MARQUECIA JONES

Growing up here has always been family-oriented. It’s not necessarily about blood. 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. Your neighbors were your babysitters, your tutors—just everything. The person that fed you, the person that cared for you along with your family in the absence of your mom at work or whatever was going on in the household. So for me, it’s family, and it was the togetherness. That’s what we’re trying to keep now, which has been really, really hard because the dynamics of the neighborhood have changed.

I was part of the change in the neighborhood dynamics. And now when I look back after some of the decisions I made, I really believe they were great decisions, because I truly believe we needed change here. We needed new housing. All of our housing was built with no front or back—just one way in, one way out. We didn’t have air conditioning. It was just concrete block from Court Street to Liberty Street.

So we definitely needed new housing. But I think when we developed the new housing, we lost some of the community dynamic—the family part of it. I don’t know if it was because of the way it was designed. You had no other choice but to love on each other because you were always in each other's space. You never really had space to call your own. Your space was everybody’s space.

With the new development, we wanted to have more grassy areas, because before, everything was on asphalt. The only grass we had was the grass that came up through the cracks. So we wanted to build and develop that. But I think once we did that, we kind of broke down the family piece. People are not—I won’t say less close—but you don’t have that daily interaction. When you’re constantly stepping over people, your relationship is different because you're bumping into each other all the time. Now everybody is on their own individual path, and I think we’ve lost some of that family, that togetherness, that ‘look out for one another.’

But we also gained great things. We gained new housing. We got housing that wasn’t concrete, we got carpet, AC, front and back doors, decks, patios. We gained a lot—and we lost a lot.

For me, it’s definitely about family and trying to keep that type of connection with each other. Today, I made a post on one of my Facebook pages that said: ‘If your dreams are fulfilled with no help, they’ve got to be really small.’ That touched me. And when I think about it, that’s what I see now in the community. Not a lot of help with the families that live there. Everybody is just going their own way, in and out. You might see them, you might not. When we only had front doors, you saw everyone. Now with back doors, you might not see half the people—they might be going out the back.

So we’ve lost that. For me, it’s definitely about family. The protection piece, the part where everyone cared for each other and looked out. I guess it’s strange to say, but I never thought about it until this interview—just having a front door meant you always had your eyes on your neighbor.

Now that I’m older, and it’s been over 20 years since we did the new development, I look back and I might have done some things differently. Because when you have your eyes on your neighbors, you’re constantly watching out for them and their kids and their families. Now it’s different. I live in the New Hope Six development, and when I go home, I very seldom see any of my neighbors. I can remember living in public housing for 30–35 years and being in contact with my neighbors 365 days a year. Now, I may see my next-door neighbor, or I may not. I may see two people in my community once or twice a week—if I have time to go out and sit, since I still have a lot of family 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.