Alithia smith

The speaker talks about the changes in her neighborhood in West Baltimore. She mentions the disappearance of the sense of community and the increase in housing costs. She also talks about the shift in ownership of stores in the neighborhood from Jewish to African American to Korean or other cultures. She emphasizes the need for affordable housing and discusses how some residents have been moved away from the city with vouchers but lack resources. She believes there is a deliberate design to push certain populations out of the city. She also shares her experiences during the Freddie Gray riots and recalls past riots she witnessed, including the one after Martin Luther King's assassination. She mentions the friendly relationship between the police and the community in the past and the importance of community centers and recreation centers for youth development. She expresses the need for positive role models and opportunities for both children and adults to explore and experience things I am from, I want to say Sandtown, Winchester, but they changed the demographics some years ago. So I live in West Baltimore. Okay. So Sandtown has changed. They built new homes there, affordable homes. A lot's changed. So I am 61 years old. I grew up in West Baltimore. I am one of 13 children to my family. What has changed is everything. As far as the community has changed, you know, we have re-gentrification coming in the community. The village seems to no longer be there. When I say that, I mean where your neighbors could take care of you or discipline you. So the village is not there anymore. A lot of things have changed. The housing industry has changed where back in the day, the house that I live in now, our rent was maybe $165 a month. And now houses in my neighborhood to rent goes from anywhere from $1,200 to $1,700 a month. So that has changed. Back in the day, there were a lot of stores in our neighborhood that were ran by Jews. And now today, we have quite a bit of stores that African Americans had as well. But now today, there's, I guess, more Koreans or other, what's the word I'm looking for? Cultures. Owning stores in our neighborhood. There's a lot of churches in our neighborhood, but there's also a lot of bars in our neighborhood. It hasn't changed that much. So affordable housing is a thing that's needed in the neighborhood. And there's a need for affordable housing because everybody can't afford to pay market rent. So they're building affordable houses that may be subsidized by HUD or some other entity that will help pay part of your rent to assist you and your family. It depends on how you look at it. For me, affordable housing is needed. We used to have all the projects. You remember the high-rise projects in the communities? Most of them have been torn down. And those residents that live in those apartments or high-rises, they've been given vouchers to move further out into the counties for some reason. But when they get out in the county, they don't have any resources. I met a young lady. I have found it's one of the main issues. Back in the day, you had your mom living with you, your dad, maybe some aunts and uncles, cousins living with you, grandmothers. And so you caught a cab. That cab made a click, click, click, click. When I grew up in my neighborhood, there was a dividing line. I think that line still exists where black people live in this part of the neighborhood. And then further, you go up Park Heights, it was the middle-class family. The poor was closer to the city. The further you go out towards the city, people moved. So up in Park Heights used to be where the black doctors and lawyers and all of that, where people of blue-collar, white-collar lived. And then further out, the white people. So the white people were here. They left when we started moving into their neighborhood. So that was the city. Once we started coming into the city, they left. But now they're coming back. So I think it's more of a design to get them back to the city and get us further on the outskirts of the city. And that's where those vouchers and things like that come in. I think the vouchers help poor families or, you know, to get a start. But some of them are not doing it. They're not seeing what we're seeing. So that's why we have to teach them, you know, that you can bring a lot of things back to our community. During the Freddie Gray riot, I was in my last semester graduating from college. And so when that incident happened, his funeral was at the church that I go to. So during that time, I was in the house doing a paper for my college. And my granddaughter called me on the phone, and she said, Grandma, Grandma, where are you? I said, I'm standing outside. She said, Grandma, get in the house. They're coming down from Mondawmin. The police are pushing the people back, and they're coming down to get Grandma get in the house. But I remember going to his funeral because his funeral was at my church. I think my first riot that I remember, I was four years old. And that's when Martin Luther King was assassinated. And I remember standing in the doorstep with my mom. And I probably came to her knee. And I remember peeking out from behind her dress to see what all was going on. And that's when I saw the National Guard coming down the street, a doctor, a nurse, a lawyer. So when I was young and the police was in our community, they were called the community police. They were very friendly. They knew you by name. They knew your parents. They knew your parents knew that you weren't supposed to be doing this, that, and the other. They would take you home. They would come to our cookout. They would sit on the steps. I don't know if you remember or you were told, because you probably wouldn't remember, that when I was young, our front door stayed open. We didn't have to lock our doors. Front door open, unlocked. We could go to bed at night and leave the front door open. Actually, the reason why we had the front door open, because I was about 10 or 11, when my mom started locking our door. Our truancy officers, growing up too, maybe in my teenage years, where if you was hooked in school, a truancy officer would see you on the street during school hours and would take you home or back to school. Those schools were the schools that only the smart kids could go to. You couldn't leave out your neighborhood because you had your zone schools and then you had those schools. So if you got good enough grades to go to that school, you were more on the upper crust of kids from poor neighborhoods going there. Growing up, you had to have connections. All my experiences came from the community, I would say. The community center, just like the one you're here, was my start. Having a Miss Keisha. Yes, having a Miss Keisha. And a Miss Keisha, because I've had several people. I don't know, it's the community center. I think about the community centers and the Boys and Girls Club back in the day when they were open and they had the Boys Club and the Girls Club, all the community centers in the city, they were open. Now the recreation centers. Now they're closed, but they're starting to open them back up. A lot of the recreation centers played an important part of people my age, youth and development back then. So I'm looking forward to them opening back up and more community centers like this because the children don't have too many places to go or positive people. I think they see more people doing bad things and we need to get them out to the community and show them that people are doing good things all over the world. We are doing good things all over the world. People don't get to go outside of Baltimore. So the opportunity to get out and go somewhere. And adults as well.