“I’m so embarrassed,” she said, gulping down a sob. “I don’t know what happened, Barack. With all the
people...seems like I just always mess things up.”
“You didn’t mess up,” I said. “If anybody messed up, it was me.” I called the others together into a circle and tried to
offer encouragement. The turnout was great, I said, which meant people were willing to get involved. Most of the
residents would still support our effort. We would learn from our mistakes.
“And the director sure knows who we are now,” Shirley said.
This last line drew some weak laughter. Sadie said she had to get home; I told the group that I could take care of
cleaning up. As I watched Bernadette pick up Tyrone in one arm and carry his slumbering weight across the
gymnasium floor, I felt my stomach constrict. Dr. Collier tapped me on the shoulder.
“So who’s gonna cheer you up?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“You take some chances, things are gonna blow once in a while.”
“But the looks on their faces...”
“Don’t worry,” Dr. Collier said. “They’re tough. Not as tough as they sound-none of us are, including you. But they’ll
get over it. Something like this is just part of growing up. And sometimes growing up hurts.”
The fallout from the meeting could have been worse. Because we had run so late, only one TV station replayed the
tug-of-war between Linda and the director. The morning paper noted the frustration residents felt with CHA’s slow
response to the asbestos problem, as well as the director’s tardiness that evening. In fact, we could claim the meeting as
a victory of sorts, for the following week men dressed in moon-suits and masks were seen all over the Gardens, sealing
any asbestos that posed an immediate threat. CHA also announced that it had asked the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development for several million dollars in emergency cleanup funds.
Such concessions helped to lift the spirits of some of the parents, and after a few weeks of licking our wounds, we
started meeting again to make sure that CHA followed up on its commitments. Still, in Altgeld at least, I couldn’t shake
the feeling that the window of possibility that had been pried open so briefly had slammed shut once again. Linda,
Bernadette, Mr. Lucas-they would all continue to work with DCP, but only reluctantly, out of loyalty to me rather than
to each other. Other residents who had joined us during the weeks leading up to the meeting dropped away. Mrs. Reece
refused to speak to us anymore, and while few people paid attention to her attacks on our methods and motives, the
squabbling only served to reinforce the suspicion among residents that no amount of activism would alter their
condition, except maybe to bring trouble that they didn’t need.
A month or so after the initial cleanup, we met with HUD to lobby for CHA’s budget request. In addition to the
emergency cleanup funds, CHA had asked the feds for over a billion dollars to make basic repairs on projects all over
the city. A tall, dour white man from HUD went over the line items.
“Let me be blunt,” he told us. “CHA has no chance of getting even half the appropriation it’s requested. You can have
the asbestos removed. Or you can have new plumbing and roofing where it’s needed. But you can’t have both.”
“So you’re telling us that after all this, we gonna be worse off than we was,” Bernadette said.
“Well, not exactly. But these are the budget priorities coming out of Washington these days. I’m sorry.”