If you have DSL or some other fast internet connection check outOut of the Rubble, A Public Housing Drama Rises (washingtonpost.com) There are 3 video segments on the Arthur Capper Carrollsburg project featuring residents, activists and a DC government official. The artist Anu Yadev who I mentioned before appears in the video along with bits of her play.
I do like the last vingette about the woman who moved up and out to better housing. Change is the Devil, but it can be a blessing that kicks you in the pants and forces you to reevaluate your life and do something. It forces you to decide if you are going to stay in the same rut or move on. Of course if you’re over 60 ruts are good and change always bad.
The video also talks about who stays and who goes and the official mentioned the good and the bad. I could say there are no such thing as bad people, but good souls with really bad habits, but I’m just not THAT good to believe it completely. However this desire to separate the wheat from the chaff that the housing official wants to do is slightly troubling. I totally understand the logic. If you are going to have a public housing, mixed income project that is stable and healthy you just can’t have certain people coming in who may/will hinder the project’s success. If you want the area to be free of drugs and low crime you can’t have criminals or crackheads or their other drug abusing cohorts. But those criminals or crackheads do belong to families who contain individual members who are clean and can be considered good. However you take out the drug dealer you take out his whole family. And that is something we may have to accept.