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Title: "Get Out When You Can," Says Her Friend. "I'm Moving To An American Neighborhood
Source:
www.natallnews.com
URL Source: http://www.natallnews.com/story.php?id=1994
Published: May 31, 2006
Author: natallnews
Post Date: 2006-05-31 10:15:31 by Mind_Virus
Keywords: None
Views: 229
Comments: 10
"Get Out When You Can," Says Her Friend. "I'm Moving To An American Neighborhood Posted by admin on: 2006-05-31 Whites being ethnically cleansed from Orange County, Ca. ORANGE – The Hills left East Vine Avenue two weeks ago. The Wigginses plan to leave in a month or so. And just last week, the Hansons put up a for-sale sign. In a few months, most of Carol Fulton's longtime neighbors will be gone. And in a flash, summer barbecues, Fourth of July parades and baseball games at the East Vine cul-de-sac will become distant memories. Fulton (right, with her husband) sits on her front porch, pensive and surveying the neighborhood. It has changed drastically, she says. The familiar smells and sounds of backyard barbecues are replaced by mariachi music and the honking horn of a shaved-ice cart. Fulton sees unfamiliar cars and people streaming onto the street. Overcrowding caused by boarding homes - more than two leases on the same property - is an issue that city officials and residents have grappled with for years. "This used to be a fun neighborhood," says Fulton, 56. "Kids stayed outside until 10 or 11 p.m. I figured we'd live here until we died. We never in 100,000 years thought it would change." On most days, Fulton caps off the night at 10 with a cigarette in her garage. But these nights, she does it with the door closed. "We were always outside. In the summertime, I was a free spirit," she says. "Not anymore. We don't go outside anymore." Fulton has to decide if she, like her friends, is going to go. Fulton moved to Orange in 1986 with her husband and two daughters from a previous marriage. She loved the clean neighborhood. There were other families with children. And everyone called each other by their first names. The house they rented had no air conditioning. Fulton cooled off under the tree in her yard. A year later, they moved across East Vine into a three-bedroom house they bought for $175,000. The Fultons, whose family grew to five kids, envisioned growing old with their neighbors. Orange had deep roots, a city with generations of families where grandparents and parents settled and their children held onto the threads of their childhood. The neighborhood transformation was subtle at first. Some families moved away and a more transient community began to develop. Unfamiliar faces filtered in and out of several houses. By the late '80s and early '90s, longtime residents complained about a parking crunch caused by dozens of people crammed into the neighborhood's first boarding house - the big house they called "the Fortress." The city eventually required parking permits, and the problems subsided. In the late '90s, Fulton caught people peering into her rooms, urinating in her yard and making catcalls at her. It was common knowledge that there were multiple families and dozens of men, mainly day laborers, living in the homes, she says. Drywall was delivered to the homes and quickly disappeared. People built additional rooms without permits. Blinds were closed and no children played outside. The houses stayed tidy and well maintained on the outside. The street, by day, looked like any other in Orange. But Fulton and some neighbors said that in the evening, droves of cars came into the neighborhood. The idea of not knowing who lived on their street began to rile the residents. One by one, Fulton's friends talked of moving. East Vine Avenue had become intolerable, and they didn't want to wait for things to improve. "We've been here for years, and now everyone is bailing," Fulton says. In February, city officials tried to crack down on overcrowded houses, tightening the definition of a boarding house and creating a task force to look at the problem on streets like East Vine. The city tried to discourage illegal garage conversions and room partitions that allowed multiple families to live in one house. The city code does not allow more than two lease agreements in one home. Violators are told to comply, and city officials say most do. "It runs the gamut," says City Attorney Dave DeBerry. "You get the allegations ... gathering evidence is very hard. Maybe people are telling the truth and maybe not." Fulton testified at council meetings about the overcrowding problem. Visits to East Vine by city officials and code enforcement officers did little to appease her. "These are houses but this street is becoming an apartment complex. They are not touching each other but they might as well be," Fulton says. Language and cultural barriers also make it difficult for some neighbors to connect. When Fulton's son accidentally hit a baseball into someone's window, she promptly went over to apologize. Her neighbors nodded and smiled and did not understand English, she says. But race is not the issue, Fulton says. She would be incensed at any neighbor who disrespected her privacy and property. "What burns me is that we're middle-class working people who didn't have extra money to buy anything. We all worked hard to get here," she says. During her free time, Fulton helps a neighbor pack for her move out of the county. "Get out when you can," says her friend. "I'm moving to an American neighborhood." They plan a night when they will lay out blankets on Fulton's yard and stare at the stars. And they will have a Fourth of July parade for old time's sake. She says she is too tired to fight anymore. But she cannot let go of her memories. Fulton, unlike most of the old neighbors, says she's staying for now. She hopes city officials will listen to her concerns. She says things will get better if the codes are enforced. Until then, when she has her evening smoke, she'll keep her garage door closed. Media Link http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1161076.php
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#4. To: Mind_Virus (#0)
All Californians have watched this transformation in many neighborhoods.
#9. To: robin (#4)
I know this neighborhood in Orange---it's not far from my office. But what's happening to Orange County neighborhoods is nothing (yet) to what's happened to so many places in LA County. I'm originally an East Coast boy, but most of my Dad's sisters lived on the West Coast when I was growing up, and I remember visiting an aunt and cousins in Downey, a cousin in Buena Park, and another aunt in Anaheim---not the Hills, which weren't developed yet, but central Anaheim. All were solid middle-class American communities then. None of them are now.
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Replies to Comment # 4. All Californians have watched this transformation in many neighborhoods.
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