ARE THEY STILL ABLE TO CALL IT HOME?

ARE THEY STILL ABLE TO CALL IT HOME?

Before the towers came,
before the coffee shops changed their names,
before investors discovered the neighborhood
and newspapers began calling it up-and-coming,
there were people here.

They swept the sidewalks.

Opened the stores before sunrise.

Sent children walking toward school.

Carried groceries upstairs.

Sat on front steps after work.

Watched one another's children.

Visited the sick.

Buried the old.

Welcomed the newborn.

They knew which window belonged to whom,
which grandmother needed help with her bags,
which family was struggling that month,
which corner store would extend credit
until Friday.

No one called this infrastructure.

They called it

home.

Then the neighborhood became valuable.

The buildings had not moved.

The streets had not moved.

The earth beneath them
had not moved.

But the numbers moved.

Rent rose.

Property values rose.

Investment arrived.

Restaurants opened.

Sidewalks improved.

New buildings climbed into the sky.

And everyone said:

The neighborhood is getting better.

But somewhere inside that sentence
an old neighbor began packing.

The market knew the price of the building.

It did not know
the price of leaving.

It knew the value of the parcel.

It did not know
the value of the neighbor next door.

It knew how much the renovated apartment
could command.

It did not know what it costs
to lose the window
from which you watched your children grow.

There is no column on the spreadsheet
for that.

No appraisal calculates
the value of recognition—

the butcher who knows your name,

the pastor who remembers your mother,

the neighbor who keeps your spare key,

the tree beneath which three generations
have stood for photographs.

These things have no market price.

And therefore the market can mistakenly treat them
as though they have no value.

But a neighborhood is more than land.

It is memory organized into proximity.

It is trust living within walking distance.

It is relationships accumulated
more slowly than property equity.

It is the invisible architecture
human beings construct
between buildings.

Destroy a building
and another can rise.

Scatter a community
and no crane knows
how to rebuild it.

So when prosperity comes,
do not ask only:

How much did property values rise?

Ask:

Who rose with them?

When investment arrives,
do not ask only:

How much capital entered?

Ask:

Who was able to remain after it entered?

When the neighborhood becomes beautiful,
ask whether the people
who kept it alive through the difficult years
are still there
to sit beneath the newly planted trees.

When the city celebrates renewal,

look around the celebration.

Who is missing?

Perhaps there are two kinds of displacement.

The first removes the body.

The second removes the memory.

First the family leaves.

Then the store closes.

Then the church loses members.

Then the language disappears from the sidewalk.

Then the old restaurant becomes something else.

Then someone paints a mural
celebrating the community
that can no longer afford to live there.

And eventually the neighborhood remembers its people
only through plaques.

What a strange form of progress:

to honor people historically
after making it impossible
for them to remain geographically.

A community should not have to choose
between neglect and disappearance.

It should not be told:

Remain poor
and you may remain here.

Become prosperous
and someone wealthier will replace you.

There must be another road.

A road where investment arrives
without carrying eviction in its shadow.

Where buildings improve
and belonging strengthens.

Where new neighbors arrive
without old neighbors becoming obstacles.

Where property appreciates
without human beings depreciating.

Where prosperity becomes something
a community participates in,

not something that happens
to the community.

Perhaps this is what justice must ask
before every redevelopment plan,

before every rezoning,

before every luxury tower,

before every public investment,

before every declaration
that a neighborhood has finally been revitalized:

Who carried this place
when nobody wanted it?

Who opened the shop?

Who swept the sidewalk?

Who raised children here?

Who built the church?

Who organized the neighborhood?

Who survived the years of neglect?

Who made strangers into neighbors?

Who turned these coordinates
into community?

And then comes the question
that should silence the room:

Are they still able to call it home?

If the answer is no,

our work is unfinished.

If the buildings survived
but belonging disappeared,

our work is unfinished.

If wealth arrived
but the neighbor departed,

our work is unfinished.

If we preserved the neighborhood's name
while removing the people
who gave that name meaning,

our work is unfinished.

For renewal worthy of its name
must renew more than property.

It must renew the possibility of belonging.

Let the market have its numbers.

Let the builder have the blueprint.

Let the planner have the map.

Let the investor calculate the return.

But place another chair at the table.

Leave it for the neighbor.

And before the first line is drawn,
before the first brick is removed,
before the first rent rises beyond reach,

listen.

Perhaps from that chair
will come the question
that every prosperous city eventually must answer:

When everything here became more valuable,
did we remember that the people
were valuable first?

Build the new homes.

Repair the old ones.

Welcome the newcomer.

Invest in the neglected street.

Let prosperity arrive.

But make prosperity large enough
to include the people
who waited for it.

For the finest neighborhood
is not the one with the highest price.

It is the one where improvement
does not require disappearance,

where memory remains embodied
in living neighbors,

and where the people
who made a place into a community
can still turn the key,

open the familiar door,

step inside,

and say—

I am still here.

This is still our neighborhood.

This is still home.

Pastor Steven G. Lee
St. GMC Corps
August 21, 2026

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