I watched the Housing Authority Board meeting on Charlottesville’s Web site. Belmont residents were speaking out to say they don’t want low-income housing to be built in their neighborhood.
It’s a small piece of land on Levy Avenue that’s being talked about, but these residents are putting up a big fuss. The way they spoke at the meeting was very hurtful to me and other members of the Public Housing Association of Residents.
Residents of public housing are human beings, but that’s not how they spoke about us. Our children deserve respect and support, not to be lumped together as underachievers. The majority of us are law-abiding citizens, just like the majority of the rest of the people in Charlottesville.
We work hard, many of us working very long hours at more than one job. We pay rent, but we depend on public housing to have affordable rents. That doesn’t mean we aren’t deserving of respect.
The Belmont residents don’t want us in their backyards, and they don’t want us in their front yards. They seem to want us gone. But we are the people who work in their restaurants, their children’s day care, their parents’ nursing homes.
Get to know us. We probably have more in common than you think.
Deirdre Gilmore is chair of the Public Housing Association of Residents.
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