There are No Children Here: Life in the Projects :: There are No Children Here Essays

life in the Projects Exposed in There are No Children present The book There are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz is a actually tough yet emotional book. This book is important to me because it actually made me see how fortunate I am to be bread and butter in a good and safe environment. In this powerful and abject book, reporter Alex Kotlowitz traces two years in the lives of ten-year-old Lafeyette and seven-year-old Pharoah Rivers as they struggle to rag the odds and grow up in one of Chicagos worst living accommodations projects called Henry Horner. Lafeyette and Pharoah live with their mother LaJoe. LaJoe also had three older children, LaShawn at the age of twenty five was the oldest. She worked as a prostitute from cartridge holder to time to support her drug habit. The next oldest, nineteen-year-old Paul, had served time in indium prison for burglary. Terence, now seventeen, had began selling drugs at the age of eleven and had been in and out of jail. LaJoes younge st kids were a set of four-year-old triplets, Timothy, Tiffany, and Tammie. All eight children had the same father, Paul, to whom LaJoe had been get married to for seventeen years. The two had long ago fallen out of love. He lived at the home occasionally The families living conditions were horrible. They lived in a very small apartment which at times had more than ten flock living in it. Since LaJoe was a very friendly and considerate person, she brought more kids and adults under her wing and took care of them when in need. Some kids in the locality even called her mom. LaJoe did not have the heart to turn her back on anyone that appeared at her door. All the apartments in Henry Horner were falling apart, many of which were vacant. During the resile of 1989 inspections were taking place in the basements of Henry Horner projects by the Manager, Assistant Manager, and attention Superintendant. The reported conditions of the basements shocked me. An estimated two thousand ap pliances, refrigerators, kitchen cabinets, doors, burners, grates, etc. were standing in pools of water rusting away. The basement was heavily infedsted with roaches and flees. Dead rodents were lying in storage areas. The stench and odor was unbearable. After much fighting LaJoe eventually got the Chicago Housing Authority employees to clean the basement.