I attended the Mayor’s rather surprise last minute press conference in which he outlined the city’s plan to deal with housing.

As the city gentrifies, it appears no one noticed, or chose to ignore, that gentrification has a propensity to un-house people either by eviction or rent hikes far beyond what present residents can afford.

Two main topics were presented, construction of single and multi-family housing and the need to attract investors.

Although heading toward an election season the glossy thirty-three paged booklet, “Building New Bedford: Strategies to promote Attainable Housing for All in a Thriving New Bedford”, referenced the good work done by “the Mitchell Administration”, an inclusion deemed important, there was nothing about the run of the mill, rank and file renter anywhere in the plan, apparently as they were not important.

Lots of references to home building and helping the homeless. Lots of references to aid in improving property for higher rents. Lots about housing vouchers. Nothing about making sure renters are not squeezed out by the investors and become the homeless.

The message to renters seemed to be to not worry about being evicted for the sake of investments because we have vouchers you can use to get a place that is in most ways far below what you had.

At the end of the meeting the mayor asked for questions and I raised my hand.

I was wearing an orange t-shirt while sitting in one of the large maroon wing-back chairs along one wall of the room.

The mayor and all the heads of housing assistance organizations who also spoke as they had been in on the planning, kept referring to attracting investors but seemed convinced there were no investors other than those who wanted to come down and make a killing no matter if this ends up with the city being nothing like the city it was, and having present renters become caravans heading to the borders of nearby towns, and managing homelessness as they are aware, or should be, that the mad dash to buy up low cost property to upgrade it into high end luxury apartments and condos for profit is creating the homeless for the sake of investors who may never see the city as their investments are made through umbrella property investment firms.

I thought some attention should be given to a broader description of investors. The only idea acceptable is that if you cannot attract the highest investors who will create the overpricing of the city, then no investors will come. I may be wrong, but if one buyer chooses not to abide by any controls a city may place on property, perhaps there are others who will and some could be local people with names and faces.

Why can’t the city evaluate the prospective investors, choosing the ones who follow the city guidelines of no mass evictions and no rent jump higher than a certain percent.

Investors must have names not some generic title of a clearing house of land investors. One of this city’s investors is a company headquartered in London, England, that invests people’s money in real estate the same way a bank or IRA company will invest your funds in things you know nothing about. One just has to recall that when rehabilitating the “Combat Zone” in Boston, it was found the biggest investor in the Pilgrim Theater porn palace (the theater that was the actual birthplace of Vaudeville) was the Archdiocese of Boston which had no idea.

I thought tenants must be notified when the decision is made to put the building on the market so tenants can begin looking for a new place without the panic of a sudden 30 day quit notice after the building is sold.

Presently there are no state or city laws or ordinances that require renters, who have been paying to increase the seller’s profit made on sale because their rent kept the building in good condition, to be informed of the impending sale.

Housing was all about ownership, buying, selling, and improving property, again, with no references to rental property as related to renters who seem to be just there and, when the building is bought, are simply in the way and, like the furniture left behind in a panic move, disposable. The ways to address homelessness did not deal with those whose incomes were below luxury apartment rental rates and too high for assistance and vouchers.

They seemed to have forgotten that housing and families do not only deal with people who buy homes.

Many people, although never missing a rent payment for years do not qualify as having the credit background that would allow them a mortgage because it appears that they, unlike their rent paying history, will be sketchy in meeting payments that could be lower than the rent they had been paying.

Developers must present the complete plans for the property they choose to develop and an impact study on its effect to a neighborhood or existing residents.

Provisions, and realistic ones, should be made in finding new housing for the investor displaced, and have the complete cost of re-housing paid for by the buyer as they will be recouping any costs through future luxury rents.

A new owner’s suggesting a search on Zillow is not sufficient help.

With all the speakers at this presser, there was no one who spoke as a renter either then or in the designing of presented plan for the city, nor was anyone involved in either who has experienced first hand what renters are going through.

After all the speeches, the mayor asked for questions and that is when I raised my hand and kept it raised.

The first person called on was a city council member who wanted to know if the pamphlet would be available online, and after taking two questions from the press which requires my waiting for their articles to come out to see what they were, with my hand still raised, the hand of a citizen, a member of the general public who had a question, one of the four people in the room besides the people up front, the two reporters in their seats and the three media cameras in the back, the mayor looked around the room and thanked us for coming and ended the gathering.

He did not take a question from a citizen and one who had been un-housed by the investors he wants to attract and had a concern that affected everyone in his former building and others not being un-housed so publicly.

Was the assumption that a citizen does not belong in the discussion or is irrelevant to the topic of “Building New Bedford: Strategies to promote Attainable Housing for All in a Thriving New Bedford”, or was the assumption that any question from the public would be difficult to answer or just not one that can be answered out loud?

Was it assumed as a member of the general public my question was going to be off the wall and I was prejudged as “one of THOSE people”?

After the meeting when I expressed my anger in a small group that renters were once again left out on many levels, someone nicely explained that, as the plan could always be modified as they go, renters could very well be included later. In spite of the realities of the present, renters will have to wait until the investors are pleased and then those who remain might get a special voucher, I guess.

The problem is now and should be addressed now.

My complaint that, in spite of having my hand up I was not called on, was brushed politely aside by someone explaining that as a press conference, the mayor only took questions from the media.

You are reading this on a blog that has been published every day without fail for the last eleven years and has been reposted at times on national web sites that deal with social commentary and current events in the news.

I am a member of the media as a blogger, opinion writer who has been published, and a political cartoonist who has had his work printed in newspapers, books, and magazines and has won awards for my work.

I was ignored both as a citizen and a member of the media.

My story has been public as it has been published by me and covered by print and broadcast media. My opinions about gentrification are well known, and perhaps the mayor knew it would be best to avoid any question or statement that I might make.

The purpose of the meeting was to showcase this beautiful vase and dealing with unpleasant realities would leave a smudge on it.

Appearance vs reality, the former preferred for its comfort.

But, his decision, no matter what it was based on, ignored a citizen in his city and a member of the media who had a serious and relevant question.

All to avoid dealing with renter abuse by investors in the name of progress