These people have worked hard.

These people have worked hard. Y'all leave us alone here. Every coin has two sides, and you're not seeing our side. We've lived here all our lives. You've been here a day.

Housing is a basic human right. Here, we're using sweat equity to make a home for a family that needs it most. You'd get this in any neighborhood, no matter where you go

They literally tried to just take over our neighborhood, like we don't care about it ourselves. I'm not heartless; I know everybody needs a home. But this can't be the right way to go about it. If they're so concerned with the homeless, why don't they find them a home in their neighborhood or their parents' neighborhood? Why us?
A couple of recent Washington Post articles ("Activists, Neighbors Clash Over House Renovation", "Housing Activists Get the Heave-Ho") tell the tale of a mostly white activist group that didn't do its homework and ended up hurting one community while trying to help another. A group calling itself Homes Not Jails moved in to an abandoned house in a DC neighborhood and started hauling out trash and making improvements on the condemned property. The question is: did anyone ask for their help? Turns out the residents certainly didn't... the politically active neighborhood had worked hard to get the city to board the place up. Lesson? Just because your heart is in the right place doesn't mean your body belongs there.. especially when you haven't got your head in order.
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