LIFE IN THE HOOD

For a good part of my life I lived in and worked with underprivileged parts of town and with underprivileged populations. This began in the Sixties as soon as I graduated from college and was sent to one of the world's poorest regions, the Northeast of Brazil. While working in missions, I spent vast amounts of time in economically poor areas. I remember once, in the early Eighties, being "smuggled" into Soweto, South Africa in the back seat of a car. This was when it was strictly prohibited by the apartheid government for whites to spend significant time in Soweto. While a student at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, I lived right on the boundary with Harlem and this taught me a good deal about urban poverty in the USA.

Now in my later years I have purchased a house in the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. This is one of Indianapolis' most economically challenged neighborhoods. My house, dating back to 1922, was a renovation or flip. I fell in love with it right away. I noticed that some other houses on my street were also renovated and others were not. Since I had lived in downtown Indianapolis in the Old Northside, where I rented, I thought that I was well prepared for the new arrangement.

But, moving to this neighborhood from one of the most recently gentrified parts of Indianapolis has been a rough ride. I am a liberal, progressive Christian, both theologically and politically. I was theologically trained in the heyday of Latin American liberation theology with its emphasis on "God's preferential option for the poor."

What I am finding, however, is that it is one thing to subscribe to a theological tenet and another to actually live life day to day in the hood. Maybe when I was travelling and living in Latin America and Africa I could do so "charitably" knowing that I would always return to my middle class life in the USA. It is uncomfortable for me to think this: Maybe I believed that somehow I was doing a favor for those stuck in the slums of Brazil or South Africa or wherever for me to be with them.

So now I am in the hood on a street that seems to be constituted of people of many backgrounds but including some very marginalized persons with criminal and drug backgrounds. Even though there is a kind of stability in the neighborhood (a core of residents who stay) there are plenty of houses for sale and the care of some of the houses is incredibly bad. There is a good deal of petty crime and there has been an effort by some persons who have purchased recently to establish a Crimewatch. Just one street over is the site of Indianapolis' worst mass murder in which an entire Mexican family was killed by neighbors, ex-convicts, who believed that they had money stashed away somewhere.

Here are the challenges for me: The first is to be able to say that I live in the inner city or the hood. At first, I kept telling people that I lived "near" one of Indianapolis' fine historic residential neighborhoods, Woodruff Place. With time, I realized that saying this was a way of obscuring that, sorry, I really do live in what lots of people I know consider to be a really bad neighborhood. Now I just state up front that I live in the inner city. The second is personal security. When I lived in New York City, I was street conscious but I didn't worry about my security. Now when I return home from work downtown late at night, I either take a taxi or get a ride with my partner. The walk from the bus stop doesn't feel safe for an older white haired guy. And there are precedents of muggings. The third challenge is material. I am simply afraid that I have saddled myself with an unsellable piece of property when the time comes to unload it and move on. The fourth challenge is how to live my Christian life in this neighborhood. Since I walk and ride a bike a good deal, I have made a practice of greeting most people around the neighborhood. I have tried to get to know most of my close neighbors and to practice good neighborliness. Outside of keeping up my own property and being a friendly presence, I don't have a clue. There are neighborhood associations but, frankly, I am so busy that I don't have any time for one more involvement. A friend of mine in France once told me that she did not believe in inter-class relationships that worked. At the time I dismissed this thought as elitist. Now I wonder if she was not right after all.

This isn't where I thought I would be at almost age sixty five. But this is where I am at. Personally, in spite of the challenges I have listed, I am very comfortable and blessed. My space in this neighborhood is a good space. So I guess that I will just continue to be sure that the security system is working and go on with life.