This summer, I participated in an advocacy internship sponsored by the Pace Center for Civic Engagement. At the same time, my stay in an Airbnb there contributed to the continuing gentrification of Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
In Princeton’s 2016 strategic planning framework, the University warns against an overly prescriptive definition of service: “service is not ultimately about what vocation or avocation one pursues, but about how one pursues it.” And while the “what” of service certainly still matters, the broader sentiment remains paramount.
As the Pace Center for Civic Engagement has acknowledged, serious harm can be done in the name of service. One of these harms is racial and economic displacement caused by intern summer housing, but it is largely ignored. Without taking this issue seriously, the Pace Center’s hope that its programs teach students how to “identify ways to contribute to the greater good and respond to inequities” is inherently limited.
Undergraduate service interns, their host organizations, and the University need to construct summer opportunities that do not disenfranchise vulnerable communities, especially those for whom their service internship is targeted. Summer interns should be mindful of the kind of housing they choose to live in and opt for local, Princeton-based, or virtual internships when they are unable to minimize the impact of their housing decisions.
Gentrification is a contentious and politicized term. It is meant to describe an influx of wealth (and white people) into a neighborhood that results in the displacement of economically vulnerable (and usually Black) community members already living there. But, despite some who downplay gentrification as something that increases quality of life for those who stay, the harms of displacement are widespread and real.
There is no better example of this than the gentrification of Brooklyn. While the borough saw an overall population increase of 230,000 people between 2010 and 2020, Brooklyn’s Black population fell by nine percent. At the same time, its non-Hispanic white population grew 8.4 percent, increasing by nearly the same number of residents by which the Black population fell.
Crown Heights, the neighborhood I lived in this summer, is one of the most affected boroughs in Brooklyn. One of Crown Heights’ zip codes — 11216 — was ranked as the tenth most gentrified zip code in the country, comparing 2000 and 2016 data. The median home value in the neighborhood nearly tripled during that time, and analysis of the Department of City Planning census data found that Crown Heights and two adjacent neighborhoods “each lost from 10 to 14 percent of their [B]lack populations” between 2000 and 2010.
While the reasons for Crown Heights’ gentrification are numerous and there is likely no single preeminent driver of the neighborhood’s racial displacement, my choice to spend the summer there in an Airbnb — a major driver of displacement — was unquestionably a bad one.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of Airbnb removed thousands of long-term units from New York City’s housing market, contributing to a $380 long-term rent increase over three years for the median renter. Years later, mass eviction and the return of pre-pandemic rent costs threaten renters in Brooklyn who are still recovering from the pandemic’s disproportionate effects on Black communities. Predatory landlords push out Black tenants in Crown Heights or offer them scant buyouts to then raise rent astronomically or list their units on Airbnb.
While Airbnb has advertised itself as a tool for resisting displacement because of a homeowner’s ability to supplement their income, racial homeownership disparities in New York (like in all of America) make this largely impossible. In all 72 predominantly Black neighborhoods in New York City, “Airbnb hosts are 5 times more likely to be white.” Black Airbnb hosts earned $48 million between 2014 and 2017. White hosts earned $160 million.
However, none of this information is presented to service interns looking for summer housing. Many of my peers with whom I conversed with about our Airbnbs had heard of gentrification, but had no idea just how harmful our own stays could be. The Princeton in Civic Service (PICS) handbook lists “Access to the property’s facilities and kitchen” and “Requires lots of up-front work to identify roommates” as the only cons of “Other rentals (Airbnb, etc.)” in its guide to housing.
And unfortunately for summer interns, avoiding Airbnb isn’t the solution; short-term rentals in general have changed the housing landscape of cities like New York for the worse — another fact missing from the handbook.
In order to better fulfill their own goal of “[strengthening] students’ understanding of the historical and contemporary structures and norms that form the context for their service,” the Pace Center must provide next year’s cohort of summer service interns with education on gentrification and the impacts that housing choices may have on the communities they wish to serve.
The Pace Center alone cannot solve this issue. The dearth of affordable housing in major cities and Princeton University’s own avaricious summer housing costs severely limit the options students pursuing summer service internships have, especially in comparison to their better paid non-service intern peers. But while Princeton ought to provide service internship students with more competitive stipends and lower on-campus summer housing costs, interns must also be willing to make changes to their summer housing searches regardless of University financial support.
Though Princetonians will understandably wish to work at an organization or in a city that seems especially desirable or impactful to them, they may need to either confront the dissonance that is in working in the name of social justice while willingly participating in gentrification, or be forced to make some difficult choices. When possible, working locally at home, living on Princeton’s campus, or participating in virtual summer internships may be one of the best ways to avoid furthering racial displacement in gentrification vulnerable communities. For students unable to avoid working in gentrification-vulnerable communities, the Pace Center should provide them with the sufficient knowledge and resources needed to make the best decision possible, and explicitly recognize that shortcoming in the internship process.
Of course, these kinds of difficult choices extend far past housing. Beyond the “where,” Princeton interns — and later alumni — interested in service should always ask “how.” If they don’t, their actual social impact may run counter to the very principle of service that motivates them in the first place.
Christofer Robles is the Community Opinion editor. He can be reached at cdrobles[at]princeton.edu or at [cdjrobles] on ‘X.’
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