"These Streets is Always Gonna Be These Streets"

One of my long-time mentees stopped by to visit us at our house in Homewood yesterday. He came carrying a to-go bag of fried chicken and french fries from a nearby restaurant. I invited him to sit at our dining room table while he ate, and we ended up having a great conversation. We talked about his first week of high school and how proud I was of him for making it that far in school already (some kids from his neighborhood have already dropped out of school before even making it to high school). He told me about his goals, his dreams, and his plan for making it through high school (pay attention to doing the work, and stay away from the streets). He wants to go to college so that he can "get a good job and support a family like you Mr. B." He even told me that he wants to do something to mentor or help kids some day like me. I pressed him just a little further on that point, asking him "Why don't you come back here to Homewood to do all that?" In the midst of a big bite of chicken, he shook his head no, paused, looked out the window at Homewood, and said, "These streets is always gonna be these streets." My translation: If he makes it out, he's not coming back because things are never going to get better in Homewood.

Things got quiet in our conversation while we both paused to let his words sink in. He has every right to want to make it out of Homewood and never look back. He has been basically homeless for the past five years. He bounces around from house to house, between relatives and friends, looking for different places to stay each night. His mom is a drug addict who is in and out of his life. He can stay with his dad sometimes, but their relationship is constantly strained and sometimes abusive. Any time he stops over at his dad's place to ask to stay the night, he has to weigh the cost of how much dysfunction he can endure that evening. He was basically being raised by the streets when I first met him as a ten-year-old... tagging buildings with spray paint, throwing rocks at windows in vacant buildings (48% of the homes in Homewood are abandondoned properties), working the corners with stolen property or for dealers in order to make some cash for his basic needs. He was on the path of the streets, but now he is on the path to the Pittsburgh Promise (a $40,000 college scholarship if he graduates from Pittsburgh Public Schools with good grades and behavior). He has met Christ through our mentoring program. He has much going for him, and he assures me all the time that he is not caught up in the street life anymore.

I'll mentor him for as long as I possibly can so that he can achieve his dreams. He has a lot going for him... resilience, drive, passion, humor, leadership, street smarts, and most of all, God's will for his life. I have helped him to cast a positive vision for his life and establish some stepping stones to get there. Still, I wonder: Will these streets always be these streets? Will transformation occur in Homewood? If LAMP kids go to college and get good jobs and start healthy families, will Homewood ever be a place where they will want to live? It will take a lot more than a mentoring program for transformation to occur over time, but building long term relationships with at-risk kids is as good of a place to start as any I suppose. I love mentoring, but this also explains why I moved my family here to Homewood. Homewood needs systemic reform in such areas as housing, education, businesses, jobs, public safety, political representation, etc. Those things are all extremely important to me now that I live here. Broken systems have a direct result on my family and I. We experience what our neighbors experience. I don't just wish for transformation in Homewood for "those LAMP kids" anymore. This is personal now. I moved to Homewood to be a transformational leader in a complex urban environment. My prayers today are for my young friend who is starting a new journey of high school, and also for the transformation of Homewood (a difficult task that many residents and leaders from organizations are working on at the moment). God, please bring about transformation today... one child at a time... one family at a time... one street at a time... one neighborhood at a time.