"People already live here" An ethnographic case study of employed residents of New York City's Graham Public Housing Project
Date
2011
Authors
Demong, Katherine Koczynski, author
Taylor, Peter Leigh, advisor
Peek, Lori A., committee member
Kwiatkowski, Lynn M., committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
This thesis explores the attitudes and sentiments of employed residents of the Graham Public Housing Development or, "Project" in New York City. In order to understand life in public housing, past and current public housing policies are examined for both the United States and the City of New York. Additionally, the history of how public housing is portrayed in the media and in academia is discussed. Data for this thesis was collected using a variety of qualitative techniques including participant and non-participant observation and in-depth interviews. A total of twenty-five (N=25) interviews were conducted. Fifteen (N=15) interviews were conducted with employed mothers of African descent of the Graham Development. The remaining ten interviews were conducted with informed experts (N=5) and community leaders (N=5). It was hypothesized, bolstered by current academic work concerning the benefits of residing in public housing, that employed respondents would desire to remain residents of their development because of social ties. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that this decision would be tempered by the housing scarcity in New York City and the overall safety of the neighborhood in which the Graham Development is located. This hypothesis was largely not supported as all respondents expressed a desire to eventually leave their homes. Factors identified as prompting respondents to want to leave include the stigma associated with residing in public housing, social isolation, safety, maintenance, and desire for home ownership. However, despite the fact that all respondents reported that they eventually wanted to leave public housing, respondents reported that they would like for society to understand that "real" people reside in public housing. Additionally, although respondents claim to be socially isolated from others in their development, they also state that they feel as though there are social benefits to living in a mixed community. The research presented in this work makes a contribution to the growing body of literature concerning public housing in the United States as it focuses on only employed residents of public housing while most other studies treat all public housing residents as a homogenous group. Additionally, information gathered from the employed respondents can be utilized to offer a critique of the public housing policies associated with the City of New York.