Thread: My home became a ghetto

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 597bc.html

My home became a ghetto

As immigrants moved in, our peaceful neighborhood declined, says PHILLIP HUBBELL


12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, September 3, 2006


I'm a Fort Worth native and lifelong Texan who's spent the last 21 years living and working in North Texas. But now, I'm living in Omaha, Neb.

I love my home state and never would have moved if my company hadn't transferred me. I could have delayed the move until 2009, but I decided to get out of Carrollton sooner, before my property value plummeted even further. That, plus I was getting tired of having to make an effort to be understood in English in my own town.

The two are connected.

The property values in my south Carrollton neighborhood had been steadily rising for years. My wife and I bought our home in 1988 when she became pregnant with our second child. It was a nice, quiet neighborhood on a dead-end street. Lots of little homes whose owners took responsibility for the upkeep, mowed their lawns and who had pride in the look of the place.

I don't care about skin color, ethnicity, religion, creed or anything other than the content of someone's character. These are external attributes and have no bearing on whether someone is a good neighbor or a good person. Ours was a mixed neighborhood, with whites, African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Middle Easterners and even some gay folks.

At some point things changed. The trigger was 9/11. A lot of people lost their jobs as a result of the economic downturn caused by that event – myself included. The economic demographic of the neighborhood changed, and so did the general makeup of our part of town, which includes southern Carrollton and northern Farmers Branch. Along with a lot of the houses becoming rental properties, the number of Hispanics whom I believe to be illegal aliens skyrocketed.

For some reason Farmers Branch and southern Carrollton seem a favorite stopping off point for these lawbreakers. Our government declines to do anything about people breaking these laws, and people who complain are branded as racist. Of course being called a racist these days on the immigration issue doesn't really mean much. It just means that you disagree with blame-America-first liberals on the left and open-borders, cheap-labor businesspeople on the right.

All of a sudden, we had many new residents who could not speak English and who didn't appear to be interested in learning. It wasn't a melting pot so much as a ghetto. Labor-intensive businesses started operating out of houses in our neighborhood. Some days you could hardly drive down the street for all the cars. A vacant house suddenly became a makeshift parking lot for what appeared to be a makeshift auto repair shop. Jobless homeowners turned over a number of houses to renters. Property values stagnated.

People who didn't care what their houses and yards looked like moved into the neighborhood. The residents of a house might have six to eight cars with a garage filled to overflowing with old furniture and appliances. When room ran out in driveways and in front of a house, the cars moved into yards. Then property values started to slip.

Our little neighborhood was becoming shabby. When I was growing up, if a house had residents who trashed their front yards, the city issued citations and got the place cleaned up. This doesn't seem to be a priority of city governments any longer.

I could see the years of equity we put into our house slipping down the drain as our once-pleasant mixed neighborhood turned into a dump. I could also see that neither the federal government, nor the state government, nor the city government was going to do anything to help people like me. And I know how the game is played in the media: People like me are routinely depicted as ignorant racist rednecks. We can't win.

I made the decision to relocate three years early. Better to go while I can still get value out of my property, I thought. I figure we lost $20,000 on our place, but I'm happy to have cut my losses. We live in a mixed-ethnicity neighborhood here in Omaha, and we're happy about it. Having Hispanic neighbors was never the issue. Having immigrant neighbors who weren't neighborly, and may not even have been legal, was.

Frustrated middle-class homeowners are never going to get a fair shake in this national debate. But when you start to wonder where your tax base has gone, and why your local school system is in trouble, and why so many of us distrust and despise politicians and the news media over this immigration issue, give a thought to us.

Think about what it means to see your neighborhood and your home investment go to hell because of unregulated Third World immigration. And you expect us to be happy about it?

Phillip J. Hubbell is now a Nebraskan. His e-mail address is phillip_hubbell @cox.net.

We are not happy about the illegal invasion. No justification required!
Send these people home and give us our country back!

Sounds so similair to what happened to our neighborhood in Chantilly, Va. That is why I now live in western Pa.

I cannot wait until those who work in the news media have to deal with these invaders moving into their neighborhoods and driving their property cost down and they will, this is like a fast growing cancer spreading all across our country until little by little every neighborhood will be affected. these people if left here will more and more be able to by higher priced houses and rentals because so many of them live there. I cannot wait until this cancer spreads to our leaders who have allowed this cancer to go unchecked by them. I cannot wait until their children are affected by this disaster!

That's what I'm so afraid of here. The value went up and then with all the building of new homes it seems the only thing going up is taxes coz I couldn't sell this place for what they say it's worth. But bit by bit.....house by house.....they are renting around here and it's right at that critical point where I know without a doubt it will be Mexico city within 2 years.

The area I used to live in has turned into a slum like Nogalas Mexico. Mexican's hang clothes on fences that haven't been bent and run over by their cars, toss trash all over the yard where grass used to grow, barbecue in the front yard and leave leftovers and paper plates all over the yard, leave doors wide open and let the flies infest their homes, have baby buggies and kiddie toys littering the yard, play gawd awful music that is alien to American culture, throw loud parties where everyone parks in front of everyone elses homes, leave empty beer bottles and cans all over the place, grow corn in their front yards, have broken windows that are covered up with cardboard and so on. I have also noticed that most of the illegal's love to sit on the front porch and decorate their yards with fake ducks and other kinds of birds. They destroy everything they touch, including American lives.

and decorate their yards with fake ducks and other kinds of birds.

Have to admit I haven't seen that yet.
Blue tarp lean-too's with the orange extension cords....volleyball net....buckets.......but no fake ducks yet.

Back in the old hood, we had shopping carts littered everywhere They would walk to Food Lion and bring the carts home and dump them.

Here, some places have started to charge you a quarter to use the cart and if you want your money back you have to take it back and lock it up with the rest for the money to spit back out. Oh the days when they had the guys take your groceries out to your car.....

But in all fairness to those who can't afford a car....it's tough trying to lug your groceries home. They keep pushing for people to walk and to curb their gas usage yet with 2 arms it's not easy to tote things home. Little red wagon time I guess. Around here you're taking your life in your hands though. They don't stop for cars let alone some old coot pulling her red wagon with groceries.

My neighborhood is one of the few in my area that have not yet been adversely affected by the huge influx of illegals so far (knock on wood). I am sure it is only a matter of time though, as the apartment complexes and neighborhoods closer to the town center are full, to bursting, with illegals.

The first home we ever bought (and was so very beloved to me) is one of the homes that are now occupied by illegals. The front yard, which once boasted a gorgeous perrenial flower bed (planted by moi) and it's once meticulously maintained lawn, is now festooned with garbage, cars and, for the past year, a mattress laying atop an area where lazy susans once thrived.

I avert my eyes every time I pass it.