 Through watching the news and being a part of the community, we have heard many stories about Sears Lane, but something about the coverage just never seemed right. We felt there was something missing from the story, and wanted to discover what was not being told. I think just like as soon as I stepped foot in that place, like I really got the sense of like what it meant, and like it's a historical kind of like resonance of the people there in the city, like, because yeah, it was just like basically like a neighborhood, you know? Together we decided to look to our local community members who played a part in Sears Lane to hear the story from a first-hand experience. Yeah, I mean, I think you just stepped foot in a place and you just realized how special it is, and you realize that, like, while you're there, like you're, you're participating in like a tipping point in the city. What was so important about the Sears Lane community? I guess it's always sort of been a place to, for homeless people that overspill and, um, but I guess, and the neighbors didn't mind that, but, and unbeknownst to me, I was told that there was some sort of, I don't know how else to put this, except to say unsavory activity going on. I was really grateful that I had somewhere to go. It was difficult because we had to use porta-potties and there were no showers and not really anywhere to cook. We were working on putting together a temporary kitchen, and I know that somebody was building a little shack, and that got torn down, but I'm really grateful to have had that stepping stone. There was some infrastructure that was under construction at Sears Lane, like a communal kitchen and gardens. There was in both the spring and the fall big cleanup operations at Sears Lane to get trash removal there, to, you know, make it a nicer place to live and hang out. And then when the eviction notice was issued, like that stuff continued and accelerated and amplified to sort of make a statement that, like, this is a place that the community cares about. One is a place that's livable and can take care of itself. And, and like Sears Lane can be good neighbors. Why do you like people in the community were kind of working there for a while to build this like kitchen that was really sick that got demolished by the city? Also, I would tend to build like a, basically a home, small home there, also demolished by the police. And so like I hadn't only been like at Sears Lane physically up until like the point where the city was starting to evict the residents. Lots of people like building a kitchen in Sears Lane and like doing other projects over the summer. Like nobody was at Sears Lane because there was like a better place that they were just like, no, I'm not going to go here. If people at homes in Sears Lane and it was so important to those living there, what led up to Sears Lane being demolished by the Burlington Police Department? I'm sure from my perspective, there was it was a little bit unsightly, I guess. We attempted to do some cleanup and it always got messed up pretty quickly thereafter. Over the last few years, there have been like neighbors complaining about the presence of folks living at Sears Lane. At the same time, there was like also neighbors that supported Sears Lane. So there's conflict over that. And the population living at Sears Lane the summer before Sears Lane was evicted was was higher than in past years. There was like a drug rate at Sears Lane that turned up some meth and one guy got in trouble for like pointing like a water gun or like some sort of fake gun at the cops. And then that was used as a pretense for this eviction and that everybody at Sears Lane had like five days to get out. That was extended multiple times because of activism defending Sears Lane, both residents and their allies. The city's narrative was there was a lot of illegal activity going on and it was dangerous, which is a tried and true tactic. And so it was there was like an increase in police presence. There were lots of like supposed complaints. I was I'm uncertain because the city never actually said any of the numbers. It was a lot of vague fear mongering. So I don't know how much of it was actually true because hearing from people, there were not many complaints over the summer and then it kind of ramped up towards the fall, but nothing had really changed in terms of the people living at Sears Lane. Like there was that legal battle going on. That's the reason it's relating. That was like it's kind of this dual tactic of like trying to like drag out the process for as long as possible while preparing for some some form of like resistance or pushback. But in terms of like what's leading up to it like long scale, it's just I mean it's just continuing the policy of like gentrification and like forcing out all the working class people who live in Burlington. How are the news of the eviction handled by the community? What were the reactions? And then basically like the police and the bulldozers just didn't show up and they didn't show up and they didn't show up for about a month. And in that time, like people who were living at Sears Lane and their friends and political allies would show up to defense Sears Lane every time there was a cop in the area. Every time we heard that there was they were going to be evicted on any given day. But like people had lives and schedules. And eventually like the that resistance was sort of like worn down. People had to get back to back to work and not just like I know I skipped multiple obligations, bailed on like lecturing in a class at UVM. That I told the professor was going to be there. And then I sent them an email last minute, being like, I got to go down to defense Sears Lane and the cops didn't even show up that day. So eventually like there was just very few people left living at Sears Lane. Not that many people left. And the eviction was able to proceed without as much resistance, you know, in hindsight, like that was that was their tactic. In terms of like how people grew there. I mean, I feel like it was honestly like it was a mixed bag in terms of the relationship between like the activists, which is kind of Norman Billington and the presidents. I think like there are a lot of people kind of like rolling in there. For like, I don't want to like, well, I mean, kind of like for sightseeing or like people want to be part of the moment, which like it's understandable that you want to be part of that. But creates a dynamic between the activists and the residents. That wasn't really like good. There was a lot of contact between the young activist groups that were interested in defending Sears Lane and the folks that had been living there. And within the group of folks that have been living in Sears Lane, there was like a pretty big diversity of like desires and opinions. Like a lot of people just wanted to get out and find somewhere else safe to be when when the eviction notice was issued. Whereas other people said this is my home. I want to stay here. Can you all help me defend it? And so the like allies of Sears Lane, our job was to like meet those needs individually while like maintaining a pretty strong collective front that like Sears Lane needs to stay. We we wrote letters to the mayor and my letter was fairly short and sweet and just pretty much asking what is it we would need to do to be invited to stay? What did the city of Burlington's role in this eviction look like? What was the narrative they put forward as to the events leading up to the eviction along with the eviction itself? The most apparent thing was it bought more time just straight up because there people were given like I don't even remember how many days it was, but it was like a week or two at first. And then it was almost two months before they knocked down everything. And the city recognized that it couldn't just like, you know, as aggressively as it was trying to fuck people over without, you know, some some sort of response. And so I do think there was a lot of a lot more effort on the part of the city to make sure that the people living at Sears Lane had access to resources that they would not have otherwise had access to. Um, but ultimately like Sears Lane is gone. It was a lot of them because Sears Lane was getting bigger. Sears Lane has been around like my whole life. I like have always just like walked by and there's always been people living there. But over the last few years, it's like grown because, you know, that's what happens when you gentrify a town is like poor people don't really have places to go. You know, murder and mass displacement. And yeah, I mean, I would describe the whole city's policies like, you know, like genocidal, you know, like you look at the language from Roses, he's talking about how he wants to like eradicate homelessness, you know, extinguish homelessness by by doing what? By destroying people's self-made, self-built homes. And then pretending they don't exist and saying, oh, we'll just build some like semi-affordable housing. That's the problem. I mean, I think it was building up for a long time. It was like a long time coming. Like all these threats to like make people leave, all this kind of like scheming to like put under the management of a nonprofit and under the management of like social workers, which like allegedly the city would say like no nonprofits want to do that and step up to it, which is not true. How are we as a community helping the people of Sears Lane and how have they been affected moving forward? Yeah, I mean, I was there when the bulldozers were there, like demolishing it and I mean, it was heartbreaking to stand there and like just watch it happen and like not be able to do anything. Uh, very extremely disempowering, but infuriating. Now I'm in a hotel. I managed to stay at a new place most of the winter, but they got full a couple of nights in a row and I froze in my car. So I finally broke down and called 2-1-1. The folks who were living at Sears Lane at the time are now sort of spread all over. I know a lot of them got temporarily housed in motels as unhoused folks have gotten in during the pandemic. Frequently, that didn't turn out to be a stable situation, was never promised to. It was sort of like you get 30 days in a motel and then we're going to find you housing, but it turned out to be one motel to the next to the next for a lot of folks. A few people now that it's springtime are like transitioning back to living outside. Yeah, I think people have gone in different directions. Some people have left Burlington, I've noticed. I think so. I think because that was the first space in which there were a large number of people prepared to do a direct action in resisting the police. And I think that's a really big thing. And that was honestly, my one hope was to like, you know, push the Overton window a little further to the left. And I definitely that definitely happened. And there is more to come, like at least in my brain and scheming things, they they destroyed Sears Lane because they want to put a highway there. They still want to put a highway there. There's, you know, I don't think we need more cars and more pollution to destroy our environment. So I'm I have ideas. So, you know, it's not over as far as I'm concerned. Sears Lane is and was more than a community, more than a place where the unhoused of Burlington gathered and strove to build a community for themselves. Sears Lane is a testament to the failures of our society to have some of the most successful and well off find those less fortunate as unwanted and distasteful, forcibly relegating them to the fringes of society. As such, the discrimination against such morge lives communities becomes ingrained into the institutions supposedly designed to help and protect them. I'd like to say one more thing just briefly to all the people that made donations, the food, the clothing, you know, amenities and whatnot. I know there are, you know, we're here at distro and feeding people in need. And, you know, we sometimes get donations for camping gear and other things that people need in order to sleep outside, even in the winter. And I just want to say thank you so much, everyone. I can say from experience that I don't know where I'd be without your generosity. And so thank you so much. I really appreciate it.