Summary
➡ The imminent closure of a Safeway grocery store in San Francisco’s Fillmore district has stirred community outrage, as it leaves the elderly, handicapped, and low-income residents without accessible essential services. Criticisms mostly stem from the perception that the closure will exacerbate local issues like theft, homelessness, and a lack of community support, while the proposed real estate redevelopment of the site is viewed as favoring high-income residents, thereby contributing to socio-economic disparities and gentrification.
➡ The speaker blames London and the mayor for displacing the black community and the closure of a local grocery store, leading to longer travel for shopping, while also emphasizing the importance of including the black community in future developments.
Transcript
The question, how did workers not notice the tenants still living inside? Fox 32s Nate Rogers is in Harvey today, getting both sides of this very bizarre story. Nate. The city of Harvey says families were notified that their apartments here could no longer be occupied because of safety concerns. But nobody here was ready for this. Their apartments boarded up with folks still inside. I’m beating on the thing like Rudolph, you.
And you can hear him clearly from inside saying, yeah, I can’t get out. Rudolph, they broke the handle off the door and you stuck up in there. Hold on. That’s the voice of Rudolph Williams, confined to his apartment after it was boarded up while he was still inside. His. Police for help. Now viral on TikTok. Oh, yeah. There’s an old man boarded up in this apartment right here.
There’s someone still in this apartment. How are he going to get out? So you were literally trapped inside? Yes. In a statement from the city of Harvey, owners were notified of a mandatory evacuation by October 20. Eigth, citing the building’s structural integrity had surpassed life expectancy. Also, numerous 911 calls of illegal activities at the property, located 144th in Halstead. In December, residents received this letter after the building department determined the properties posed an imminent safety risk due to deterioration of balconies and staircases.
I didn’t hear anybody knock on the door after this. On. Hold on, hold on. Rudolph, you knew you wasn’t supposed to be in there. You knew that you wasn’t supposed to be in there. They had notified the residences of these facilities. They notified the residences of these facilities back in October. In December, they said they coming to close it up. In January, they start boarding it up. And you decided that you didn’t want to answer because you was in there squatting and living and trying not to pay no rent, and you was in there doing God knows what.
And then when they boarded it up, you wanted to play. No, no. Don’t blame the city. Don’t blame the people that boarded it up. Rudolph, you was in there unauthorized, and they had already told y’all to go ahead and get up out of there. But Rudolph, you want to hang out in places that you ain’t supposed to be in. Okay, this is what’s called f around and find out.
See, I’m being conscious today because I know that the church be watching the live stream and the daycares is out here popping shout out to all of my truck drivers. Rudolph was, listen, if you know, you know, Julian, you know, if you know, you know, you know. Rudolph said that he wasn’t coming out of there and he was like, oh, everybody left. And that means I got a whole location for us to be able to hang out.
Yeah. Talking about, oh, they boarded me up and I didn’t know what was going on. Boy, you knew what was happening out here in these streets. You ain’t confused. You are not confused until you couldn’t get out. They did that. Boy. Like hamster Dam. A lot of people not familiar with hamster Dam. You know what hamster Dam is? Hamster dams is for the wire. From the wire. Y’all go watch that.
Non occupancy orders posted on more than 30 units Friday afternoon. Apartment windows indoors were boarded up. Residents say at least five families were still inside and or had their belongings still in place. No, that’s not okay. No, under no circumstances, no. Nowhere in the world is that okay. This was a brain tumor that was removed in May of 2020 and my breast was removed march of last year.
Mary Brooks has lived in her apartment four years. She’s currently battling metastatic breast cancer, and her boxes are already packed. But so far, she has nowhere to go. Already been looking for places. I’m even crazy enough to dream that some type of way I might end up living in a house again. Okay, maybe I won’t own it, but I’ve been looking for an apartment and a house that I could rent through section eight.
That’s all I could do. But what can I do? I can’t make any plans. This is a bigger issue. And we’re going to address this later on in the show. We’re going to address this later on in the show. And what we’re going to address is the earnings inflation and why, no matter how much money that you make, you are still living check to check. And this is the expectation for a lot of people.
Obviously not you guys over at the bag chasers, because I know that you all subscribe to the Patreon. I know you all tune in every day and you’re doing a thing that’s best for you. I know you’re not putting off, making sure that you make the right investments and filling up in your four hundred and one k and then lowering your lifestyle now so you can have a great time and really be able do what you want to do.
As you get older and you age and as you start to not be able to work as often or as much or where you start to have your knees hurting and your back starting to hurt a little bit, you can pull back some. You can pull back some. And I know that this is a bigger conversation because the first thing that everybody is going to say was, well, we got to do something for.
But here’s my question to this woman right, this woman right here. As much as we want to feel sorry for, how often do we question the decisions that they made earlier in life? Because this is what your future looks like, getting boarded up in a facility that’s been condemned and unsafe for you to continue to live at. And you going to sit here and keep trying to dream about the possibility of getting another apartment or possibly living in a house one day.
When you have the opportunity to make the changes now, you have the opportunity to make the changes now. So we don’t go back into somebody’s past and try to figure out why they made the decisions that they made. We just erase their past and say, oh, look at how bad the government and look at how bad the legislators and look at how bad the people around us and look at how bad the system has done this for people.
But you have the opportunity to do the right thing in your best interest right now. But you want to mortgage your future in order to make sure that you support your current circumstances and how you feel right now instead of mortgaging right now so that you can have a phenomenal time in the future. And so you can dream all you want. You can dream as much as you want, but you are limited by the requirements of section eight.
And if I ever become president of the United States of America, all of that is going away. Section 876-5432 and one is going away. If I ever become president of the United States of America and I can control Congress and all of our legislature, you better believe it’s all going away. We’re going to have a budget surplus. We’re going to be paying down debt. We’re going to be doing the right thing.
We’re going to be getting away all of these social programs because this is your future. When you decide that you don’t want to do the thing that’s in your best interest, then you start forcing your kids to become a son husband. There are people that have children just so their children can take care of them when they get older. That’s their plan. There are people that have children so that they can have a retirement plan.
Their plan is their children. That’s why they have as many as they possibly could be because maybe one of them is going to be successful and then they don’t have to be able to do this. I’m telling you, this is real. And I see people on social media all the time. When somebody don’t have children, they choose not to have children. Well, who going to take care of you when you get older? That is not supposed to be your children’s burden.
That’s not supposed to be your children’s burden. I could rent through section eight. That’s all I could do. But what can I do? I can’t make any plans. And the city of Harvey says they’re continuing to work with property management as well as residents to help find a solution to this. CrIS there’s the latest here in Harvey. NATE ROGERS, FOX 32 Chicago and then going forward, you’re going to see what this next story is.
Ridiculous store this is like the store for all the elderly in the neighborhood. They could walk over here. There’s no stairs. Easy in, easy out. It’s not helping the black community. It’s not helping the homeless. It’s not helping us at all. Tonight, it’s the very real human cost of a neighborhood closure. The Safeway in San Francisco’s Fillmore district is set to shut down and the community DLC says, still a question ad who’s going to take care of these old people? You don’t want to know the answer to that.
You don’t want to know the answer to that. Please don’t ask me questions that you don’t want to know the answer to because I’m going to tell you the truth. I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear. I’m going to tell you the truth. Don’t ask questions that you honestly don’t want to know the answer to. Community says it’s more than just a bag of groceries.
Neighbors in the Fillmore and western edition neighborhoods are still angry tonight, saying if this plan goes through, it will have long term negative implications on the city’s black community. The announced closure for that store in the heart of the city on Webster street came late last week. Tonight, ABC Seven News reporter Jr. Stone is hearing the calls from neighbors and community leaders and brings us this story. In less than two months, this Safeway grocery store will close, according to executives.
You’re gutting it you’re just gutting the neighborhood. Community members are outraged, saying seniors and handicapped individuals have been forgotten about. Those with Safeway say they have entered into an agreement to sell three plus acres site to a real estate company for a mixed use development project to include housing and commercial retail space. They need to really do things about taking things from the inner city that we need.
And then you’re developing housing. Housing for who? The homeless? Nope. Housing for people that want to pay a premium price, because we live not only in a capitalistic space, but Safeway. A lot of people not familiar, but Safeway, especially that location, has been experiencing a extremely high theft rate. Let me say it again, an extremely high theft rate. And so, because they’re not profitable, the first opportunity that they got in order to get the heck up out of there without taking a huge loss was to sell that boy.
What happened to that boy? What happened to that boy? He was talking. We put a clap into that boy. They getting up out of there. Listen, nobody owes you anything, especially when you don’t hold the people accountable in your community. And when you continue to vote a certain way, when you continue to protect little man, and he out here stealing, kealing, and destroying. And then this is what we hear within the community.
We hear, well, it ain’t my money. Mind your business. It ain’t your products. What you doing getting involved? And then they’d be like, all right, cool. We going to close up the whole store. We’re going to get up out of here. We’re going to continue to make it a food desert. And then you’re going to say, I can’t believe this is happening in the community. What are they doing in the community? What are the old people and the handicaps and the poor people going to do over here? How we going to survive? This is the only place that don’t have no stairs.
All they got is ramps. We can get our groceries. We can get everything we need from over here at this safeway. Never mind the fact that they’re not making no money. Never mind the fact that we just keep on stealing, and never mind the fact that the person that steal from it is my nephew. Man, we need help in the community, and we don’t want nobody to close up the stores that’s not making no money that we not actually supporting within a community.
Remember when we used to protest over here? Hey, Mabel. Mabel, remember when we used to protest over here? And especially when George Floyd died and we wanted to burn up the neighborhood and we knew it was going to become a food desert. And we also burned up that autozone out there. Boy, if you all don’t start suffering for the ills and the woes of what you doing inside of your community, we don’t care.
And then how come all old people wear their hat like this and then their glasses is down here? Let me tell you something, Mabel. I remember when we used to have a safeway over there and it wasn’t safe. I don’t know why they made it named Safeway and it should have been named Deathway. Why are they glasses and every single old person don’t look through their glasses. Every single old person don’t look to their glasses.
I don’t know why their hat is like this and their glasses is like this. Makes no sense. Why are you looking at me like this? Okay, th that’s exactly what you can look for in your neighborhood. And no, you’re not going to run, and you’re not going to move out, and you’re not going to do what you want to do. You going to keep doing what you want to do when you want to do it, and then you’re going to keep on looking at me like this.
Now you want to go to the community meeting? It’s too late. It’s too late. It’s too late for what you got going on in your community. You need to do better in that it is a destruction of a community. And those thoughts from and everybody that’s on here, every single person that’s on here that’s talking is Dr. Amos Brown of the NAACP, are echoed by those that live in the western edition who believe this will directly impact low income black and asian communities.
Good Mayor London Breed told our partners at the s and our legendary. Remember when I brought her to the front of the congregation, she was over there spending all of her time championing Alphabet community agendas and having all of them at her inauguration. Always some woman that’s running a community down standard. This is a real and rare opportunity to add a significant amount of new homes in this part of our city and even a new grocery store.
But plans for a new grocery store have not been solidified. And community members we spoke with took target at the mayor. And for London to not even fight for the black community, to have this store stay here for the blacks, it seems like they’re just moving all the blacks out. No, ma’am. You destroy your own neighborhoods. You did it. You destroyed your own neighborhoods. It wasn’t they. Ain’t no they.
Who are these days that I’m not familiar with who are these days. Every time I hear somebody that tell me they did it, or they moving all of the blacks out, boy, don’t you know they moving all of the whites out, too? They don’t care nothing about you. This is a capitalistic country. And when you decide that you wanted to do it the way that you wanted to do it, and every time they push their glasses, they don’t go up.
Just do like this. They act like they pushing it up and ain’t really pushing up. This is an issue about the haves and the have nots. And usually the people that don’t have, they have the same mindset. And so they always want to blame it on they. But let me tell you something. They is you. If you’re talking about the people that’s creating a space that then make it easy for people like me to come in and gentrify it, it’s you.
It’s man. Man. It’s YSL’s crew. Young thugs crewing them. They was over there tearing up the neighborhood. Listen, I can’t wait. I can’t wait. You know what I’m doing now? What? My next move is? What I’m going to teach the bag chasers is how to run down the neighborhood and how to make sure that we can gentrify it for a cheaper price. Yeah, we’re going to buy everything.
We’re going to let all of the neighborhood depreciate. As you continue to sell grandmama’s house and let it be run down, I’m going to tear it down. I’m going to make it a parking lot. I’m going to make sure that I keep the grass cut so you all can’t put no bodies in it. And then once all of the rest of the neighborhood, you all finish tearing the rest of it up, I’m going to buy everything, and then I’m going to charge top dollar for it.
People have been doing it for a whole long time. Why not? I do it. Why I can’t do it. Y’all helping gentrify your neighborhood by running the prices down, not cutting your grass, not holding your kids accountable. Why not? Why not? They’re not making no more land. They’re not making them on land. So I’m just going to make sure that I buy up your land that you don’t want because you don’t see value in it, because you think it’s the hood.
And then I’m going to change it to something else, and then I’m going to move you out because you don’t care about it. You don’t care about it. Yeah, and I’m going to add an hoa fee to it. They don’t care about black people. So you’re blaming the mayor on this? I blame London. Look, even the person that’s interviewing is the mayor. Oh, you blaming the mayor on this one? I can’t even hold London accountable because I know that y’all did it on your own.
It’s always somebody else’s fault. It’s never internal. Like, they’re just moving all the blacks out. So you’re blaming the mayor on this? I blame London because I think London should have done more. She was raised in this area. Supervisor Dean Preston’s office says they reached out to Safeway and the developer to explore the possibility of including a grocery store as part of any planned development at the. They need to stop the car, slow things down, and permit this black community to get aboard and include us.
Closure of this store means that shoppers will have to travel more than a mile to another safeway or lucky supermarket. Oh, God. Not a whole mile that you got to travel to in order to go and make sure that the black community still got groceries. Not a whole mile. You telling me you got to travel a whole mile to go to the next grocery store because you all robbed this one.
Good God. You are going way out of your way. You got to travel a whole mile. Not 1 mile. Not a whole. Zero point 93 whole mile. Not a whole one. Y’all people are amazing to me. You are amazing to me. We got to do more. Black community. It is taken care of, man. You know what the community could do for. You know what the culture can do for me.
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