings! I know that you bless and inspire your other very grateful and appreciative readers also! I have such joy, blessings, and inspiration with such great pleasure reading your very astute so full of wisdom blog post articles, and responding to them with my heartfelt comments, sister!!!!!! Sisterfriend, please have a totally terrific and a very thrilling Tuesday, a wondrously wonderful week, and may all of your days be so, so very especially blessed, Patricia!!!!! Thank-you so For Always for being you and such a huge blessing to me, as well as your very cool and uplifting writings, Patricia!!!!!!
Very Warmly and Sincerely For Always, my precious white sisterfriend Christian, Patricia, with Peace and Love To You For Always, my dear sister, and with Blessings and Even More Blessings To You For Always,
Your sisterfriend Christian lesbian black woman For Always in solidarity, Sherry Gordon