B-More Hopeful

In the Vonage Village projects, there were four buildings, and each building was designated by a special number.  There were buildings 146, 225, 489, and 1099, and about a hundred or more low-rise town houses.  Each building had 14 floors, and on each floor were 12 apartments.  The building had efficiencies, one bedroom, two bedrooms, and three bedrooms.  Most of the efficiencies were occupied by the elderly and some supposed single people.   The other apartments were designated for families.  The buildings were cornered off by a wall.  The wall separated Vonage Village from the rest of the city. The wall seemed to exist to keep the residents inside.  This wall extended around Martin Luther King Boulevard.  It seemed like the bars of a jail, from my perspective, keep the bad people inside (residence of Vonage Village), and away from the “acceptable” people.  Vonage Village was located about five blocks from Downtown Baltimore.  The streets surrounding Vonage Village were Martin Luther King Boulevard, Maple Avenue, Seito Street, and Room Avenue.  Ninety percent of the population was single parent households, and the rest were two-parent families and the elderly. 

In order to get inside of a building you had to be buzzed in by the guards.  Some of these guards were on the drug dealer’s payroll.  If the police were about to raid the building, the guards would radio the drugs dealers. They were so bold about it that it was done right in front of the residents. Many of the residents did not do anything because they witnessed retaliation for talking or speaking up.  Also, many of the residents were uneducated and assumed because of their lack of knowledge, life in public housing was all they deserved.  I noticed that if a family was put our as a result of using their complex for drug use, another family would covertly move them in their apartment.  Sometimes there were 10 to 15 people in one apartment until they get caught violating some law and had to move out also.  I remember my mother talking to me about drugs.