Though a story about growing up dirt poor in a Housing Projects is usually one of sadness, mine was one of love, happiness and friendship. That is not to say that we did not encounter our fair share of violence, drug use, sexual assault and exploitation and fear, as we did. In fact, the lives of some of our friends could be described as real-life horror stories. But with the brick and concrete walls of our apartment we knew love, security and happiness. This was thanks to our ever watchful, always attentive, loving mother. Her goals in life were twofold. First to provide her children with the love she had never known, and second to give them the hope for a future she could have only dreamt about. For both, due to circumstances beyond her control, she was forced to rely on Social Services to provide food, clothing, shelter and medical care for her children for nearly a decade. But she knew that the way to giving us a better life was to end that reliance of welfare as quickly as possible. Her struggle to do this and keep her family of the straight and narrow path did not go as planned. We were not immune from the violence and drug use that permeated our everyday lives. In fact, often our lives could be downright scary. But the common denominator that led us out of poverty and the horror of the Projects was love and hope. It was the love that existed between a mother and her children, through the goodtime and the bad, that helped groom most of us into productive, well-adjusted adults. It was also the loved that existed between friends that help us all weather the everyday terrors we faced in the Projects, that were not dissimilar to those faced by inmates in prison. It was the hope that was instilled in us by our mother that working hard at a job, schoolwork, bettering ourselves, our friends, and our community would all one day reap positive results. Recounted within these pages is how she made that all happen.
