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“We have all these houses. Why can’t we fix up these houses? Our homeless rate would go down. The Section 8 list, the housing list, would not be ten thousand strong. I got my housing letter. I’m actually ninety-five hundred eighty-four on the waiting list. That’s where I am. Why I am nine thousand something and there are all these houses in Baltimore city that are vacant, not just in this area but throughout the whole city? Why can’t we go and fix these houses up?”
- Shaunte B.
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“This picture is of my godchild. She is outside playing. She’s outside playing and smiling, running up and down the street like a normal child. I watch all the children while they’re playing outside, and make them come in the house whenever I come in the house to get something. It’s just something that… it’s something that I do. It’s just something I do, ever since my little cousin was murdered. I do that with all of the kids: mine, my brothers’, my friends’ kids, everyone.”
- Sade G.
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“It’s not where you live, it’s how you live. Yeah, you could take like, little chairs and make it homey, make it your own. Not that my neighborhood is so great, it’s a trip around here at night. But the point is that you can take little things and make them better. And that’s how I know God is going to answer my prayers as far as my Section 8 and all of that stuff with the kids, because I’m doing the best I can with what I have.”
- Denise R.
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“I know the Lord will bless me with a job. It might not be what I want it to be, but it’ll be one. One will come soon enough for me. But, I look every day for a job. I go down to the library, go to the websites, and fill out applications, and just… I hope someone calls me.”
- Sade G.
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“When I drove past this liquor store, I was thinking about that new Florida law, where you have to get a drug test before you can get social services, because alcohol is also a drug. It also made me think of people who go to jail because of their drug-related crimes and then have a lot of roadblocks when they come out of jail. Society expects people who get out of jail to become productive members of society.
- Margaret M.
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“We used to have a recreational center, and after the kids would get off of school the police officers would watch over the children. They don’t have it anymore. They shut it down. You notice there are more kids on the street, more kids who don’t have anywhere else to go. If you open the recreation centers up right after school, the parents might still be able to work. That’s what I did until my mother got off work. My mom couldn’t afford camps so I had to do everything that was free.
- Milton C.
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“I ate really healthy when I was pregnant with her, with the help of WIC. I think there was a difference in her health because of the nutrition that I had gotten with her. I had poor health with my older children because of the unhealthy food I at during my pregnancy, and it made a difference. WIC made a difference. Receiving WIC for the first year of her life helped her to be a healthy baby who has a good immune system and great developmental skills.”
- Margaret M.
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“That’s the director of foster care and social services in Baltimore, Maryland. She and I became close as time went on as I was caring for my son, little Lamont. Ms. Molly McGrath has been a great asset to my life and she has been an addition to my family. When I went through some difficulties because of my sexuality, this beautiful director and friend supported me and taught me about my love, dedication, and my motivation towards my child."
- Milton C.
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“He was born premature. He was born drug exposed so he came into this world with a lot of downfalls. Once he came into good care, myself being his father, I’ve been trying to teach him that even though you came into this world messed up, your body was messed up, and your mind was kind of screwed up too, I’ve got you, with the grace of God helping us.”
- Milton C.
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“I’ve got to pay my rent. I’ve got to pay gas and electric. I’ve got to take care of the kids. I’ve got to make sure there’s food in the house, you know, make sure they got clothes, make sure they got shoes, and make sure I got bus fare to even get to work. Trying to struggle and juggle all of that on one income that’s coming in the house is extremely hard. It’s extremely hard because I would like to do more for my girls give them everything, of course every parent would. Every parent would want to do more.
- Shaunte B.
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“When it’s the end of the month, we just eat noodles, hot dogs, noodles, hot dogs, noodles, hot dogs. Hot dogs are like a dollar. Noodles are four for a dollar. It’s not the healthiest meal.”
- Faith C.
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“You have thousands and thousands abandoned houses. I don’t know if it’s that easy and maybe it’s not for me to say, but things can be done for our communities. Something has to be done, because our kids are our future. You want to build safe environments for kids. Kids have nowhere to play, so they’re running in abandoned houses. They’re getting hurt. Do something for these children. That’s what I want you to see. I don’t know if I’ll make a change of it, but guess what? I think my voice will be heard.”
- Faith C.
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“Every time I go outside, it’s to sit out front and watch kids run up and down the street, let them enjoy themselves. And then, just doing motherly things that I’m supposed to be doing, you know?”
- Sade G.
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"That’s Shaykia, she's my fourteen year old. She helps out a lot with her baby sister. That’s her school, and this is the school’s playground. I thought the playground was only supposed to be for the children to go and play. But on the playground there were drug needles, people smoking marijuana and stuff. So where do we take our small children to go and play? There’s nowhere that we can take children to go play without being exposed to a lot of that stuff."
- Shaunte B.
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“I filed for disability for my daughter and of course that takes at least four to six months to even go through. So once I do that, then a lot of things will change. They will take my food stamps away so it’s like I can’t win. They give me the help with her, but at the same time they’re taking food out of my house because I have extra income, because they think that I have more because there’s more money coming in that I don’t need—my food stamps, as much as they give me, which is nowhere near true.”
- Shaunte B.
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“My husband and I are overweight due to unhealthy food. His cholesterol’s high, but it’s hard to buy healthy food. Unhealthy food is less expensive but I feel like in the long run it will cause more medical problems, which in turn will cause expensive bills from health providers. We make too much to get free lunch for our children. Sometimes it can be a struggle to make sure the older children are eating healthy. I’m thankful to Baltimore City Schools for providing free breakfast to our children.”
- Margaret M.
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“My favorite saying is ‘don’t give up five minutes before the miracle’... Don’t give up cause when life is on your shoulders and has you weighing down and like you just feel like giving up. You really do, but you just keep on going... [After graduating,] I now work in one of the units in the hospital. And I like it so much better there. You learn so much because you’re around the doctors and the nurses and taking care of the patient when they’re in the hospital. I like going to work now.
- Margaret M.
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"This is our development. It's not in a very good neighborhood, but everyone sticks together. Everyone's trying to make it. It's just a high-poverty neighborhood where everyone knows everyone. Our court captain, she always says that just because we live in the projects, we don't have to treat it like the projects. She tries to keep the court up to date and clean. She has a little committee where they plant flowers, and she tells you where to go to get free food, things like that."
- Faith C.
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“I bought that juice for my neighbor. The little boy wanted some juice, so I bought him some juice. This lady, she receives food stamps every month. And I asked her why she didn’t wash the refrigerator and she said, because she didn’t have any dish detergent… I’m not here to judge. Maybe she really is struggling and what she’s receiving is not enough and it’s just snowballed… the snowball effect, basically.”
- Denise R.
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“My daughter has a lot of disabilities … I’m trying to get used to a lot of things with her. She’s three. She has adrenal insufficiency, hypothyroidism, she’s a diabetic, and she also has lack of a growth hormone. Within the last three months she’s been placed on about seven different medications. This is her growth hormone medication and it comes in this. It’s four hundred and fifty dollars and I have to get it delivered every three weeks. I don’t have four hundred and fifty dollars.
- Shaunte B.
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“This is the typical city for you: the hot dogs, snacks, ice creams. I try to give it to them every now and then, to capture the moment. Kids want things. Kids see stuff like this and they want to run over and get snacks and ice creams. But you can’t afford it, because you’re on one income and a budget. I captured that moment, just the typical city neighborhood, and things that are costly for a single parent: ice cream trucks.
- Faith C.
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“The cashier made me feel so bad about myself for using WIC. As soon as I got in her line she saw my WIC folder, she puckered her lips because she doesn’t like messing with the WIC. She made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Like ‘you shouldn’t be getting this assistance, you should be paying for this.’ I just felt really uncomfortable. And then people are getting in line and the line’s getting longer, so you’re feeling like you’re holding up the line. I started getting embarrassed about it.
- Margaret M.
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Drexel University Public School of Health 
1505 Race Street, 11th Floor, Mail Stop 1035, Philadelphia, PA 19102