There are certain things that I just don’t get.
One of these things is why anyone stays in a horrible ghetto-like neighborhood where there is a ton of drugs and gangs and crime.
What is it that keeps people there? Like after the first stabbing on my block I’d gather up the belongings and family and hit the road. Hitchhike or work for food down to Florida and work doubles or triples washing dishes or whatever I had to do to keep food on the table for my family.
The same goes for these war torn countries in the middle east.
Bomb goes off a block away- “Honey pack up the kids, we outtie!” It would be that simple a decision for me.
What in the world keeps people hanging around waiting to get their ass blown up?
Not my idea of Home-
Uhmmmm, Yeah, No.
Good Morning Gloucester 
Pure poverty.
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I was mugged three times over a three year period living in Boston, once in Copley Square and twice at knife point, with babies in the stroller. We owned our condominium on Mass Ave. and as hopeful as we were that things were improving, and we would often see evidence of that, when a bullet went through our front window, I told my husband we were moving.
We moved to Gloucester three months later, renting out our condo on Mass. Ave., until we could found a buyer. I love Gloucester and have found a true home here. I have never once looked back or once regretted our decision not to raise our children in the city.
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Fear of change. Comfortable in their rut.
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Gaza and Israel are now a war zone. They are bombing each other. I don’t think many people, who don’t have much money, have any viable options. How can to you escape to another part of the world if you’re broke and with a family? Add that your only relatives, parents and grandparents, live close, plus generations of ancestors who grew up in your city, are all in the mix. I think it’s a failure of leaders on both sides to take care of the common folks who live there. Nothing new here.
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No where else to go. Americans can revel in their freedom of movement and opportunity. If one doesn’t like being flooded out he can move somewhere else. Most don’t. I question those who do stay even though they could move.
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Maybe people stay because this is where their family has always lived through generations. Maybe people are courageous enough to think that they can change things and make them better. Maybe they just don’t have the ability to move to another place financially. Maybe we should all be less judgemental of why people choose what they do and instead try to support and help them.
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Hopefulness and helplessness.
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When you have no financial resources, no place to go, and you have known only this – what and where else.
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Some people hope things will change, as a child growing up in Somerville, when it was called, Slumerville, you do not always notice the bad things and it becomes the norm, as kids we knew what we should and should not do. As Kim states it is also Hopefulness and feeling helpless
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I get you Joey but… it’s their home. They were probably born there, raised there and love the place. It’s not our home so we wonder why they stay. They probably have a lot of history, friends and family there and don’t want to leave. They’d prefer to stay and defend it for the people they love.
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