MARQUECIA JONES

Growing up here has always been family oriented, is not necessarily bad blood, you know, I always say blood doesn't make you family. Because when I grew up, everybody took care of everyone, your neighbors watched out for you, you know, your neighbors were your babysitters, your tutors, just everything you know, the person that fed you personally care for you along with your family in the absence of mom at work or whatever, you know, what's going on in the household. So for me is family and it was the togetherness, the stuff that we're trying to keep. Now that's been really really hard because the dynamics of the neighborhood changed. And I was part of the change of the dynamics of the neighborhood. And now when I look back after some of the decisions I made, I really believe they were great decisions because I really believe we needed change here we needed new housing you know, all of our housing was built where it didn't have a front or a back or didn't have a back door so we only had one way in one way out we didn't have any air conditioning it was just concrete block from what from Court Street to Liberty Street it was just pure concrete block. So we definitely needed new housing but I think when we develop the new housing and get the housing we've lost some of the community dynamic the family part of it and I don't know if it was because of the way it was designed you had no no other choice but to love on each other because you was always in each other's space you know you never really had space to call your own your space was everybody's space and then with the new development we wanted to have more grassy areas because we didn't everything was on asphalt everything was blacktop from one and said only grass you had was the grass that was coming up through the cracks. So you didn't have a lot of grassy area so you wanted to build and develop that but I think once we did that we kind of broke down the the family piece of it like people are not I won't say as close but you don't have that interaction that you had on a daily basis. When you stepping over you know you stepping over people constantly your your relationship is different because you are bumping up against people all the time and now everybody is only on the individual path and I think we've lost some of that that family that togetherness that look out for one another but we also gain great things you know we gained new housing you know we gain housing that wasn't concrete you know, we got carpet we got AC we got front and back door we got decks patios, you know, so we gained a lot in it and we lost a lot. So for me is definitely family and trying to keep that type of connection with each other so that you can today I made a post on one of my Facebook pages that if your dreams are are fulfilled with no help, you know if they're fulfilled with no help, they got to be really small. You know that that was something that just touched me when I just stumbled across it like when you think about it, you know, if you have no help and that's sort of what I see now in the community is not a lot of help with the families that live there. Everybody is just going their own way and in and out. You might see him you might not when we only have front doors you saw everyone now that you have back doors, you might not see you know, half the people may be going out the back or so we've lost that so for me it would definitely be family. The protection piece of everyone cared for each other and looking out, you know, I guess what in a strange did I say that I've never thought about it until this interview will already have in the front door, you were able, you always had your eyes on your neighbor. You know. And now that I'm older, and it's been over 20 years, since we did the new development, you know, and I look back on that, I might have done some things differently. Because when you have your eyes on your neighbors, you're constantly you're constantly watching out for them in their kids and the family that's right across from you are right next to you. And now is different, like I and when I sit here and think about when I go home, I purchased a home in the New Hope, six, development. And when I go home, I very seldom see any of my neighbors. And I can remember going home and living there for 3035 years and public housing and being in contact with my neighbors 35 years, 365 days a year. And now I may see my next door neighbor, I may not. I may say to people, I live in my community, maybe once or twice a week, if I have time to like go out and sit out because I have a lot of family that still lives there. But when it was public housing, no matter when I came in, or what I was doing, I was always touching my neighbors in some form.