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Das you are absolutely correct and I think that people want to report crimes but they are afraid of the consequences if the person(s) found out that they were the one's who "snitched" and they would find out. I remember when my mom would send me to go pay rent in the office the staff/management would just be in there telling all people's business lol all you had to do was know the right people. It didn't matter if you just called the police instead of dealing with them I don't know about now but back in the day the police would report to management anytime they were called out there so they always found out. So alot of people just mind their own business because they don't want any problems.
bxchick this is exactly what I'm referring to. In a perfect world if the criminals are convicted they are supposed to be evicted. They have really enforced this in many Harlem PJ's. Some people have made family members move out, so that they won't get evicted, so some places have really cleaned up.
The people in the management offices don't usually live in the same complexes they work in or they don't live in the PJ's at all, they may not realize, or worse yet even care that their gossiping could endanger peoples lives.
Im Totally not angry! Im just putting in my 2cents on projects, Im assuming you still live in the PJs. In Life you want to get better, But like i said before i will never consider a project for my child and i.
I haven't been back to NY in three years, but I was raised in the Bushwick Houses in Brooklyn, and moved out when I got married 10 years ago. My mother relocated down here to Raleigh, North Carolina a year ago, and one of the main reasons was that the NYCHA was really falling apart. Some of the tenants were being forced out to make room for people who were better able to pay what the new rates were. The maintenance was crap; I read a story in the Daily News online last year about a woman who died of an asthma attack because she was forced to walk up the stairs to her house; both elevators had been out all day, and the elevator mechanics were delinquent in showing up to fix them. I'm still proud of where I came from, and have no issues with the projects. I hope that if there are any issues, NYCHA has gotten them addressed. It's a good alternative for reasonably priced housing.
Im Totally not angry! Im just putting in my 2cents on projects, Im assuming you still live in the PJs. In Life you want to get better, But like i said before i will never consider a project for my child and i.
To answer you I don't live in the projects however I visit quite frequently and believe me when I say I would not be ashamed or embarrassed to move back. Unlike some people material things don't define me as a person life will ALWAYS be good to me regardless. If I live in the projects or a house drive a car or ride the bus I will always be thankful for the things I do have and am capable of doing for myself and I surround myself with like minded individuals. Now you say you would NEVER live in the projects and thats your choice but to say that because you live there your poor is unfair. I learned a long time ago to never say never because in life you never know what cards your going to get dealt and with me regardless I'm going to play the hand I'm dealt and keep on smiling while doing it.
I live directly across the street from a bunch of housing projects in Mott Haven. I can tell you that they are 100x better than they were even 10 years ago, but it really isn't a place you want to be just yet. There is still the criminal element (that will likely always be there), and too many hoodlums/thugs who destroy everything, don't care about themselves, and certianly don't care about anyone else. I would not be comfortable living there (as a man) and dealing with these people directly day in/day out, so I could not fathom actually having a son/daughter forced to deal with them daily, no matter what color I am. There is still way too much crime occuring in the projects, and it is still not a place for kids at all. It is changing though, and I have seen the VAST improvements to the projects, with many of them a much better place to live today than alot of neighborhoods filled with tenements and no projects. The city's efforts to clean up the projects via evictions, prosecutions, and aggressive patroling have done wonders for the housing projects, and look for continued improvement going forward. As affordable housing has become a hot topic lately, look to see the housing projects increase their maximum income cap and repositioned for the working/middle class. This is beginning to happen now as a direct result of cost of living in the city, however it will accelerate once the maximum cap is increased, and middle income people of color will swarm in and make the kind of changes to the housing projects that are long overdue. My 2 cents.
sobrodude - Do you have any info concerning the income caps being raised in the projects? I must admit, sometimes when I'm the J train passing the projects on my way to work, it annoys me to know that the only commute many of the tenants in those buildings make in morning, is from their bedrooms - to their couches. It's not fair. There are too many low/middle income WORKING people who actually keep this city vital who are struggling to pay rent while so many people just "chill" all day. There needs to be a more fair distribution of income earners in the pjs. That's what they were meant for to begin with.
Furthermore, I believe the projects in or closest to Manhattan should be reserved for those low/middle income earners who WORK in or closest to Manhattan. And as for those able bodied tenents who wanna "chill" all day, they need to be made to EARN their place. Primarely, through maintainance projects and/or proven demonstrations of active parenting; i.e. report cards/school attendence, proof of parent/teacher meeting attendence, having their child/children enrolled in after school programs, parenting classes, etc. If they don't want to comply, they should be moved to projects further out.
PS - I would live in the projects if there was a change in some of the demographics and maintainance issues.
I was born and raised in the projects with my brother and sister and we all did well for ourselves as far as life, education and finances are concerned (not to mention countless others). I have never been nor will I ever be neither embarrassed or ashamed to say where I came from and personally I loved growing up there it taught me alot about life and a myriad of other things not to say you couldn't learn these life lessons outside of the projects but just speaking from experience. I know people who didn't grow up there but somewhere different who if you put them in certain situations they can't handle themselves they panic they are not comfortable. I can handle myself in any situation be it in a corporate setting or in the streets. Now don't get me wrong you are entitled to your opinion as I to mine but what infuriates me is when people who know absolutely nothing about the projects except for what they see on TV or see in passing try to stereotype everyone that lives there.
Well said, and I 100% cosign. I too was born and raised in the projects, and while there was the occasional street crime, I enjoyed every minute of it. I actually found myself to be a lot safer there than anywhere else i've been. There's a real sense of community. Coming up in the bricks is an upbringing like any other, and as bxchick stated, you learn a lot of life lessons that simply cannot be found anywhere else.
The best thing about it, is that if you actually subtract the small bubble of criminals, the people who live in the projects are living in harmony. From all different backgrounds, if you live in the PJs, you're most likely there for the same reason as everyone else - trying to make ends meet. So there is a strong, universal respect.
I admit, it's not all roses, though. Speaking from the Brownsville perspective, if you come in on a high-horse with your nose in the sky, then yeah, chances are you're going to run into some trouble. No one likes a jerk.
That, and it's pretty sick how gung-ho some people can be at removing it's hard-working residents to make things "better". It's unfair to everyone who lives there, or any PJ, young, or old, to be treated as a collective disease when it's just a couple of knuckleheads out there making life rough for everyone.
I am sad but also happy to say that when I was younger I thought the same way as futureRN. I thought the projects were full of hoodlums, criminals, ghetto, and lazy people on welfare who just want to milk the system. I wouldn't have been caught dead in the PJs or in a store with foodstamps. But then my mom hit hard times and even though we didn't have to move to the pj we did apply for benefits. And all of a sudden I didn't think being on welfare was so bad anymore. lol Although we didn't get that much help. go figure.
Even though I still wouldn't move into the PJs until more progress is made, They have come a long way. it really isn't fair to sterotype everyone who lives in the PJs as poor ghetto lazy criminals. People do actually hit hard times and need the assistance.
When my family first moved to St. Mary's PJ in '77, it wasn't *perfect* but mostly working-class people lived there. A lot of kids in the building (including me) went to nearby catholic schools or PS 5 or PS 162 (JHS). My parents, now both in their 70s, still live there, but things started declining in the early 80s. Even now, tenants are faced with criminal elements, broken elevators, pissed up stairwells...not good. The one good thing that recently happened was the installation of surveillance cameras. Too soon to tell as far as any improvements.
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