Concerned homeowners crowded an open house Thursday evening, to ask questions about a freeway project that will run right through their neighborhood.
It's called the Centennial Corridor, but neighbors call it a highway to homelessness.
"I'm here because I don't want a freeway through anyone's neighborhood."
Hannah Austin and her family turned the open house into a protest. She says if Alternative B of the Centennial Corridor goes through, they'll lose their home in the Westpark area.
"It's going to completely take my childhood home away. That's where I grew up. I love my house. It's like, obviously, if you lose all those memories, it makes me really upset," she added.
"My kids won't get to show their children where they grew up. It's going to be under a freeway," added Verna Austin.
The Austin's house is one of 310 homes slated to be taken out by the Centennial Corridor project, which will connect Highway 58 to the Westside Parkway and eventually Interstate 5.
Most of the homes are in the Westpark area of Bakersfield.
"There's always been a need and purpose that we don't have an east to west transportation corridor," said Steven Milton, Project Manager, Centennial Corridor project.
Thursday night, hundreds showed up to discuss the plan that is favored by Caltrans.
"We'll give the best answers we can, but sometimes reality hurts. And, I understand that. I feel bad for them, and I kind of try to put it in perspective if it was my house being taken, but you just gotta go with the process," said Milton.
Not everyone at the meeting wants to go with the process,including Sal Savelberg, whose home will be 100 feet from the corridor.
"It's a threat to our health, to my wife and I and to everyone in our neighborhood," he said.
Savelberg says he wishes he was right in the freeway's path so the state could buy him out. "We were kind of praying for that, that we would have been taken, but now we are one of the ones that are left there."
Mary Ruth Brown is in the same position.
"The house on the side of me is gone. The house behind me is gone. I'll be sitting right on the freeway," said Brown.
Final approval of the project won't come until 2014.
Until then, Brown and others plan to fight it.
"I fought it three other times. I'm not going to give up now," she said.
Caltrans says it will start buying homes in the spring. Officials add, there's always a possibility the route will change, but it's not likely.
