THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 13, 1994 TAG: 9410110088
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: BY FANNIE M. TAYLOR
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
I am writing in response to Norfolk City Council member Herbert Collins' comments on the tenants of public housing.
I am a black, 73-year-old Christian mother and grandmother.
Mr. Collins says that he has earned the right to speak about public housing. I too have earned the right to speak about public housing. My husband, little 1-year-old girl and myself were some of the first tenants to move into the Liberty Park public housing when it was first built about 45 years ago, and we were the last tenants to move out when it was torn down about 10 years ago to make room for private homes and to add on to Norfolk State University.
The Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority has been a blessing to the residents of Norfolk and enabled thousands of tenants to move up in life and better themselves. From the housing project we have people who have made it in all walks of life. Some of them now are our best teachers, doctors, nurses, domestic workers, city workers, black judges . . . in fact, you name it and people from public housing have done it and are still doing it.
I can understand Mr. Collins' anger as he rode down the streets and sidewalks of public housing. I too get very angry because it's uncalled for. During the workday the NRHA has workers who try to clean the streets and around the garbage cans, but on Saturday and Sunday and holidays they don't.
Many times, especially on Sundays, I put my pants on and grab a trash bag and my rubber gloves and pick up trash to make things look better in my area. I have seen children, teenagers and even adults first throw the bags on the ground, and then I've seen people come with trash bags and found the cans too full, and they take them back home to wait for the trucks. Now, Mr. Collins, I'm in Young Terrace, and I've seen it all.
Mr. Collins, the next time you come into the public housing, park your car and start walking through the courts. I assure you that you will see some tenants, not all, who have beautiful, green grass, beautiful flowers, shrubbery, lawn furniture; in fact, every May the NRHA sends to all of the public housing a truck with every kind of flower to give to the tenants free of charge. Do all tenants want them? No, no, no.
Your remarks about public housing tenants make me angry, and you should be ashamed of yourself. What is your problem?
``These people are the most underemployed, the most undereducated, the most underchurched, they are the most underdisciplined people in our society.''
How dare you talk about us like we are dogs and cats? You talk as though we are worse than dogs and cats.
I am the first to admit that we have residents who are taking and selling drugs, like every other section of the city, with shootings and everything else that happens when people's morals are gone. There are people who sell drugs and do immoral things because they have no jobs - that's what you hear over and over again. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
We are living in a lazy generation, many who wouldn't work eating holes out of a doughnut. But in the midst of all that's wrong, we have thousands who are still aiming high and trying to follow their dreams. God bless them. MEMO: Fannie Taylor, who lives on East Olney Road, submitted this contribution
to The Compass as a letter to the editor. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Herbert Collins
by CNB