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Alameda County Gentrification Pushing Out Longtime Residents, Possibly Causing Health Problems

OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- It's happening all across the Bay Area – new money forcing longtime residents out of their old neighborhoods, and it can be so stressful for some that it's now being considered a health issue.

When people are forced to move they are heavily stressed. That's the finding in a new report co-authored by the Alameda County Health Department on the possible downsides of new money coming into old neighborhoods.

"People being pushed out of family or social networks. Sometimes people are pushed out where they might have had access to health services, said Causa Justa's Robbie Clark.

The report targeted gentrification hot spots like North and West Oakland, and the Fruitvale area, where rent has been going up faster than in the more affluent areas of the city.

"Like North Oakland and West Oakland, you are seeing rent increases that are more around 30 percent, where historically in affluent neighborhoods you only see rent increases of about 8 percent," said Clark.

Some longtime residents have seen their neighborhoods change right under their feet.

"The old Coca-Cola factory where we used to play and ride out bikes. I seen it turn into a loft area where a lot of high end lofts are now in a gated community," said former resident Jonathon Bean, whose rising rent forced him to move to Antioch.

"We've got 500 miles of bike lanes now, but we still have potholes in the roads."

 

 

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