Twin Cities

Hello everyone. Dave here. How is everyone? Good I suppose. And me? I’m doing just swell. I can’t believe I am already on my third project. Right now I am writing this on top of my plush air mattress, in my killer 2 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom apartment in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I got this baby in Denver before I left for 9 bucks at Wal-Mart. It was worth every penny. I know this doesn’t sound quite remarkable, but after sleeping on the floor of a community center in Miami and hitting the hay in camp cabins in Des Moines it is quiet the change to live in a housing complex, a building that was designed for the sole purpose of housing people, most of which who have never even heard of Americorps. My mission this round as I chose to accept it, working with an agency called CommonBond, which is the largest provider of low income housing in the Twin Cities. In addition to providing housing, they offer many services to their residents. During the summer they run recreational programs for the children. We are helping to run and in some cases, like mine, developing and running these programs almost entirely by ourselves.

In addition to summer programs CommonBond offers English classes, citizenship classes and job recruitment services. Many of the residents living in these family sites are recent immigrants and political refugees. Many have moved from East Africa. To give you an example, the site that I am working at is 50% East African, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, probably 20% are Mhong, many of which left South Vietnam, 15% African American and the rest are Caucasian and Latino. I’ve already learned so much and a couple of the parents are teaching me different languages. It’s difficult since I am often being told phrases in Somali, Ethiopian, Swahili and Italian (Italy was a big imperial power in E. Africa, remember) all at once. It gets overwhelming, but I’m trying to take as much in and looking forward to learning more.

So I know that when I hear the word subsidize housing, especially “project” it congers up an image of dark long corridors, with leaky ceilings and holes in the floor. This is most likely do to the fact that I have never been in a “project” before, but these housing complexes don’t look anything like that. Most of them seem as nice, if not nicer then much of the market rate housing I’ve seen in the area. I’ve been told that Minneapolis does one of the best jobs of providing affordable housing out of any state in the US. I met this one family who first lived in Flushing, New York before moving to Minneapolis and described the services here as far superior to the services in New York. At the same time the harsh reality that many of these families live below the poverty line never goes away. This weekend I’ve heard about some of the complains my teammates either witnessed first hand or overheard between residents and management staff. Rats, cockroaches and the strong smell of urine in the halls are a few.

In addition to the family sites, there are a handful of senior sites, independent housing for senior citizens and sites designed for people with special needs. Our beautiful apartments are located in a senior site. Although I just said that the family sites are nice, which they are, the senior sites are far nicer. I assume most of the residents in my building pay market value rents. The building is only 3 years old, it has a bunch of study/library areas, a pool table and its right next to a bike path that goes to the Mississippi. There are even a couple parks near by to play basketball at. We wake up early three times a week to play basketball before we go to work in the morning. Every so often when we play ball after work we run into a group of older kids in the park that don’t know what to make of us and seem utterly perplexed by the racial makeup of our group. I don’t think these highly athletic streetballerz are use to seeing a coed asian, black, tall white guy and short red headed jewish kid team.

So Monday through Thursday we run the summer programs, and on Fridays we work at these senior sites. The residents get the opportunity to sign up for two of us to help them with certain cleaning tasks in their apartment that require heavy moving and lifting. We clean behind refrigerators, couches, clean windows. Last week I polished this woman’s wooden cabinets with bottles of liquid gold she supplied. I think many of the residents are just genuinely glad to see us, some young faces to keep them company for a half hour or so. Most of the time the residents are busy talking to us, or the more timid ones just watch us work. The work is relatively easy, most often the people only have one or two small things for us to do, but they are so appreciative of the work we do. I think I will always look forward to these Fridays.

Although I am quite happy here and this project had good potential, there has already been there fair share of frustration and disappointment. If I haven’t explained this already this round is shuffle round and I am with a completely different group of people. This has its positives and negatives. It’s nice to work with fresh faces and get to know some new people, make new friends. At the same time, I miss many things about my regular team. In general this team is a lot more quiet and laid back. This is nice at times, but I miss the energy and enthusiasm of my regular team. Even when we fought, it was energetic and passionate. Sometimes I feel our team lacks the interest or passion for a team quarrel. Also, we are also working at different sites that require a great deal of driving in the mornings. I’ve been spending 4 hours in the van everyday, carpooling people before and after work. This has been a real pain. Second, I was given a challenging site to work at with a disproportionate amount of responsibility. I feel this program will only work, if its well planned, highly scheduled and if we have high standards for the children participating. Otherwise I feel the kids are going to run wild the program will turn into complete chaos. On Monday my summer program officially starts. We’ve spent the last week planning and tomorrow we find out if it pays off. Otherwise, besides these small problems, everything is a-ok. Minneapolis is beautiful in the summer and we have been having a blast during our free time. So far I’ve met the Mayor and the guy from the documentary Super Size Me! I just hope it is a dry summer so I don’t have to stay inside all day with the kids. That wouldn’t work to well. Well, wish me luck.

-David

PS: I want to apologize for not keeping up to date with my writing. I’ve done so much more recently that I hope to share with you guys. I also went on an incredible road trip all around Utah that I’d like to share with you (see my pics online). I noticed that I have trouble writing short, frequent letters. I’d rather express my experiences in detail. And with that being said I would like to announce that I will be starting a BLOG which will include all my e-mails, pictures and stories. I will also post many things I have started writing but have not had the opportunity to e-mail. I will send you an e-mail letting you know when it’s up and running. Till then don’t forget to check out my NEW pics: http://photos.yahoo.com/archie152.