As do poverty and trauma. The decay at George Mason mirrors the condition of Richmond’s public housing, the bleak backdrop for so many shootings as violent crime experiences a troubling increase over last year’s spike.

Friday night and Saturday morning, two men were shot and killed in separate homicides — a brutal coda to a week in which five other people, including two juveniles, were wounded in a drive-by shooting in Whitcomb Court.

The weekend homicides brought this year’s total count in Richmond to 42, well ahead of last year’s pace. In all, 132 people had been shot, including 14 juveniles.

The Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, not unlike Richmond Public Schools, has far more building needs than funds to address them. It plans to ask the federal government to convert the city’s public housing complexes to the Section 8 housing choice voucher program as a means to free up more money for maintenance and redevelopment.

George Mason and much of the RRHA housing stock are remnants of an era we never truly left behind. Even as RVA neighborhoods gentrify and industrial areas such as Scott’s Addition and Manchester morph into eclectic residential communities, Richmond’s public housing and school buildings remain largely frozen in time.