HOME 1 | Between Me and My Community

HOME 1 Between Me and My Community

Editor: Valerie Fox University Writing Program, Faculty Writing Fellow Book and Cover Design: Patty West Editorial Assistant: Lauren Lowe ’17 Alumni Fellow, Writers Room Kirsten Kaschock University Writing Program, Associate Director: Experiential Learning Rachel Wenrick Founding Director, Writers Room With thanks to: Merle Curran-Ackert STAR Scholar Summer ’19 Hasciya Austin WorkReady Intern Summer ’19 Mabedi Sennanyana Lenfest Center for Cultural Partnerships Co-op Fall/Winter ’18-’19

Copyright © 2019 - All rights reserved.

All rights of work included here remain with writers and artists.

PREFACE The first Home Symposium, held on October 13, 2018, was a day of information gathering and idea generation that kicked off the three event series.

It began with a panel discussion: Neighborhood Histories Roundtable.

The panelists gave an overview of the history of the neighborhood, including their personal stories of living in Mantua and Powelton Village. From them we learned about the cultural milieu that is these neighborhoods, and what gave rise to it. Audience members shared positive experiences between new residents, but also expressed frustrations about a perceived disrespect towards longtime residents, sometimes occurring as a result of rapid development. An afternoon of guided writing workshops followed, wherein participants wrote, shared, and listened to ideas and stories of home.

The conversations that happened on this day have helped to further the goal to create a cooperative space, the design of which will be communityled. This book contains highlights from panelists as well as writing generated by the participants.

In addition to providing space for public programming, our larger goal is to catalyze other intergenerational houses nearby, creating a network of homeowners and student tenants whose shared interest in writing/ storytelling forms the foundation for meaningful cohabitation. —Valerie Fox, Writers Room

CONTENTS

Highlights from Neighborhood Histories Roundtable Scott Knowles, Drexel University...9 Helma Weeks, Powelton Village Civic Association...10 Gwen Morris, Mantua Civic Association...13 De’Wayne Drummond, Mantua Civic Association...15

Disconnect and Connect Mabedi Sennanyana...21 Barbara Dale…21 Calvin Kiniale…22 Rebecca Arthur…23 Shakiya Smith…23 Matthew J. Brooks…24 Anonymous…25

Between Me and My Community Rebecca Arthur and Amy Gottsegen...28 Barbara Dale and Rebecca Arthur...29 Calvin Kiniale and Anonymous...30 Anonymous...31 Matthew J. Brooks ...32 Anonymous ...33 Anonymous and Barbara Dale...34 Anonymous A and Anonymous B...35 Rosalyn Cliett and Nam Le...36 Carol Richardson McCullough and Mabedi Sennanyna...37 Anonymous to All...38 Nam Le and Carol Richardson McCullough...39

Photo: Devin Welsh

Helma Weeks,

Gwen Morris,

De’Wayne Drummond,

Scott Knowles

Neighborhood Histories Roundtable: Highlights Rachel Wenrick Hello, and welcome to the Dornsife Center. My name is Rachel Wenrick. I’m the Director of Writers Room. This morning, we’re doing what we always do. We’re talking and writing and eating and laughing together. But everyone at Writers Room would like you to know that it means more to us than ever and we’re grateful to you for joining us today. This gathering has been a few years in the making.

Planning began in 2015 at the end of our first season when Carol Richardson McCullough, one of our founding members, was displaced after a developer bought her apartment building and converted it to student housing. In that moment we understood very clearly that we’re implicated in each other’s stories. Making art together was no longer enough. If we could create a community, we need to act as a community. Now let’s get started.

Helma Weeks is the chair of Powelton Village Civic Association’s Historic Preservation Community. Gwen Morris is secretary of Mantua Civic Association. De’Wayne Drummond is president of Mantua Civic Association. And Scott Knowles, department head, Department of History, Drexel University. Thank you so much.

I’m going to start with the first question and then Scott is going to lead the panel. We asked everyone to consider, what are the stories that are most significant to you about the neighborhood’s history and history of development in it? What are the stories you’d like us to know?

Scott Knowles Thank you, Rachel. I’ve been at Drexel for 18 years. When I came to Drexel, we didn’t even have a course in the history of Philadelphia. So it was as if we existed in Philadelphia, in a place, but we only taught the history of other places. Sometimes the history of the United States, but rarely even about this place. And so we started doing that about 14 years ago and then when Drexel started to look at neighborhood partnership and the Dornsife Center was founded, we had a lot of discussions about how can the faculty and the students be involved in 9

this very exciting kind of way of thinking about what a university is. We learned we had kind of forgotten a lot of things about the history of our own place and the way we were connected a long time ago.

That has been profound for us in the History Department, for our students and for our faculty. We’ve taught a number of courses in the history of Philadelphia which have been community-based learning, so-called side by side courses which are community members and history students working together. They, without exception, have been the most profound teaching experiences in my career. They’re usually situations where I sort of start a conversation a little bit and then get out of the way and let the community members and the students work together towards understanding what’s important to them about this place and the history of this place. I think, today, to me, departs in that spirit…I’m going to ask our panel to really share with us their thoughts about the way the community’s history, and Drexel’s history might be intertwined.

We’re going to talk about the past but we’re also going to talk about the future. History is not some dusty list of names and dates, regardless of how you were taught in high school. It should be a vital conversation about a past that then lays a groundwork for us to think about a future, particularly in a democracy and particularly in an urban space like Philadelphia. So I hope that we can get into some of that kind of discussion today as well.

Helma Weeks My name is Helma Weeks. I’ve lived in Powelton twice. I lived here in 1968 to ‘73. And then I came back in 1997 and I’m still here. The original reason we moved to Powelton in the 60’s is we were looking for a neighborhood that was integrated and at that point the City of Philadelphia was pretty much in an uproar. There were riots and it was really quite a deep racial division. We had originally looked over by the art museum and decided that that was not integrated enough and came across Powelton which is a truly integrated neighborhood.

And that goes back to the Quaker initiative after World War II. Quakers came into Powelton and acquired buildings and created cooperative requirements to be racially integrated because at that point mixed couples couldn’t find places to live. As I said, they came to Powelton.

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Then out of that tradition, the neighborhood acquired sort of a liberal reputation and also an activist reputation. We bought our first house there and I’d say we lived there for like six years and then for various reasons moved out.

But then it was difficult because the area was red-lined… the houses were not that expensive but as you know the Powelton houses, they’re big, and most of them are apartments. We were a young couple, we had no money, and the people we bought the house from, the reason they sold was because of the draft and they had a son and it was the Vietnam War era so they went to Canada. The whole family picked up and moved, sold their house. Trying to think, I think it was like a big old Second Empire Victorian with six apartments and I think it was like $22,000 and then they gave us a second mortgage because we didn’t have enough money and they wanted to get out of the country so their son didn’t have to go to the military, and so forth and so on.

The reason we came here was because it was a liberal neighborhood.

It was totally integrated, and we didn’t think there would be a riot around the corner, that was the other thing. We liked it. When I came back in 1997, again, there’s a certain vibe [in Powelton] and there’s a tolerance there and it still exists to some extent, not as much as used to. The neighborhood has changed because home ownership has gone down, the houses have been bought up by developers and have been turned into student apartments, and so you have a constantly changing group of renters. It’s not as permanent as it used to be. Hopefully, maybe, we can restore some of the home ownership at some point.

But at this point, unfortunately, the housing prices have gone up.

It’s no longer $22,000 a house. That house that we first bought now is probably worth $800,000 since the 60’s. That’s a little bit of my background.

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Scott Knowles noted that panelists were talking about diversity as an intentional value and motive for living in Mantua and Powelton Village.

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Helma Weeks I just wanted to say something in terms of the community… talking about the 60’s… Aside from the racial tension in the city, but it was also a turning in time because of the urban renewal. Powelton probably was a little more affected than Mantua because Drexel originally was a commuter college so it didn’t have that big an impact on the community. Then it eventually turned into Drexel University and became a residential establishment. In the 60’s, with the urban renewal, we saw a tear down, and between Penn and Drexel, this whole area, and the City. . .all of the stuff north of Market was torn down. The University City High School, the whole neighborhood, was obliterated. That forced the residents from Powelton to really stand up for their rights. There were some great court fights and so on.

It took over 10 years for this to be resolved and eventually the residents sort of won because since then anything with urban renewal, they can’t just come in and tear down, they have to go to the community. And it was decided on a federal level that there is input by the affected. And that contributed, I think, to getting people in our neighborhood to get together…

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Weeks spoke of the resistance when a collection of buildings were threatened at the 3200 block on Arch toward 33rd on the south side.

The Powelton people sat on the bulldozers. A lot of fabric was destroyed and a lot of character was destroyed. If this community hadn’t gone to bat, the whole neighborhood could have been wiped out!

And then they would have come over here and done the same thing.

They stood their ground. People today have to stand their ground again. That’s what we’ve done a little bit but it’s difficult. We’re now in a tear down phase again. In urban development, there’s these cyclical things when you look at cities’ histories. It comes and goes, the same thing comes over and over. So we now have a conservation district.

Mantua got their zoning changed. But there are these incredible battles.

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The communities, the older people are going to bat right now because the young people don’t have time or maybe not the interest or maybe they don’t really know and maybe they don’t care about an older building. I don’t know the answers, as you say. We have to get people engaged.

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Gwen Morris

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Gwen Morris explained that she began renting an apartment in Mantua when she was studying at Temple University. She’s been living in Mantua for about 46 years, still living in the house she paid $14,000 for.

“I’m not even gonna tell you what it’s valued at today.”

When I met the people of Mantua, this community, the community was diverse, as Helma said. There were professionals, there were poor families, there were students. Coming from my background, having gone to school in a very diverse environment, it was important for me. Although my family thought I was crazy. They said, “Why are you living there? That’s called the Bottom.” They were reluctant to visit me because it wasn’t seen by other communities as the safest place to come visit. But I hung in there, obviously, for 46 years. Now when they come, they say, “Wow, this is a very different kind of place.” ###

I have met people who have been here 70-80 years in this community and they’ve never moved. There are others who have moved away but they still continue to come back, and that’s what I remember most, about how it’s important that folks understand [that] the connection to where you were born and raised is everlasting. And so, for me, I guess I’ll be here until Helma and I get an apartment together some place in some big houses we have. We’ll pay our rent, and we’ll be okay. It’s really something, it’s very meaningful. Every significant thing in my life happened as an adult here. I had my daughter, I graduated from college, I got my degrees here, I bought my first house. All of those things are important, but where I was born and raised or whatever is equally as important. So I think that’s what we all need to remember about our communities.

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Morris also responded to Knowles’ asking the panelists to talk more about memories of the integrated nature of the neighborhood, and about how to talk about “how we can recover those memories with a bit more strength.”

Gwen Morris

I think that quite often hatred comes from ignorance and not knowing and understanding those things that we have in common. Those differences sometimes create tension between individual people based on race, religion, and economics. There are people who basically don’t interact with poor people. I think I was really fortunate.

My mother said there was a whole lot of people praying for us because in a family with 9 children, we were very poor.

I got an opportunity to leave my community and go to a school that was very diverse. Racially diverse, economically diverse, and religiously diverse. The exposure that I received very early on in life helped shape the way I thought about what the world was about. ### …I really enjoy young people, but I’m really struggling because they think so differently and I’m challenged by the way people think, problem solve, and that kind of thing, including my 42-year-old daughter. It’s not working for me. So I know that’s gonna be a struggle for me moving forward. How do you communicate with young people? ### How do we raise awareness about what’s important to residents here? …for the last 10 years, I’ve been raising somebody else’s sons, okay? I’ve been raising somebody else’s sons. I have four big brothers, but I’ve been raising somebody else’s sons. Not that I don’t have the time on my hands, but how do we bridge that big gap, generationally, between where Helma and I are and where young students are? How do we have a mutual relationship where there’s a respect for my culture and what I need as a resident, and what you are going to enjoy in the community in which you move into?

Because that, to me, is the critical conversation for what goes on in Mantua, Powelton, and Drexel, between and among the three. That particular issue.

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De’Wayne Drummond My name is De’Wayne Drummond. Something that Gwen Morris said...

Your roots are important and if you don’t know your history, you ain’t going to know your future. That’s how a lot of communities change.

You just talked about Brewery Town. Somebody just came in and said, hey we’re going to name it Brewery Town and disrespect it, that community, culture, and history.

When it comes down to me and the Drummond family, my grandma came up from Roanoke, Virginia in 1942. It was an opportunity. She was 21 years old. She got into a dispute with somebody else and they chased her into her home. Her mother was cooking string beans and she took the pot off the stove and threw it on the woman. She did.

She went through the system. The judge let her off because it was self-defense… And she had an opportunity to a new life by coming to Philadelphia.

And when she landed in Philadelphia, she landed up on 34th and Wilder Street, right next to where it used to be the Sam Deli Bar. From there, she moved up to 38th and Haverford Avenue where she lived on top of a church. From there, she moved to 34th and Haverford Avenue where she got married to her husband, George Drummond. We had that property since 1958. My grandfather paid $3,500 straight cash out of his pocket for that house, and they started a family. Through that family, they had three children: my mother and my two aunts. From there, she had plenty of grandchildren, and I am one of them.

My history is Mantua. I’ve always been engaged in civics. My grandfather used to be a committee person and I was kind of like his Robin. He was Batman, I was Robin. We used to bang on people’s doors to ask them are they registered to vote. Who can tell a 6-year-old kid “no”? So I did that up until I was 18 years old and my grandfather said, “De’Wayne, did you fill out that voter’s registration form?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “Guess what? When that card comes back, I’m gonna retire and you’re gonna take my place as a committee person.” And I did. I’ve been a committee person for 20 years. So that’s some of my roots in Mantua, basically community engagement, civic engagement, and to stick with our motto, “Plan or be planned for.” If you’re not at that table, you’re gonna be on the menu….

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### …I keep on hearing this thing about the youth. I really am an optimistic person and I think that the youth is gonna come. I think one thing about the youth nowadays, they’re more reactive than proactive. I guess I was raised by older people, so I know about being proactive. I know how to fight unorthodox. Yes, I am right-handed, but I will fight you with my left hand and I will stomp you with my left foot too. I’m just very optimistic. I just started watching the news almost a month and a half ago. I stopped watching the TV for almost a year. I did. Because it was a bunch of nonsense on TV. It’s almost like De’Wayne turned it back on, and I’m seeing all this stuff about #metoo and all this stuff about trauma. It’s needed. The same thing. People talk about Kanye West. I looked at the Nixon thing and James Brown was supporting Nixon. So history is just repeating itself. And I see how the Civil Rights Movement happened back in the 60’s. The same thing is happening today. All I can tell y’all, what Ice Cube said, “Brace yourself.” And don’t be a fool.

Audience Member (to De’Wayne Drummond) Thank you so much for talking about your experiences in the neighborhood. I have a question. You mentioned the deal with Drexel and I’m curious…Are you still worried? I know the President (John Fry) had said people are concerned what’s gonna happen to Mantua and Powelton. They’re worried what’s gonna happen there is what happened in West Philly with Penn developing west. Are you worried about development?

De’Wayne Drummond I think we could use that CBA agreement as leverage. There’s still something called the Promise Zone. And I always looked at the Promise Zone as going from the back of the bus to the front of the bus when it comes down to writing grants and getting funding. The thing is, it is about collaboration, so we have to really stay in conversation with the University and government to hold them accountable.

Like I said before, I’m an optimistic person. My thing is don’t agonize about it. Organize and then mobilize. Hold people accountable.

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The good thing about the CBA agreement is, my grandma used to say, “If it’s not in writing, it doesn’t count.” What was happening back in the day was a whole lot of back door deals, handshakes, whispering down the lanes and things. So we got this document. We just can’t hold it and leave it on the bookshelf and let it collect dust. It’s a living document and it can grow. So we just have to have good relations. You can be at the table and not like a person. But at the same time, if it’s time for our community to eat, time for your institution to eat, it’s time for the government to eat, we all can eat together. Just like that, somebody give you a crumb or slice of bread, own the recipe, own the document, and that’s what we gotta do: own the document.

DISCONNECT AND CONNECT Reflect on when you felt most part of a community and when you felt disconnected from a community.

Mabedi Sennanyana Time you felt part of a community: When people pronounced my name correctly—tried to make effort.

When I met Helma and she invited me into her home.

Volunteering at MANNA. Mentored and tutored elementary school students in rural areas.

When I had a heartfelt one on one with refugees at a refugee camp.

Time you felt disconnected from a community: Couldn’t understand jokes or Philly/American lingo!

Barbara Dale I lived in a Quaker intentional community for a year in Germantown, Philadelphia. It was structured and facilitated by the Quaker Voluntary Service. We were seven young people trying to find a way to live thoughtfully in the world after college. We worked in non-profits during the day and came home at night to cook and discuss and organize. We fought and played with larger structures of Quakers looking on with interest and investment.

Attending Quaker meetings—silence en masse—was an opportunity to breathe and hope and struggle collectively. It gave space for God to speak through people.

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Calvin Kiniale My first-year dormmates were my community. We went to eat together, worked out together and tried scoring dates together. It was a test.

Even when I was alone at the gym, I could spot a floormate and wouldn’t leave him without sharing some lunchtime banter even though we lived together.

On the contrary, I live on 39th S. Haverford now. I always feel the disconnect, yet not as profoundly until is it brought up. Me with my cushy college life, a fixed gear bike, and hippy glasses, but they with tattered clothing. I assume just high school diplomas, loud and sometimes rambunctious. And maybe some people I know would say, “You are one of the good ones.” And I am guilty because I have these misconceived notions myself. I look at them differently, smiling in their faces, but with a dagger behind the back. How can I face Alfonso now? Do I see him just as human as I am? Or do I see myself as superior because that is what society values? My education.

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Rebecca Arthur I felt most a part of a community when I was in college. My department was very small and they were among the only large group that I hung out with. But they were a small community. And I don’t know that I would categorize them as such.

I felt disconnected from my high school community. I had maybe a handful of friends, but I was very independent. I didn’t really go to school events like prom or any parties. I took to myself because I didn’t want to get distracted but also because I didn’t feel that this was my community. That these were my people. I didn’t connect with many people or feel the need to have them in my life. I never really thought about this until now.

Shakiya Smith One time I felt disconnected is in my program PF. Everyone came from such large schools and they all seemed to know each other. They had things to bond over like culture (language), and their school. To me, it seemed like I was just an outlier.

One time I felt included in a community is when my three friends and I were at my friend Amirah’s house. We were watching some weird movie called Mannequin. It was December and we hadn’t seen each other since June. It was the weirdest thing ever and I don’t know why we were watching it, but in that moment I realized these four people were the most positive people in my life and they inspired me to be around people that make me happy.

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Matthew J. Brooks I felt like I was the leader of the community at a summer camp that I was part of a few years ago. It was a 4-week summer camp where kids from the ages of 13-17 lived together in a college dorm. The environment was built on doing things as a group. Taking part in activities required all 112 of us. Nobody ever did things on their own.

The sense of community came from the fact that we actively went out of our way to socialize. Part of how this happened was because they took all of our electronics. So we had no way of interacting with the outside world.

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(Anonymous) As a Queer Person of Color, it’s not really understood when you grow up in a religious background. So for the past years, I’ve really struggled with the disconnect from the LGBT community because there are times where I feel disconnected in a way because I’m constantly lying to the people closest to me. I don’t belong. I feel like although I’m an activist for these many different things, I can’t really be one for this community because the person I am closest with is my Mom.

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BETWEEN ME AND MY COMMUNITY Listening and Responding

What obstacles do you see that keep you from a perfect community? Share this with another participant and offer possible specific solutions. These writings can be like letters to each other. Respond to as many obstacles and writings as you have time for today. Later you’ll discuss as a group.

Rebecca Arthur and Amy Gottsegen Rebecca Arthur Racial Barriers Bias Acceptance … fear of acceptance Empathy… fear of empathy Fear Time Fear of togetherness Amy Gottsegen Dear Rebecca, I feel you.

I FEEL YOU! So I’m gonna group all your points but “time” into psychological/ historical barriers. I think they can all be overcome with time and attention.

As in, I do my reading for class on the porch now so that I can talk to my neighbors when they get home from work. And when we talk, we feel all the things you listed—they see me while I see them, Black and Latino and Asian.

But when we talk, we feel them too loosen their hold on us.

Now time. To give time to this project requires a sacrifice. So, is it worth it to you?

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Barbara Dale and Rebecca Arthur

Barbara Dale I see obstacles of fear and distrust. A community is a relationship between individuals and the collective, and it requires investment.

Trauma and self-preservation can keep people from giving in to community: The fears are not unfounded. I find myself wondering whether greed and self-interest are stronger forces than care and mutualism. Certainly, they seem faster-moving.

Rebecca Arthur I see these problems too, I wrote them on my sheet. I think there is also a fear of investment. Maybe the best way is to start small. With one or two people, you can still trust, and from there you can add on and continue this seed of trust and care‌ Maybe people just need to feel it once to know that it is there, and that is how we start and grow into a larger community.

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Calvin Kiniale and Anonymous

Calvin Kiniale Between me and my community stands impatience I love Kuka (grandpa) dearly but every time the story starts I zone off.

I’d rather be somewhere else than listen to his stories and histories told and retold I’d rather be somewhere else than listen to his dreams, past, gone with all that Was grand, the good old days I just want my independence I just want my freedom I just want to live my own life without being bothered, or feeling responsible for anyone if I don’t have to But what if I have to be responsible for them?

How can I care for others, if I cannot care for the ones who ought to mean the world to me?

Maybe things started to change this summer, When I had the patience to sit and listen, For one more minute.

For the OG Kiniale Anonymous See these stories of time past as part of your personal story. It’s so much bigger than you. You are the culmination of all these previous generations. It is a responsibility to carry forth these memories and build on this collective identity.

There’s so much beauty and power in the mundane.

Document these stories in a way you see fit. If you zone off, record the tales.

Have patience.

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Anonymous Obstacles and building community

Yes, there are obstacles. Unwillingness to individuals to work together in harmony to create a unified community; lack of patience, lack of unconditional love, lack of time set aside to get to know people and work with people. A tradition in American urban planning of development that is focused more on individual needs and desires and profits than community needs and values and profits (lacking the perspective that what blesses one blesses all). A loss of civicmindedness. (Civic participation used to be a pastime for people—I think people are more involved in individual pursuits and are also less tied to physical communities and these communities needs. We are nomadic now in the digital age).

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Matthew J. Brooks

The main obstacle I see…is selfishness. Too many people are only interested in their own lives, and they don’t care about others. That’s not to say that there is a person on the planet that is completely unselfish, but there are those who are selfish to the point where it starts to prevent those around them from succeeding. And that leads to misunderstandings and a cycle of hatred, and that is why the community I desire can’t exist.

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Anonymous to All Too Much Bureaucracy Anonymous Too much bureaucracy in organizations with good intentions to help the community… but end up falling short.

Inadequate resource distribution to communities that need them.

Lack of accountability on Drexel University’s part or UPenn’s part in ensuring that they follow through on projects or promises they make to the neighborhoods they live in.

Money—obviously!

The disconnect between students/university and the neighborhood community. There is a lack of knowledge-sharing between the two!

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Anonymous and Barbara Dale Obstacles to Community

Anonymous Capitalism—privatization, individualism, over collectivism, people getting pushed out of home Fear, social anxiety—People are afraid to communicate with neighbors Transience—no rootedness, forgetting shared history passed over generations Lack of resources for older folk to stay in their homes Developing green and open spaces.

Mass commercial development Dwindling small businesses—More chains Increased policing of young people of color Barbara Dale: Ways to Overcome In these obstacles, I see speed and anxiety and fear elements. In The Phantom Tollbooth, there’s a part where a city disappears because everyone looks at their feet, and without attention the buildings become invisible.

If we slow things down, pay attention, listen, to what is here and good, and value that over speed, efficiency, and domination, maybe that’s a way to overcome.

Spending time in connection and sharing stories. Interrupting the rapid flows of things with solid bodies and saying we need things to change, we need them to be different this time around.

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Anonymous (A) and Anonymous (B) Living in the Present

Anonymous (A): Obstacles Physical communities being replaced by online communities (“communities”?).

Mistrust based on stereotypes.

So few people have the time to build community: many of my friends and neighbors work more than one job, with irregular & shifting schedules….

People are always moving—more and more people rent instead of owning, and when you rent you never know when you might get priced out/kicked out/etc. So people don’t make homes of their houses, let alone their neighborhoods.

Anonymous (B): Reply, Continuation I think the problems of online “communities” and people moving [a lot] stem from the same place: failure to live in the present. Perhaps change can begin from within because to some extent we participate in these online communities or condone them. I won’t let my roommate invite me out to dinner to “catch up” if he is going to be on Instagram the whole time.

Stereotypes: Listen to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; The Danger of a Single Story

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Roz Cliett and Nam Le Unity/Lack of

Roz Cliett Neighbors who don’t speak, communicate with each other, a lot of them don’t clean their front porch, steps, pavements.

The type of unity that once was, it didn’t matter what age, OR nationality you were. No one looks out for anybody, but themselves.

Nam Le I think the issue here is that we are afraid of what others think of us, and we are afraid of voicing our opinions. The first step to overcoming this is to drop that thinking. We all need to socialize, and we like communicating, and we want others to like us. So, if we like them, then they will like us. It all starts by changing our own perceptions.

Creating an online community group chat, where everyone can voice their opinions quickly and efficiently is a way. If there are issues that are uncomfortable, we can send anonymous details.

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Carol McCullough and Mabedi Sennanyana Trust Issues

Carol McCullough: Obstacles Finances/affordability Trust Respect Willingness to accept others/differences

Mabedi Sennanyana Dear Carol, These are sound obstacles you listed above and here are some suggestions on how we can tackle them: Finances—There are various corporations always willing to support community projects, we just have to give these corporations a reason to give a damn about the communities they are in. So grant proposals have often worked to get lots of money to help overcome obstacles— we just need to find these big companies that can offer that to us.

Trust is such an important thing and most universities have broken the trust of the communities they are in. I think a solution to this and the points you mentioned is having platforms like the one today where all stakeholders, students and, residents can come together and hear each other out. The more we have such platforms where all parties are gaining each other’s trust, respect and willingness to accept each other regardless of our differences.

Love, Mabedi

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Anonymous to All Food Concerns Anonymous Everyone needs food. The neighborhoods and communities of West Philadelphia are notorious food deserts.

Civic and community members have worked tirelessly to get affordable grocery stores but the many challenged have delayed this.

One idea I think both divides people and brings them together is food.

New development of these neighborhoods has brought young white well-off residents into the area, along with new culture.

So what will this new grocery store sell? The historical residents of these cities have differences in price points.

Think of how cheap avocados and wheat bread used to be before it was gentrified.

Ways to overcome the food-related obstacles: This is a major issue! The idea that I get off the top of my head is top-down regulation. It is difficult to control development otherwise!

Developers are going to develop where they will get a profit, and people are going to move where they want.

The change really has to come from regulation and how our government protects everyone, not just the interests of one segment of the population. I suppose that change comes from being civically involved and building our democracy to what it should be and how it should walk! Grass-root efforts can do a lot of good, but I think there needs to be a balance between bottom-up and top-down support.

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Nam Le and Carol McCullough Doors and Walls Nam Le People are closing their doors, in turn closing social interaction. I want them to open those doors.

Carol McCullough Make sure your doors open.

Nam Le There is that sense of danger/threat that when you are on the street, because of the world we live in.

Carol McCullough So true. Do your best to make sure the people you care about are safe.

Nam Le I’m scared of people not liking or respecting me for who I am, and what I like.

Carol McCullough Me too. I know we’re not the only ones. Remember to treat yourself the way you would a loved one.

Lots of times fear stems from “The Unknown.” It is hard to get to know someone who has walled themselves off behind a closed door.

Perhaps there could be an event—a dinner, barbeque, game night, or gathering - where people could get together and get to know one another better… Tear Down The Walls.

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ABOUT Writers Room: Writers Room is a university-community literary arts program engaged in creative placemaking and art for social justice. The mission of Writers Room is to develop inclusive, intergenerational, co-creative places that foster connection and community. When all stories are valued, emerging and more experienced writers can recognize and share in each other’s gifts.

Mantua Civic Association: Mantua Civic Association advocates for and represents the issues and concerns of residents, to improve the quality of life for all, and preserve the history of Mantua.

Powelton Village Civic Association: We are an all-volunteer organization of residents dedicated to making Powelton Village a better place to live and work. We advocate for issues impacting our community, ensure responsible development in the neighborhood, help preserve historic buildings, organize clean-ups and social events, support neighborhood schools, maintain parks and playgrounds, keep our sidewalks and public spaces green, and much more. We are a partner in the Mantua Powelton Alliance, which seeks to maintain affordability in Powelton Village and its adjoining neighborhoods.

Photo Credits: All photographs in this book are by Lauren Lowe and Devin Welsh

Photo: Lauren Lowe

programming supported by

with CANON SOLUTIONS AMERICA

SMART HOUSE