Livin' in the 'Hood 1

School year is under way and that means spending more time hanging around outside school, waiting to go in or waiting for ids to come out, and THAT means more time hanging around with or listening to my neighbours and all the other mums at the school doors. Never underestimate what you can learn at the school door if you pay attention.
I may not know all of them, by a long way, but they're all my neighbours in that we all live in the same "Hood - that's why our kids go to that school. In fact we live in half the 'Hood since that's one of two elementary schools that serve the area.
People have laughed at me for saying I live in the "Hood unfortunately it often feels like it's true. More than that, it often feels like here in Calgary when you say "I live in the "Hood," the next question off the listeners lips is "Which one?"

As "Hoods go ours isn't too bad, in some ways. In others.... Demographics are interesting - we have a higher than average immigrant population, more visible minorities, higher ESL and more poverty than many areas. We also have a high percentage of rental properties and therefore a correspondingly high turnover of residents as people move in and out. Pretty sure I've mentioned that before. We do NOT have a higher than average crime rate even though there is a perception that we do - as has often been said the fear of crime often outweighs the reality.

Yet it often feels as though we are one of the forgotten neighbourhoods, that we're too difficult? too transient? to new and fresh? to be worth bothering with. Pretty sure I've said that before. We do have our share of homeless, drunks, panhandlers and wannabe gangsters who hang around the strip malls in groups trying to intimidate anyone and everyone who walks past.

Oddly we had three people killed by the C-train here in the space of ten days recently - two a block north from me and one a block south. And we did have a guy shot to death last year in the next door bar - rumour has it that it was a hit.
We do have our resident drug addicts and dealers and boosters - someone should tell them that conversations in the parking lot carry around here dude.

We have, just in our apartment complex, more than one guy who did/does beat his wife, (RCMP came to see him) one who beats his dog, (humane society came to see him), a teenager who is under investigation for stalking a 15 yr old girl, and two teenagers (as yet unidentified) who thought that they could make sexual and inappropriate comments to 9 and 11 yr old girls.

Yet these are all the things that neither officialdom nor the media seem to notice or care about. It's like, what do we expect when that's where we live? Yet many of us have been here for a long time. This is our home, for whatever reason. Yes a lot of us might move elsewhere if we had the option but for many of us there is little or no choice right now due to the circumstances of life.

Why ever we are here, this is our home, this is our 'Hood and we are raising our children here. They, and we, deserve the best "Hood that we can have/create. Not one where we're intimidated when walking down the street or worried about being mugged if we're out alone. Maybe it's time for us to take back our streets and our "Hood and make it our own again.