Life in the Projects 10/12

http://narrative.ly/stories/life-in-public-housing/

This article narrates the personal accounts of people who have lived in the projects in New York and their take on what the “embarrassment and a stigma attached to it [and being] poor at that time” was and is still currently like to experience first-hand (Yvone). These stories represent another angle to the experiences of people coming from the projects as detailed in the film Pruitt-Igoe Myth we watched this week. Many of the people interviewed in this article realize there’s a negative stigma against coming from and/or living in the projects, but are not fully defined by it as outsider might fully define them by it. As Sharon says, “Just because I lived in the projects didn’t mean I had to become the projects.” One man named Yvone says living in the projects was similar to a prison: “It's just so confining to me that it feels like a compound. It feels like a prison. I guess this is how they regulate the poor” which supports reasoning that the ghetto and the prison cycle each other’s social environments and are very similar to one another in culture as Wacquant states in his article we read this week Deadly Symbiosis: When Ghetto and Prison Meet and Mesh.  This article also relates to the documentary by giving a realistic yet more positive view on life in the projects. These people have clearly had multifaceted experiences and their backgrounds are not all composed of negative memories. As Jayro says, “I can see the bad that comes out of the projects, but I can also see the bad that comes out of the wealthier side. Who's to judge which one is better or worse?” This article upholds the notion that public housing may not be exactly the best way to solve the issue of poverty and that these communities continue to cycle people in and out of prison. As Yvone says, “At one point in time, public assistance really helped you move on. Today, public assistance is about keeping you right where you're at. It's indentured servitude, but you never get the chance to work out of it.” Overall, it gives a more personal perspective on those who have experienced life in the projects and supports the ideas that public housing can cycle people into prison and the current system hasn’t solved poverty or racial issues in urban environments.