November 2025

This is a book written, typeset, and designed by me.

It’s the rawest, most real thing I ever expected to write for professional consumption.

And it’s the book I’ve needed for myself as I’ve done my best to defy gentrification, that refuses to be destroyed.

So many Black folks, especially the women and other gender marginalized ones, are heads of households, but those households don’t get enough salary and benefits to really thrive.

We get called welfare queens and uppity for just wanting a decent place for us and those we care about to lay our heads.

Many of us, despite working since our teenage years, cannot afford the average market-rate apartment or home in any US city or state.

And, as someone who’s been in rooms with some of the real estate and development decision makers, many who can’t comprehend folks that can’t afford their products, I decided it was time to get real about what’s needed to make sure Black folks are housed.

And, instead of just yelling at those folks in that room, I made sure that I gave gentle advice and encouragement to my fellow sista-siblings, that we aren’t broken and we are enough.

Housing is a human right, and there are more than enough things to use to play with money and build our wealth. Our backs, without our full consent, are not one of them.

So here I am, publishing what I think is the first self-help architecture and planning workbook for Black folks of marginalized genders (and the people that love and support them).

Regular readers and longtime supporters. I told you I would come back to this newsletter when I had a date for pre-orders and a place to launch the book. Well, I do have a release date, December 16, 2025, the Tuesday after my birthday. And in my next email, you’ll

Listen/watch an annotated version of this newsletter above or on your favorite podcast player. https://youtu.be/MsfnWGbPr7E Yes, gentrification is fascism and I don’t need to cite any other sources besides my own life experience to say it. I will include this link to the Hampton Insittute’s policy paper from 2021 that makes

Welcome back to Defying Gentrification, Crafting Liberation — an art, design, and policy newsletter/journal of myself Kristen Jeffers, a Black queer feminist disabled millennial (US southern)urbanist. In each of these newsletters, I share a reflection on how I see one of my six principles of Defying Gentrification work in my

In my last email/post, I had all but given up on this idea of defying gentrification. Then it hit me, my very existence in a world hostile to everything I am is defiance. I am enough. And when I thought about that I was like hey, there’s still something I

Hey y’all. I haven’t felt jolly for months, years even, and all of my wishes for you this year, have been very profane and anguish-ridden. I wanted to spare y’all those, but I did let loose in a semi-private online forum. Also, my apologies for ghosting y’all here. Technical difficulties

Welcome back to Eight Years a Washingtonian, a series where I talk about what I’ve learned since I moved here in 2016. That year was consequential for not just me but the region and the so-called country I live in, so I am, in a way, treating this like I’ve

Welcome back to Eight Years a Washingtonian, a series where I talk about what I’ve learned since I moved here in 2016. That year was consequential for not just me but the region and the so-called country I live in, so I am, in a way, treating this like I’ve

Part 3 of My Series Eight Years a Washingtonian, On My Relationship with this Town’s Largest Industry. Everything I’ve done that’s paid more than the (quite high for the United States) minimum wage in this region has been in service to or in the influence of a form of a