Westword, March 29th, 2019: Denver leads the nation in Hispanic displacement from gentrification
A greater number of Hispanics, on average, are being displaced from the most rapidly gentrifying Denver neighborhoods than in any other major U.S. city.
That’s among the takeaways from “Shifting Neighborhoods: Gentrification and cultural displacement in American cities,” a new report from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. And it rings true to a pair of Latino community leaders, whose organizations have experienced gentrification, too.
“In the summer of 2017, we sold our building in Baker, where we’d been for 42 years, and moved to Westwood,” notes Monique Lovato, CEO of the Mi Casa Resource Center. “So you could say, in a way, we were gentrified out, because the people we served were moving in all directions.”
Adds Mike Cortés, executive director for the Colorado Latino Leadership, Advocacy & Research Organization, formerly known as LARASA, “We used to be located on the north side of Denver, up close to the Highlands, which is an area that’s still undergoing intense gentrification and densification. But we found ourselves getting distant from the people we mean to serve. So some years ago, even before it got as gentrified as it’s gotten now, we moved over to the Baker neighborhood. Then, three and a half years ago, we moved from there because, again, the people we’re driven to serve aren’t there anymore.”
Today, Cortés points out, CLLARO is “located in Montbello — a neighborhood that I’d very much like to see intact.”
