FranLab is getting evicted

[Macbeth]

It is fucking absurd to say that Fran is being chucked out because of trans when she is the final victim (and she is a victim as all the tenants have been)

Everyone is treated like shit here. 

[MrMobodies]

I saw that last video and I found it disturbing that they regard Fran as someone who is not good or high class for not earn a stable income and they want rich people with steady incomes only to have the space equivalent to the lab and that money may run out next year and may end up homeless.

Most food citizens work part time and I'd imagine Fran lives to work all day and night as for living there.

I think of greedy Landlords as being blood sucking vampires who sink their fangs into their victims savings and income.

[EEVblog]

I've been thinking about this a lot, and trying to search for places, and I ultimately think Fran needs to take a risk and move out of Philly.
Many of the Youtube comments have interesting points about being able to buy a place or at least put a put deposit on place in a smaller town.
I know in her position you have to pick your locations carefully, but surely that's not impossible. Maybe hop on the LGBT forums (I assume there are ones) and ask around for location recommendations.

[cdev]

Thats not true. many landlords are not big property owners. Maybe they have a house and needed to rent it for some reason. A common situation is a job takes somebody somewhere else but they want to come back in the future. A bad tenant who damages the property or doesn't pay rent can be financially devastating to a small landlord. Its a complicated situation that broad generalizations don't do justice to. 

I saw that last video and I found it disturbing that they regard Fran as someone who is not good or high class for not earn a stable income and they want rich people with steady incomes only to have the space equivalent to the lab and that money may run out next year and may end up homeless.

Most food citizens work part time and I'd imagine Fran lives to work all day and night as for living there.

I think of greedy Landlords as being blood sucking vampires who sink their fangs into their victims savings and income.

Sometimes that is quite true, but more often than not its not. I've probably rented more than a dozen places in my life and Ive only had bad landlords three times, and two of them were really bad. (So bad they were both in serious trouble with the local building authorities over safety violations) But the others were all good. Several were like family.

Edit: That said, there are so many people being forced out of cities now, its really horrible. People should be aware that the choice to vote for any kind of not for profit anything has been taken away by trade agreements and nobody has been told this. The same has occurred for other once public services. Even public higher education is under attack. All this is being hidden. So our votes are being stolen, if thats what we want from politicians, they rigged the system so we wont get it without telling anybody. All around the world. That basically means that cities, where the decent public transport is, where most of the jobs are, have been made unaffordable for most of the people who live in them today. We just don't know it yet.

[rsjsouza]

After watching the last video, I cringed at the idea of even considering giving so much money upfront for a rental unit - imagine if that was the case at her current place? If such place seems to be looking for upper class citizens (and presumably "clean" and "spotless" units), I can't help but imagine the owners or direct neighbours (assuming it is either a strip mall or an office park) would try to push her out anyways if they consider her business undesirable for the place - it could go from simple petty harassment to the extent of "accidents" or other shady rental contract clauses. The difference in this case would be the heavy financial leverage the owners would have over her.

At any rate, if time is of the essence (considering the old place will become a construction site), she could plan renting one or a few air conditioned storage facilities to place 90~95% of the lab equipment, get a small month-to-month rent place to sleep and take one or two months (not more than that) to carefully search properties in the area. After getting the unit, clear the storage entirely so you don't bleed financially storing unused equipment.

We did this when we sold our previous house but did not have another one lined up - it took us exactly two months of an apartment rent and a storage unit. However, the key word in this is discipline - if you slack or get analysis paralysis, the transitional phase becomes permanent.

[eugenenine]

Let this be a lesson for her. If you do not have your own place you have to be mobile.

I've learned that even if you own you still need to be mobile.  The neighborhoods around ours were 'gentrified' and so everyone who was forced out of those came into ours.  We had houses being flipped and hiding from baby's daddy renters along with the typical drug dealers and wannabe gang bangers.  We had to sell and move.

[MrMobodies]

In the latest video Shocking! Terrifying! Halloween Toy Autopsy! on The Raven Poems it sounds really sad, maybe i am getting the wrong end of the stick but the poems seem connected to the situation. I also mean with the trouble of being locked out of Patreon and not getting the donations through.

"A visitor tapping on the chamber door only this. Nothing more."
"Had to borrow from books sir case of sorrow"
"I opened wide the door, darkness there, nothing more."

It can be like Fran clutching at straws if things don't go well after the move.

Made me feel miserable hearing that.

Sounds caught in a trap in not being able to secure property with a mortgage.
I suppose everyone will have to donate even more down the line so that Fran doesn't end up becoming homeless.

[tooki]

It is fucking absurd to say that Fran is being chucked out because of trans when she is the final victim (and she is a victim as all the tenants have been)

Everyone is treated like shit here. 

Yes. It would be absurd to say that she’s being chucked out for being trans. But literally nobody said or otherwise suggested that.

I brought up being trans as a potential explanation for why she is so intent on staying not just in Philly, but in the neighborhood, as opposed to moving to the countryside (where real estate is cheap) as many people have suggested to her. 

And just to be clear, this is just idle speculation on my part, as a gay person myself. She’s said absolutely nothing about this issue either way. It could be entirely other reasons behind her desire to stay local.

[EEVblog]

In the latest video Shocking! Terrifying! Halloween Toy Autopsy! on The Raven Poems it sounds really sad, maybe i am getting the wrong end of the stick but the poems seem connected to the situation. I also mean with the trouble of being locked out of Patreon and not getting the donations through.

She is locked out of Patreon, but I don't think the donations will stop, her existing bank account setup should continue to work just fine.
She just can't access it to say thanks and post updates etc. Still sucks of course.

Sounds caught in a trap in not being able to secure property with a mortgage.
I suppose everyone will have to donate even more down the line so that Fran doesn't end up becoming homeless.

That' why I think she needs to make the move now, otherwise it's just kicking the can one year down the road.

[EEVblog]

And just to be clear, this is just idle speculation on my part, as a gay person myself. She’s said absolutely nothing about this issue either way. It could be entirely other reasons behind her desire to stay local.

It is a factor, trust me.

[cdev]

Here in the US I can see a very wide range of communities ranging from welcoming to indifferent to hostile to different people. (Meaning different of every kind) The tolerant communities are the ones where people do the best in. And living with different people we realize that they are oftentimes more like ourselves than we realized. And, then we get along. Even get along great.

We really do need to step back and take a look at ourselves and realize that intolerance is not a trait that is positively correlated with either survival or prosperity.

The people some want us to be is not the people we are or that we want to be. We're not the people the haters are trying to turn us into.

Its surprising how people from wildly divergent backgrounds can and do get along when they find themselves in welcoming environment with one another.  I've seen it happen.

Thats when magical things happen in terms of creativity, too.

What are we afraid of, success?

[cdev]

Why is Fran locked out of Patreon?

[Richard Crowley]

I live in the greater Portland, Oregon area and Portland is the 2nd ranked LGBT-friendly city according to NerdWallet
Ref:  https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/mortgages/top-lgbt-friendly-cities-2015/

The #1 city is San Francisco (surpassing Seattle). However, SF is also the #1 most expensive city to live in the US.

Portland has a good maker-community and Fran would find a much more friendly reception here. And Portland plays the role of "San Francisco" to the Silicon Forest" which is well beyond just Intel and Tek and Micron, et.al.

[tooki]

I live in the greater Portland, Oregon area and Portland is the 2nd ranked LGBT-friendly city according to NerdWallet
Ref:  https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/mortgages/top-lgbt-friendly-cities-2015/

The #1 city is San Francisco (surpassing Seattle). However, SF is also the #1 most expensive city to live in the US.

Portland has a good maker-community and Fran would find a much more friendly reception here. And Portland plays the role of "San Francisco" to the Silicon Forest" which is well beyond just Intel and Tek and Micron, et.al.

For sure. But Portland is also very expensive. I haven’t looked at any numbers, but I doubt it’s much cheaper than Philly — and the cost of moving the lab cross-country would consume a significant amount of budget.

[tooki]

Here in the US I can see a very wide range of communities ranging from welcoming to indifferent to hostile to different people. (Meaning different of every kind) The tolerant communities are the ones where people do the best in. And living with different people we realize that they are oftentimes more like ourselves than we realized. And, then we get along. Even get along great.

We really do need to step back and take a look at ourselves and realize that intolerance is not a trait that is positively correlated with either survival or prosperity.

The people some want us to be is not the people we are or that we want to be. We're not the people the haters are trying to turn us into.

Its surprising how people from wildly divergent backgrounds can and do get along when they find themselves in welcoming environment with one another.  I've seen it happen.

Thats when magical things happen in terms of creativity, too.

What are we afraid of, success?

:::sigh:::

The sad thing is that so many Americans seem to have forgotten the extent to which our diversity enriched us as a nation, and have now reverted to “everyone who came before me is OK, but no more!” and rabid interpretations of the Bible to justify their internal bigotry. But above all, they’ve been emboldened. As a multiple targeted minority (gay and half Latin American, and the bonus of being honorary “eurotrash” for having lived here — yes, I’ve been called that in USA), this both saddens and terrifies me.

[coppercone2]

is Philadelphia a ghetto?

yep confirmed


have faith

'Even if your hood looks bombed and depleted don't let your soul be defeated.  Faith in Jesus Christ saves eternally.   This life is temporary.  Material things will always fade and crumble. '

[cdev]

They should tax houses that sit vacant really really heavily. I think that is the #1 beef about housing - many East Coast Americans cite Europeans, but really, the problem is not evenly distributed. Some Russians are absentee landlords, on the West Coast people blame Chinese but I think reently laws there have limited foreign investment.

The buying up of housing and people not living in it is not confined to any one country. On the West Coast vacant houses that are kept empty - but are investments are called 'ghost houses'. many of them are not kept up and they just sit there, a constant reminder of growing inequality.

Here in the US I can see a very wide range of communities ranging from welcoming to indifferent to hostile to different people. (Meaning different of every kind) The tolerant communities are the ones where people do the best in. And living with different people we realize that they are oftentimes more like ourselves than we realized. And, then we get along. Even get along great.

We really do need to step back and take a look at ourselves and realize that intolerance is not a trait that is positively correlated with either survival or prosperity.

The people some want us to be is not the people we are or that we want to be. We're not the people the haters are trying to turn us into.

Its surprising how people from wildly divergent backgrounds can and do get along when they find themselves in welcoming environment with one another.  I've seen it happen.

Thats when magical things happen in terms of creativity, too.

What are we afraid of, success?

:::sigh:::

The sad thing is that so many Americans seem to have forgotten the extent to which our diversity enriched us as a nation, and have now reverted to “everyone who came before me is OK, but no more!” and rabid interpretations of the Bible to justify their internal bigotry. But above all, they’ve been emboldened. As a multiple targeted minority (gay and half Latin American, and the bonus of being honorary “eurotrash” for having lived here — yes, I’ve been called that in USA), this both saddens and terrifies me.

I have it from somebody I trust that there are fake bigots online, people who are literally being paid to go online and pretend to be bigots. At least thats what I think he was trying to tell me in our short half hour long lunchtime conversation over beer.

This person is an ad industry veteran who came here from Europe during an era when everybody in Europe smoked. He went to work defending 'smokers rights'.  Now he no longer smokes and has put on a lot of weight.

he knows a lot about the darker side of the online world. I hadn't seen him in years, since before the Internet existed, so thats what we talked about.

[tooki]

They should tax houses that sit vacant really really heavily. I think that is the #1 beef that many East Coast Americans have with Europeans, their buying up housing and not living in it. There is a similar problem on the West Coast with so called 'ghost houses'. many of them are not kept up and they just sit there, a constant reminder of growing inequality.

I've heard Europeans accused of many things by Americans, but believe me, this isn't one of them! I have absolutely no idea where you got this idea, but it's got no foundation in reality. I can't rule out that it might be the case in some very specific locations, but it's absolutely not the case on the east coast as a whole. Heck, Europeans don't even buy homes in their home countries nearly as much as Americans do, never mind vacation or investment homes in USA. (Most of USA is not that attractive to Europeans, to be blunt.) I'm not saying that no Europeans own US real estate, but this just is not a reason why Americans hate on Europeans!!!

I don't think you can generalize about the west coast, either, but in San Francisco specifically, you have a weird situation where there is a severe housing shortage AND high vacancy, because their tenancy laws make it essentially impossible to evict a tenant, so when people buy a building they want to convert back into a single-family house, or merge a few apartments into a bigger one for their own use, they cannot have anyone living in it. So as tenants move of their own volition, they don't re-rent, but just keep it vacant until the building (or the adjacent units) is free and they can begin construction.

Meanwhile, look at places like London and New York, which really do have tons of high-end real estate being bought as investment properties by ultrawealthy investors from China, Russia, and the Middle East. (Switzerland largely put an end to this, to stop such investment from making mountain resort villages desolate outside of the ski season, as well as pricing locals out of the real estate market. Some of those villages passed laws outlawing vacation home sales, i.e. mandating that it must be a primary residence.)

[tooki]

Yes, I know that's a real thing. But few Europeans are responsible for that, and even fewer Americans put this anywhere on their list of gripes about Europeans!

[cdev]

Yes, I know that's a real thing. But few Europeans are responsible for that, and even fewer Americans put this anywhere on their list of gripes about Europeans!

When you used that term, "euro trash" thats what my mind immediately went to because thats what younger people call them.. these people are legendary. Yes, many of them are probably Russian, etc.

The term which I think is much more appropriate for them is the one the "old Russians" use, "New Russians".

"Euro Trash" to me means much more people like Edina and Patsy in the BBC series Absolutely Fabulous. Kind of dated but very descriptive of people who existed in large numbers back in the 90s.

[tooki]

You're thinking way too specifically, man!

The people who call someone "eurotrash" simply for having lived in Europe for a few years are a) not the kind of people who know anything about Europe (or any place outside USA, for that matter, or even much within USA, really!), and b) don't actually care about any particular characteristics, they just use against you whatever you've got. It's just a handy xenophobic insult they can hurl at anyone who isn't a flag-waving, pickup-driving, gun-toting super-"patriot". The same kind of people who, when we were kids, admonished me to "go back to Guallamalla" [sic].

My entire point was that the world-ignorant bigots in USA who used to be somewhat kept in check now feel emboldened to wear their bigotry with pride, and are taking that to ever-increasing violence, too.

[cdev]

I totally agree with you about racism and other forms of discrimination.


Since this thread was originally about housing, and the phenomenon of profit mad investors, and flippers and their ilk, making housing impossible for normal people to afford, and driving people out of their homes without even a by or leave, as Dave would say, its important to see how communities of all kinds are threatened by these changes. This is being done to disempower all communities. Its what Hannah Arendt calls 'atomisation' .

Housing is really important. Affordable housing is necessary for progressive communities to exist and that is under attack for reasons that go way beyond simple profit seeking.

Anyway, I wrote out a long post but decided not to post it, its not super relevant to this thread now, but let me just say we have to be pro active and fight for new housing to be created especially for creative people and non-commercial activity.

Which is being targeted. Anything thats not for profit is under attack.

I also feel that we're being manipulated, people everywhere now are being manipulated in a coordinated way to cover up a huge theft that we would all agree is wrong.

[NivagSwerdna]

That' why I think she needs to make the move now, otherwise it's just kicking the can one year down the road.

IMHO Looking after your mental health is the #1 issue and so it's really good to see the GoFundMe being so successful and and the effect that it had on Fran's outlook.  From a dark place to a more optimistic one. 
It is a sad reality that suicide rates are depressingly high.
Moving away is hard and strains support networks... far better to 'rightsize' but stay as close to where you want to be as you can, the Northern Liberties sound cool.

[langwadt]

You're thinking way too specifically, man!

The people who call someone "eurotrash" simply for having lived in Europe for a few years are a) not the kind of people who know anything about Europe (or any place outside USA, for that matter, or even much within USA, really!), and b) don't actually care about any particular characteristics, they just use against you whatever you've got. It's just a handy xenophobic insult they can hurl at anyone who isn't a flag-waving, pickup-driving, gun-toting super-"patriot". The same kind of people who, when we were kids, admonished me to "go back to Guallamalla" [sic].

My entire point was that the world-ignorant bigots in USA who used to be somewhat kept in check now feel emboldened to wear their bigotry with pride, and are taking that to ever-increasing violence, too.

I don't see much difference between calling someone "flag-waving, pickup-driving, gun-toting super-"patriot"" and
calling someone eurotrash

[rsjsouza]

I don't see much difference between calling someone "flag-waving, pickup-driving, gun-toting super-"patriot"" and
calling someone eurotrash

Stereotypes, langwadt, stereotypes. Just like single out christian religion when talking about bigotry (one reference here).

Anecdotal evidence but, in my experience, people of all backgrounds that are open to listen to another opinion (actually listen and not pretend to) tend to be very reasonable. I happen to live in Texas and know *a lot* of "flag-waving, pickup-driving, gun-toting super-"patriot"" that are absolutely reasonable about immigration/foreigners and care to listen to contrary opinions. And some of them are not from here, but also migrated from many other areas of the country and the world.

That' why I think she needs to make the move now, otherwise it's just kicking the can one year down the road.

IMHO Looking after your mental health is the #1 issue and so it's really good to see the GoFundMe being so successful and and the effect that it had on Fran's outlook.  From a dark place to a more optimistic one. 
It is a sad reality that suicide rates are depressingly high.
Moving away is hard and strains support networks... far better to 'rightsize' but stay as close to where you want to be as you can, the Northern Liberties sound cool.

Definitely. The mental stress of moving is very high, especially when you have a lot to do yourself.

At any rate, owning a place also carries a lot in maintenance - at least where I live, owning a properly in a residential area costs a lot more than renting mostly due to taxes and maintenance.