VOICES OF THIRD WARD

“3rd Ward was a magnificent, a dynamic place – just to like to me it is now – 3rd Ward is the best little part of the city that I have ever witnessed or had the opportunity observe. 3rd Ward is a great place, and it’s showing greatness through the attraction that it has for other people now trying to buy property there. It always has so much to offer, good and bad, and it still today carries that same kind of flavor and atmosphere . . . I am involved with community activism because I want to preserve the place, a place for everyone who has historically lived in 3rd Ward to remain here. And I want conditions to be better for those less-fortunate. I want it to be more protected. I want it to be more defined as to what the fight is really for. When I first got involved in community affairs, going on 10 years ago, the buzzword was low-income housing: there must be more low-income housing. Now, nobody really says that anymore; it’s now ‘affordable housing,’ which bothers me, because when you say ‘affordable housing,’ there are people who couldn’t afford what’s called ‘affordable housing,’ yesterday, today, or in the future. And we’re looking at the creation of living spaces for $500-600 a month; in my mind, that’s what low-income people can afford. We’re not talking $800-1,200, anything above that, and it seems like some of the leaders of 3rd Ward have fallen in this affordable housing trap, and they can’t get out of it, and get back to where the lowest-income people are going to live: where is that going to be? That’s such an important aspect.