The Gentrification of Consciousness

Lucía Obregón Matzer remembers crying every day and calling her mom and telling her the stories she was hearing. She was in her mid-20s, a recent college graduate working with renters in crisis and unhoused people living on the streets—victims of gentrification—in the Bay Area. The stories they told moved her deeply, sometimes too deeply. Obregón Matzer recalls, “I felt helpless and powerless to help people like this 70-year-old woman who reminded me of my abuelita in Guatemala. I got so depressed, I started asking myself, ‘What’s the value of my work if there is no way I can change things?’ I started questioning whether I even wanted to live.” Read Full Article »