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I didn't realise that I was "poor, hard to engage, and vulnerable" until a Victorian Government official told me that me and my public housing community were these things. We don't think of ourselves as that because we were busy trying to get by.
Which we did, we did. We had food on the table, clothes on our back and an excellent public education. Were there problems in the community? Yes, but these weren't because we were "poor, hard to engage and vulnerable", it was because we were...
(and some of us very much are still) over-targeted, under-serviced, and under resourced by people who wanted to see us as silent recipients of white charity and not people who had our own dreams, hopes, aspirations, strengths, and contributions.
We weren't and aren't "hard to engage", you just haven't approached us with a unique value proposition that is attractive to the reality of our lives. Instead of thinking of impoverished and over-targeted and under resourced folks as failed attempts at white middle classery...
You can just ask them what they want, because they know, we know. We know what we want for our community, we know there are problems and we have ready made solutions but in all of these there needs to be a surrender of power and resources to us and that's why we are here still.
For a lot of folks the only good immigrant/settler, particularly a POC is a quiet, obedient and subservient person eternally grateful for the charity that is bestowed upon them. It's someone powerless and dependent on a saviour that cares more about how they are perceived...
Than in giving us a choice over our own affairs, and the power to implement them. We. Are. Not. Failed. Experiments. In. White. Middle. Classness.
We're strong, proud, dreamers that are over targeted, under-resourced, and over policed.
We're also coming up.
We're strong, proud, dreamers that are over targeted, under-resourced, and over policed.
We're also coming up.
Also, to be clear. I haven't lived in public housing for a long time, but I did work in those towers for years recently, I owe my life to public housing and I'm just putting this out there as my own personal view on what needs fixing. Thanks ya'll for reading.
