Headed in the Right Direction

Guest Blog By: Debra O'Neal
2011 Cleveland Foundation Intern

To most people the word “public housing” is synonymous with crime, violence, and poverty.  People envision single mothers with multiple children, no jobs and living off of welfare. However while some of those claims may have truth to them, most people fail to see how public housing can also play a positive role in the lives of the children who live there. As a child who grew up in public housing, I can definitely say that the lessons and experiences I took from there played a major part in shaping my character and helping me to achieve the many accomplishments that I have.

Though I lived in low income housing all my life, I didn’t realize that I was “poor” until I was in high school.  I never felt "poor” or felt that I was lacking in any area. My parents always had jobs, and even though I did not receive EVERYTHING I wanted, neither my siblings nor I ever went without the things we needed. We never had the latest gadgets or the newest fads, but we were content with what we did have, and compared to some of our friends we were very well off. Though we may have been financially poor, the love of my parents, family, and friends made us spiritually and emotionally rich. I am blessed to have such a good family, and despite others’ beliefs, I feel blessed to had been raised in public housing. From an outsider’s perspective, it may have seemed that the neighborhoods in which I was raised in were terrible, but it was because of those neighborhoods that I am who I am today.

My neighborhood that I grew up in consisted of eight six-bedroom low income apartments. These apartments were exclusively meant for parents who had more that six children under their care. So even though there were only a few families there, more than seventy people lived in this area alone. There were always a lot of kids around for every age group, so our summers were always filled with a lot of fun and excitement. Though some of us went to summer camps or daycare, we still found ways to create new games or activities to fill our time when we were at home. One summer, after the housing authority built a basketball court in our back yard, we started a summer league in which we even convinced a local church to donate to us some pennies. Another time, we decided to throw our mothers a surprise Mother’s Day program complete with snacks, dance routines, and music.  One year, we even started a step team in which we competed against other teams and almost won. These are the memories I hold of public housing, not those negative generalizations that people are so quick to assume.

Why we certainly had our share of fights and pain, we also had an abundance of good memories and positive experiences. It is because of growing up in public housing that I learned to value the importance of family, hard work, and perseverance, and most of all, community. I found out at an early age that nobody expected us to be successful or respected us. Therefore in order to achieve anything, I needed to work twice as hard in school, at work, and especially in staying out of trouble in our neighborhoods.  I understood early to make the best of what I had and that no matter how bad something may seem at the time, it never lasts forever. Living in public housing taught me a lot of things, but the biggest lesson it showed me was that since I already started at the bottom, the only direction that I could go was up.