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Resident voices: "The
Choices a Mother Has to Make Me and my daughter, my son and my husband lived in Arthur Capper. My daughter had graduated from high school and was going to X____ Business College. She worked part time for the federal government. Being on fixed income myself, I couldn't help her with her college. I am asthmatic, have high blood pressure, am diabetic. So I couldn't work most of the time. I had been a home healthcare worker for about five years, I had to quit that job because of another health problem. I had a hernia and I couldn't lift my patients anymore. I was on unemployment for awhile but it wasn't't that much. When I was working I had to pay for my health insurance. When I got on Public Assistance I got Medicaid. They fix it so it wasn't that easy to get on public assistance, while my rent would go up because it took time for the housing authority to lower my rent because I had been injured on the job. I had only been making $6 an hour when I was working. My daughter needed money for school, books, and I had to go to her and ask her to pay rent on top that because the housing authority wanted one-third of all income coming into the home. That was humiliating. There was never enough money. It was hard for me to give her housing authority papers that she had to give to her employer which made her situation public where she worked. It was hard for me to suggest she get a place with her boyfriend because she couldn't afford to live by herself and living with her family was costing her to much money that she needed for school. You can't understand how hard it was for me to suggest she live with her boyfriend when they weren't married. They eventually got married (thank God). At this point my son who had left our house for awhile came back due to illness. He had moved to another city but couldn't find work and his health problems also got worse. He needs surgery on his hip but he won't get it because he has no healthcare. He also knows that the surgery would immobilize him for at least 6 months which means he'd have to have a place to stay. Right now he is moving from place to place because he can't be on my lease. He comes over and takes care of me, but the surgery would mean he'd have to stay here or with my daughters but the Housing Authority says he is not supposed to be here. Even if HOPE 6 works as they say, I'd be in a one bedroom apartment, not knowing if I'd be able to get around. I think HOPE 6 is a lot of crap, whose to say I'd be one of the 140 low income residents that would get to come back. I don't know where I'll end up. You know I really don't have feelings about this, I know I won't be one of those 140 people who are accepted back. I know that how the system works you have to know someone to get what you need. I think it is bad for poor people to have to compete over 140 units. We have already established our qualifications just by being here. I have always paid my rent, that should be the only requirement to come back. They want to do credit checks, name me one person who doesn't owe money to someone. The housing authority needs to build 400 units back, why are they only building 140 units of low-income housing? There are so many people that don't have homes now, that are living on the street—people have a right to housing and HOPE 6 is trying to take that away. I'm very happy that there are people out there that feel the way I do, that have questions that aren't being answered. The residents who attend the Housing Authority community meetings here, don't know what is happening, that there is not enough housing that is going to be built. The Housing Authority told us, Friends and Residents, that we would be allowed to speak at the community meeting, and then at the last minute changed the agenda and wouldn't alltow us to speak or even ask questions. We are the residents and we couldn't't speak at our own community meeting. I want to be one of the residents who put out the word that the housing authority is telling us a bunch of lies. There will be no homes for us if we don't act now. |
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created: 05/29/03 (tk) | modified: 05/29/03 (tk)