Middle Schooler to Obama Cabinet Member: ‘White People Are Taking Over’ My Neighborhood

One very perceptive 12-year-old had a lot to say about what's changing in San Francisco's Mission District.

By Jamilah King Sep 26, 2013

When Shaun Donovan, Barack Obama’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development, went to go visit Everett Middle School in San Francisco’s historically Latino Mission District, he probably expected to hear glowing things from students at a school that had drastically improved their academic performance in recent years. 

Donovan sat with the school’s principal Lina Van Haren and several students about what they like and dislike about their neighborhood. One 12-year-old student’s gave a brutally honest answer.

"The Mission District, around here, has changed a lot because there’s a lot of white people taking over the Mission," said a 12-year old, when asked by her principal what’s changed in the surrounding area, according to the San Francisco Weekly. "I used to always see Latinos in the Mission — and, yeah."

She continued, "People are moving out of the Mission because it’s getting more expensive since so many more white people are moving to San Francisco," she continued. "And that’s why it’s harder to get to school and black people are moving out."

A recent map of rental prices backs up the middle schooler’s claim. The median rental price per bedroom in the Mission is about $2,400.

(h/t SF Weekly)