If any one wants to doubt what being poor is really like; this one of the lovely places I have lived. Parkside in Dayton Ohio pretty close to being torn down completely. This is low income project housing.
Things you will not see:
- A grocery store. The only place that sold food was across the street at a small convenient store liquor mart shop that would cash TANF. Food found there was mostly junk, no vegis, no friut unless it was in a can and it was expensive. Additionally, groups of gangs would stand out front harassing people and stopping cars on the street to try to sell them drugs. Literally walking up to cars and asking…
- Presence of police. The police station is literally across the street from where this stood. Over 90% of crime that happened in this area of Dayton was confined to this gated community. Police only patrolled the Emergency housing only and that was few and far between. At the time this video was made; there were still people living there.
There is a bus stop directly in front of it which was packed with people all day long because very very few people there actually have access to cars.
At night this place looked like a ghost town.
There was always at least one person standing inside at the main entrance looking for people to deal to.
In the main building, which is nothing but apartments converted to offices is the Red Cross building for emergency housing. It is the building that has cars around it and they had 6 buildings there. People who were unfortunate enough to stay in those rentals were subjected to daily inspections and curfews. Inmates were normally tasked with repair and clean up so you never knew who you were letting in to your home. These places had TV’s and washers you were not permitted to bring your things on property.
Windows are all covered with thick wired mesh. The doors were heavy steel. No carpet, all painted wood and ants. So many ants. I used to move the furniture and sweep it daily because no matter how clean you keep the place they would never go away… at least it wasn’t roaches, but that is a story for another time.
Fridges, stoves and ovens, like in any other rental property, were in all of the apartments. What most people didn’t have were TV’s and radios (and most definitely not x-boxes and playstations, computers and internet).
There was a pay phone on the corner that got a lot of use; some days you had to wait in line because guess what? Not many people had cellphones either.
Those who were in the red cross housing got dish soap, laundry detergent toilet paper, soap and toothpaste.
In the middle (the large building he passes) is the food bank. The lack of an actual grocery store led to people spending more for food and thus being unable to feed families. They were open five days a week and it was always always busy.
Edit: Somethings I forgot to mention because I hate remembering this stuff:
This was a DMHA subsidies housing (please note the huge discrepancy of the images on the site and the reality above nor are you likely to find a house they have pictured anywhere in Dayton.). These are the types of places that have the 8 dollar rent that republicans call a “nice housing free ride”. There are several others in the area that are still in operation similar to the above.
It also took me months to wash the smell of that place out of my clothes.
