By — Victoria Fleischer Victoria Fleischer Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry-exposes-truth-about-housing-in-the-bay-area Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Poetry exposes truth about public housing in the Bay Area Arts Feb 24, 2014 4:03 PM EDT Deandre Evans, Will Hartfield and Donte Clark use poetry to reveal the housing crisis in Richmond, Calif. Watch them recite “This is Home” in a video created by Off/Page Project and read the full text of the poem at the bottom of this article. For Deandre Evans, Will Hartfield and Donte Clark, writing poetry isn’t solely self-expression; it’s also a means of reporting a story affecting their community. Through the Off/Page Project, a collaboration between Youth Speaks and The Center for Investigative Reporting, the three poets joined CIR’s Amy Harris in the field while she conducted research on mismanagement of public housing in Richmond, Calif. José Vadi, the director of Off/Page Project, calls it “source storytelling.” “It’s using source material from investigative reporting, in addition to our own personal narratives and our own personal history, to create new forms of storytelling,” Vadi told chief arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown. “We wanted to reach a younger audience and have the conversation centered around them … kind of putting youth in the driver’s seat of their own stories, and the issues that are reflected through their work.” Evans, Hartfield and Clark created “This is Home,” a poem with investigative elements, fact-checked to report what’s actually happening on the ground. For Vadi, combining journalism and poetry is a natural progression. “Spoken word, like investigative reporting, is all about exposing the truth.” PBS member station KQED reported on the housing crisis in Richmond, Calif. To learn more about what’s happening on the ground, watch their story below: You can also read Amy Harris’s article accompanied by photos by Lacy Atkins of Richmond’s residents in the San Francisco Chronicle. Tune in to Monday night’s PBS NewsHour to see Jeffrey Brown’s report on Off/Page Project. You can watch on our Ustream channel at 6 p.m. EST or check your local PBS listings. This is Home Deandre Evans: This is where rodents and roaches are like family ‘cause we share the same meals Top ramen, cereal, Kool Aid Its no family complaints Everything is enjoyed that we refrigerate and put in cabinets We feel thirty-below air from cracked windows No heat for when Richmond wind blows No AC to cool down the weather that makes us sweat Neglect is the only thing we get Fungus disintegrating the walls Bathroom sink replaces bathtub Only place where I can wash my body Everybody comes through the door except people who repair Why are elevators broken in a place made for people who are disabled? How can we use stairs when we roll the wheels of our chairs and lean our bodies on canes and walkers? No one is responsive – feel like I’m talking to myself When help is asked to restore something as simple as a lock on a gate So I can feel safe Never get any phone calls returned Don’t get to talk to anything more than an machine, This is home – it’s not built for us to survive. William Hartfield-Peoples: I see barren hallways Broken cameras Uninvited guests There’s no service here As if a sea of people were cast away on an island to fend for themselves The weather outside is frightening The absent guards’ ghost remains in its rightful place A world ran by village rules We exist only to survive Accustomed to the law of the land Mind your business Pay no mind to that body that just fell from the top floor the other night. Silence has become an ally to fear the fear of being evicted, Like a sickness the madness of this reality soaks in to a simple statement: “Better here than out there” I see Juanita: a double amputee bound to a chair, hands scarred not by surgery or disease, but by a room and a door that a wheelchair wasn’t made for, Everyday she pushes through, Everyday she pushes on because This is home. Look at Mama Hall: 81-years young and she still keeping a routine Weary eyes maintaining order with disorder Day in and day out and if the proper authorities won’t help Then they help themselves Whether it be mice nesting in the walls Dope dealers in the halls Or prostitutes treating for a trick These seniors take hold of what they can and fight for what they can’t because This is home Where video cassettes are glued to the ceilings and the walls to keep the mice out This is home Where the people make their own Ain’t family but they’ll never be alone Ain’t nowhere else to go and these old folks need a place so they make space and pray for tomorrow ‘cause tomorrow shows a new face. Donte Clark: Tomorrow, as dawn peeks and blue jays sing praise I will awake, with a gracious morning resting lightly on my eyelids, Thankful, I can roll out of my plush covers feeling silk Feet seep deep into warmed carpets in my apartment On winter mornings around Decembers Unthaw the frosted grip I have on misery And set me free Believing without seeing has brought life to this carcass Tomorrow, I will be treated more like resident Feel more relevant than just a pawn You feel me? I bet not – see no dirt but green in these lawns, huh!?! Don’t want to smell no cocaine linger or mildew clingin to my doorsteps, huh!?! Gotta protest, raid the government, shake their pockets and make them fix these pro-jects, huh!?! ‘cause if not here then where? Where do we go next? ‘cause left is cemetery, Barbed wired hearts Unchained metal gates like a welcome place for the tear apart Open doors For the match & spark where Everything dies slowly, on schedule. But until tomorrow Before my thoughts will manifest kingdom And we feast in abundance of wealth We’ll break bread, share what left over scraps we have and find communion in our struggle. This is tomorrow. By — Victoria Fleischer Victoria Fleischer @vlfleischer
Deandre Evans, Will Hartfield and Donte Clark use poetry to reveal the housing crisis in Richmond, Calif. Watch them recite “This is Home” in a video created by Off/Page Project and read the full text of the poem at the bottom of this article. For Deandre Evans, Will Hartfield and Donte Clark, writing poetry isn’t solely self-expression; it’s also a means of reporting a story affecting their community. Through the Off/Page Project, a collaboration between Youth Speaks and The Center for Investigative Reporting, the three poets joined CIR’s Amy Harris in the field while she conducted research on mismanagement of public housing in Richmond, Calif. José Vadi, the director of Off/Page Project, calls it “source storytelling.” “It’s using source material from investigative reporting, in addition to our own personal narratives and our own personal history, to create new forms of storytelling,” Vadi told chief arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown. “We wanted to reach a younger audience and have the conversation centered around them … kind of putting youth in the driver’s seat of their own stories, and the issues that are reflected through their work.” Evans, Hartfield and Clark created “This is Home,” a poem with investigative elements, fact-checked to report what’s actually happening on the ground. For Vadi, combining journalism and poetry is a natural progression. “Spoken word, like investigative reporting, is all about exposing the truth.” PBS member station KQED reported on the housing crisis in Richmond, Calif. To learn more about what’s happening on the ground, watch their story below: You can also read Amy Harris’s article accompanied by photos by Lacy Atkins of Richmond’s residents in the San Francisco Chronicle. Tune in to Monday night’s PBS NewsHour to see Jeffrey Brown’s report on Off/Page Project. You can watch on our Ustream channel at 6 p.m. EST or check your local PBS listings. This is Home Deandre Evans: This is where rodents and roaches are like family ‘cause we share the same meals Top ramen, cereal, Kool Aid Its no family complaints Everything is enjoyed that we refrigerate and put in cabinets We feel thirty-below air from cracked windows No heat for when Richmond wind blows No AC to cool down the weather that makes us sweat Neglect is the only thing we get Fungus disintegrating the walls Bathroom sink replaces bathtub Only place where I can wash my body Everybody comes through the door except people who repair Why are elevators broken in a place made for people who are disabled? How can we use stairs when we roll the wheels of our chairs and lean our bodies on canes and walkers? No one is responsive – feel like I’m talking to myself When help is asked to restore something as simple as a lock on a gate So I can feel safe Never get any phone calls returned Don’t get to talk to anything more than an machine, This is home – it’s not built for us to survive. William Hartfield-Peoples: I see barren hallways Broken cameras Uninvited guests There’s no service here As if a sea of people were cast away on an island to fend for themselves The weather outside is frightening The absent guards’ ghost remains in its rightful place A world ran by village rules We exist only to survive Accustomed to the law of the land Mind your business Pay no mind to that body that just fell from the top floor the other night. Silence has become an ally to fear the fear of being evicted, Like a sickness the madness of this reality soaks in to a simple statement: “Better here than out there” I see Juanita: a double amputee bound to a chair, hands scarred not by surgery or disease, but by a room and a door that a wheelchair wasn’t made for, Everyday she pushes through, Everyday she pushes on because This is home. Look at Mama Hall: 81-years young and she still keeping a routine Weary eyes maintaining order with disorder Day in and day out and if the proper authorities won’t help Then they help themselves Whether it be mice nesting in the walls Dope dealers in the halls Or prostitutes treating for a trick These seniors take hold of what they can and fight for what they can’t because This is home Where video cassettes are glued to the ceilings and the walls to keep the mice out This is home Where the people make their own Ain’t family but they’ll never be alone Ain’t nowhere else to go and these old folks need a place so they make space and pray for tomorrow ‘cause tomorrow shows a new face. Donte Clark: Tomorrow, as dawn peeks and blue jays sing praise I will awake, with a gracious morning resting lightly on my eyelids, Thankful, I can roll out of my plush covers feeling silk Feet seep deep into warmed carpets in my apartment On winter mornings around Decembers Unthaw the frosted grip I have on misery And set me free Believing without seeing has brought life to this carcass Tomorrow, I will be treated more like resident Feel more relevant than just a pawn You feel me? I bet not – see no dirt but green in these lawns, huh!?! Don’t want to smell no cocaine linger or mildew clingin to my doorsteps, huh!?! Gotta protest, raid the government, shake their pockets and make them fix these pro-jects, huh!?! ‘cause if not here then where? Where do we go next? ‘cause left is cemetery, Barbed wired hearts Unchained metal gates like a welcome place for the tear apart Open doors For the match & spark where Everything dies slowly, on schedule. But until tomorrow Before my thoughts will manifest kingdom And we feast in abundance of wealth We’ll break bread, share what left over scraps we have and find communion in our struggle. This is tomorrow.