This time, I had an apportunity to come to visit a neighbor who has been living in the neighborhood area for 38 years. The reason our team project of community development decided to start talking with neighbors in this region by stopping by Mrs. Alene's house first since she has lived here for so long and we consider her as a good source of experiencing the neighborhood.
Alene was retired four years ago but her life keeps moving on very busily with most of stuffs. We past by her house twice and the third time luckily we met her to make an appointment for the official visit to her house. It was on Monday Nov, 23rd, I came to visit her and had a pretty long talk for 45 minutes.
First, I introduced her about the job we are doing to develop the community and we just moved in this neighborhood since this Oct 12th. Being a very new neighbor in this area, I asked her about the history of this neighborhood during her time living here and have witnessed so many things happen. She said this area before used to have some breaks-in and drug dealers but now the neighborhood is changing in a better way with safety and good security for everyone. She also stated that during her time in this neighborhood, fortunately she has not gone through any of this bad thing occur.
There are two specific things that she suggested when I asked her about the current problems in this zone. First thing is the traffic in the neighborhood. Her house is on the crossroad between the Keston St. and 11th St. On the one-way street at this intersection, people still drive in on the wrong side causing accidents in this area. The second thing is there are lots of property in the neighborhood that have left vacant for long time without being kept up with. I also realize that when I walked around with Terry and Thang handed out the flyers for the neighborhood gathering. I saw lots of vacant houses or apartments, left without being taken good care of, with dirty yards badly affecting the neighborhood living environment. So Mrs. Alene suggested that property owners should keep up with and take care of their belongings in the residential area.
Besides these two main problems, everything is going on fine in this area. Regarding the neighborhood watch, she said she heard of it and saw this sign in the neighborhood, however, it is never active.
One thing that I am really conncerned is the neigborhood gathering. It seems that people in this region don't know much about their neighbors. And it is true when I asked her about this issue. She said in general, people living in this region don't want to be bothered by others and some people really don't care. Looking back years before, American neighbors used to be more friendly and get together for dinner together. But now it is changing in the oposite way, people are close and don't want to share since they feel skeptical about others living surrounding them. I asked her why? She mentioned this city is growing quickly and there are so many subdivisions and people just keep moving in and out making the neighborhood changing constantly.
She also stated that it is very challenging to bring back the neighborhood together like before. "Now it's just the way it is!", she said. Ending up our conversation, ALene is willing to join the neighborhood activities when she is available.
As a community development projector, I hope that people in the neighborhood will have some activities to break ice and get together to share and build up a better living environment for everyone in this region!
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