A History of Displacement: Penn’s Broken Promises to the Black Residents of “University City”

by Anonymous

Just blocks off campus, the University City Townhomes at 3900-3999 Market Street are a private development of federally subsidized homes, offering below-market rates to residents, some of whom have lived there for a lifetime. For the past few years, residents of the University City Townhomes have fought to preserve their homes even after the landlord, Altman Management, settled an ongoing lawsuit regarding a mass eviction of the predominantly of Black families who live in the UC Townhomes. Neither natural nor inevitable, such forced displacements are the result of deliberate choices made by those in power in Philadelphia and Penn administrators. A look at local history reveals that Penn community members play a vital role in resisting this violence. Indeed, the struggle to stop Penn-trification led to the creation of the University City Townhomes in the first place.

After relentless organizing by both residents and advocates – like encampments outside college hall and protests during the homecoming game – Townhomes residents, Penn, and Altman Management reached a marginal level of agreement.. This agreement calls for partial preservation of affordable housing and compensation equivalent to $50,000 per family for those who are forced to relocate. However, a $50,000 compensation is not sufficient for displaced families in a gentrified city with limited access to other affordable housing alternatives. Additionally, the agreement dedicates only a little over 19% of the site to affordable housing, leaving Altman Management complete jurisdiction over the remaining 80%. UC Townhomes’ tenants continue to have concerns about future development of the property that was – until this point –reserved for affordable housing. 

Darlene Foreman – a UC Townhomes resident and Resident Council Member – explains in a press release, “While residents see today’s settlement agreement as falling short of addressing their individual needs and the growing lack of deeply affordable housing, we realize this agreement would not have happened if it weren’t for the residents and advocates standing up and pushing back to hold developers accountable.”

The living conditions inside Philadelphia’s subsidized housing shed light on housing inequity. Last year, a devastating fire in Fairmount took the lives of 12 people when a low-income family was squeezed into a small overcrowded apartment with no smoke detector. This fire serves as evidence of the systemic attack on Black residents, of which housing inequity is one of many forms of violence. Moreover, another resident describes how Altman shows apathy regarding the tenants’ health while ignoring complaints about mice and cockroach infestations. Neglect of tenants’ health is a recurring issue as Penn and Philadelphia forces residents live in detrimentally unsafe and unsanitary environments. As Penn grows its endowment to over $20 billion and develops real estate across the city, tens of thousands of Philadelphians struggle to find housing and turn to friends for shelter or resort to living on the street. Penn is not just complicit in this violent inequity; it is one of its foremost perpetrators.

In 1959, the West Philadelphia Corporation – a coalition claiming Penn as its majority shareholder and Drexel and the University of the Sciences as junior partners – formed with a mission to brand West Philadelphia as ‘University City’. Working with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, the Corporation targeted 105 acres between 34th St. and 40th St., stretching from Chestnut St. and Ludlow St. in the south to Lancaster Ave. and Powelton Ave. in the north, for “urban renewal.” This area was known as the Black Bottom, a vibrant Black working-class community that the Redevelopment Authority nonetheless labeled “blighted” to invoke the right of eminent domain in 1966. In the face of bulldozers and arrests, residents had no choice but to leave. A total of 2,653 people were displaced. Roughly 78% of them were Black. “I come from a place where I had no love… my whole community showed me love,” said long-time activist Gerald Bolling, who grew up in the Black Bottom before being forced out. He has demanded reparations for his now-dispersed community for over 30 years. 

Anti-Black violence in Philadelphia has always been met with Black-led resistance. In the late 1960s, as the Black Bottom organized to defend itself, many Penn students refused to sit on the sidelines. In 1967, reporters Lawrence Beck and Stephen Kerstetter of The Daily Pennsylvanian explained the insidious term “urban renewal” as shorthand for “giant impersonal institutions like the University of Pennsylvania … devouring small homeowners, spreading segregation and prolonging social inequalities.” Two years later, some 800 Penn and Philadelphia-area students, faculty and staff, and local Black activists occupied College Hall over six days. They demanded affordable housing within the core of University City, specifically for displaced Black Bottom residents. They forced Penn’s president and trustees to the negotiation table, who on Feb. 23, 1969, resolved “a policy of accountability and responsibility that accepts the concerns and aspirations of the surrounding communities as its own concerns and aspirations.” 

Subsequently, the University created a commission of faculty, students, trustees, and community activists who were empowered to review any further Penn development in the Black Bottom. A plan submitted to the commission in 1969 proposed four new science research buildings in the area alongside three dedicated low-income housing projects. The plan was approved, but the three affordable housing projects were never built, and the University did not act on its promise. A decade or so later, the Altman Group bought the property at 3900 Market St. for $1 and committed to building affordable housing there. In the end, the affordable housing complex that the Altman Group built was small but nevertheless needed redress for the devastation of an entire community. Today, those very same homes are being targeted for destruction.

In July 2021, Brett Altman, the owner of the Townhomes, told the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) –  without informing or consulting residents – that he would not renew the federal contract and would instead sell the property. What Altman purchased for $1 is now worth over $100 million. By its sheer presence, Penn increases property value in its perimeter, or more bluntly, within its police patrol zone. This incentivizes the sale of any and all land to the highest bidder and drives out the poor and working class while professing benevolence.Throughout its history, Penn routinely made decisions that enriched itself while giving no thought to the surrounding community. Penn benefits from the creation of buildings and science labs which bring in more money. We, as Penn students, can live here because Penn violently displaces the Black working-class community in Philadelphia. It is still doing that today. We demand Penn take responsibility for its harm to Philadelphia, as residents of the UC Townhomes fight for a process that guarantees the “Right to Return” in writing. We urge you to support our neighbors in this struggle.