New Optimism for Her Kids Motivates Mom to Find Work
Michelle Starks doesn't need a statistician to tell her things have changed for her and her family since they left their former public housing complex in Baltimore’s Cherry Hill Homes, a sprawling complex of more than 1,500 public housing units, for a home in Harford County's Bel Air community. She joined the mobility program because she "wanted more for my kids," who are ages 9, 8, and 3 years old. Now that she has moved, she says she feels more motivated, noting that although she was unemployed when she lived in Cherry Hill, she has obtained a job as a cashier in a "big box" retail store less than a mile from her new home. She is involved in the PTA at her children’s new school in Bel Air and says she is optimistic for her children, who are doing better in school.
"Living in the projects you feel like you’re stuck," she explains. "You do what you gotta do for your kids regardless. I wanted to get out so bad, I just couldn’t do it by myself."
Family of Four Boys Reach Their Potential in Suburban Schools
Candice Brown may have moved her family to Columbia in Howard County just in time. Brown’s second eldest was doing well academically in his city middle school but had begun to misbehave and to hang out with "the wrong type of kids," she says. When they moved and he had to start high school in a new community, he had a hard time, but Brown found him a counselor and a tutor and now, age 15 and in the 10th grade, he is doing well, she says. Her two youngest boys, one of whom had problems in his city elementary school, are both doing well and in higher level classes in their Columbia elementary school. Her youngest, who is 9, is in the school choir, and her other boy, 10, plays drums in the band. Her oldest son, who failed 9th grade in a city high school, is on track to graduate from high school and wants to go to college. Brown, who works as a retail clerk at a big box store in Columbia did not attend college herself but is determined to help him reach that goal.