In October, my boyfriend and I bought a 100-year old house that has been empty for a decade. Once on the Mayor’s demolition list, the house was in serious need of rehabilitation before irreparable deterioration. As excited as we’ve been about this project, it has been a balancing act. Social economic status and racial disparity creep into every corner of house matters, from buying it to rounds of evicting the homeless man to the recent murder two blocks away.