My dream of being a celebrity make up artist came with a giant step: moving from Texas to California. Being the ambitious firefly that I am, I had dreams of moving to the city of angels. In 2016 I saved, planned, and executed. Coming from Texas I was expecting the apartment hunt to be easy. I was sadly mistaken. From what I remember credit was never a big issue in Texas, so I always got approved for whatever apartment I applied for. Los Angeles was a different story. Not only do you have to have a credit score of at least 650 to be considered, but you also need to have thousands put aside. The deposits and move in costs alone will swallow a broke man alive. Not to mention you’re going to be paying double the rent for half the size. It was a huge adjustment for me.
I was not familiar to Los Angeles, so I decided to be in the busiest part of the city: Hollywood. Me and my then roommate ended up settling on a one bedroom apartment for almost $2,000. I went from paying $800 in Houston for a beautiful two bedroom apartment with my own room and bathroom to sharing an average one bedroom and bath. That year was very trying for me. However, I didn’t give up. After living in Los Angeles for about three years in a predominantly suburban area, I missed seeing my people and experiencing the culture. I wanted to move to Baldwin Hills/Leimert Park. This is the area where black professionals of all classes tend to live. I assumed the search to find a place would be easy. This area isn’t as fancy as Beverly Hills or as sought after as Hollywood. I was wrong. I had no luck finding a place, so I ended up moving back to Hollywood, or as I like to refer to it as, Hollyweird.
Real estate is more meaningful than many of us realize. Real estate helps us control our power. I always tell people make sure your home is as comfortable as you want it to be. That is your recharge center. When an iPhone dies, you have to charge it in order for it to gain enough power to function again. Same with your home. Same as a tribe. If tribe members are split up they lose that connection. They lose their tradition, identity and power. We must reserve our power amongst our tribes. We have forgotten the importance of culture. We all talk about unity and getting back in tune with the spiritual side. We can do that right here if we realize, before it’s too late, how huge of a force real estate is in keeping all cultures sacred and unified. As our generations progress, my wish for everyone, my people especially, is to change the way we spend our money. Fellas, no more buying your women bags and shoes. If you love her, buy her dirt!
I am so here for the Women Pushing Dirt movement. If you don’t know what Women Pushing Dirt is, you need to get to know her name because it’s not going anywhere. It’s a tribe! I value this movement because it involves two important aspects in our world: women and real estate. You can’t have children without women, and where is the family this woman birthed going to live if there is no real estate?