Homes

The participants live in subsidized housing, many in small duplexes, with the size of the home assigned dependent on the size of their family unit. Some waited up to four years to move into these coveted low-rental homes. Two of the participants, Lynne and Michelle, are living next door to where they were raised as children. Typically, their homes have three small bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs; a kitchen, living room and entrance way with a closet on the main floor and laundry facilities and a play area in an unfinished basement where the children often keep their toys and ride their bicycles.

None of the homes appear to have any major structural defects or obvious hazards. The kitchen cupboards have been recently replaced in some of the homes and the kitchens in these units were freshly painted in a variety of soft pastel shades. Several of the participants, including Natalie and Jill, maintain their homes in immaculate condition. Jill keeps everything in its place and expects all of her son's belongings to be in their proper place. These women appear to take great pride in maintaining the upkeep of their homes. Another participant, Michelle, had decorated her kitchen around a cow theme with everything from her curtains to canisters and a wall calendar in a designer cow motif.

By contrast, a few of the other homes that I visited are at the other end of the spectrum. For instance, on the first day that I met one participant, I found the home was in disarray, cluttered with piles of clothing, laundry and toys on every flat surface in view, leaving little available floor space. Moreover, the floor was littered with debris of all kinds, suggesting to me that the room had not been swept in a long time. While moving items from a chair to find a place to sit, the participant revealed that she was in the process of sorting through clothing that her children had outgrown to be given away to charity.