Helping to Keep Uptown in Squalor since 1987
J. Paulus, aka J.P. Paulus, shares Helen Shiller's views on gentrification, and espouses them on the internet where he has somewhat of a presence. (I've wondered if his initials stand for Jesus People, but he claims membership in a different cult) He seems to be a decent Christian, helping those in need. That is admirable. Like Helen, he believes that the forces of the free market should be subverted to keep large numbers of the working poor and homeless in Uptown. He implies that gentrification is an evil, and that white yuppies are largely to blame.
Little remains of this apparently abandoned website constructed by J. Paulus, but I found a gem among the dead links. This passage railing against gentrification is quite revealing:
"The alderman of the 46th Ward is Helen Shiller, first elected in 1987. Shiller's priorities are low-income housing, diversity and youth. She's a terse person, but shrewd, and has kept Uptown from becoming Wrigleyville North/Yuptown. She's been accused of bringing in low-income housing to increase her political base. Yet no one realizes that all the new condominiums (unaffordable to most long-time Uptown residents) are being populated by people who are also "foreign" to Uptown, and have been indoctrinated upon moving here to be against Shiller."
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Note: Ironic that a website lauding the diversity in Uptown would complain about foreigners.
At a more current website, J. Paulus removes the above text, but his message remains clear. I notice that the word "white" appears on this page 11 times, always in a racial context. Here he defines gentrification:
"The process by which (generally) white middle-to-upper class people move into a neighborhood and make it financially unlivable for the working class."
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Apparently, the families of these children couldn't afford to stay in Uptown. Why aren't these children still living in a nasty Uptown apartment on a bad street, and attending a third-rate school? J. Paulus points to the usual suspects:
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