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Hello, my name is Shay Olaifa and I'm here with Catherine Cook and we're Rice University [Audio Description: A woman with braided blonde hair and silver hoop earrings sits in front of empty church pews. She wears a purple shirt above a black long sleeve top that says “E Pluribus Unum: Greater Fifth Ward Super-Neighborhood 55"] students and members of the Fondren Fellows Program, which is an initiative directed by the Rice's

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Fondren Library, which aims to foster research projects centered around the theme of archiving material. Our project is focused on the creosote contamination of Houston's Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens.

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Today is March 11th, 2025 and I'm here with Joetta Stevenson and I'm president of the Greater Fifth Ward Super Neighborhood. Thank you so much for your time.

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So to start off, can you please tell me about yourself and your connection to Kashmere Gardens and Fifth Ward? My connection is very deep when it comes

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to Fifth Ward. I was born and raised here. I was born actually on Lyons Avenue, which you drove down.

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The hospital that I was born in, the facility actually still exists. It's the old St. Elizabeth Hospital. My parent, my mother's side of the family,

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they grew up in Fifth Ward. My grandparents, my great-grandparents as a matter of fact, lived in a house that I currently live across the street from.

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That house still stands. So my family has been here for generations. I grew up and I was taught to love this community.

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I grew up in what that old saying, you were raised by a village. It was a village because there were many families here that had been here for years

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and years, generations, and you couldn't walk down the street without someone, you know, knowing who you are or knowing who your family happens to be.

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I had a sibling. I had an older brother. He's deceased now, but Vernon Charles. My mother and my father.

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My father worked for a steel company back in the day and my mother, for most of my life, she, well, up until I was in what you call middle school, we

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called it junior high, was a housewife, but she spent a lot of time at the schools we attended because she was one of those mothers that volunteered.

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She could play the piano. She could sing, you know, and she loved children and she certainly loved her own. In this community, it was just, I knew

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when I was in, before I started school, I knew that I was going to graduate from Phillis Wheatley Senior High School. I literally knew that.

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So it's in my blood and it's an honor and a blessing that I am living in this same community.

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This community is basically about 159 years old, something like that and I'm also honored that you are here and thought I was important enough to

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even interview you, and we are sitting in my church, which was founded in 1865, Mount Vernon United Methodist. So this church is part of my family

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as well for generations. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Can you please tell me in your own

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words what makes Fifth Ward so special? Fifth Ward has a very, very rich, rich history, and I say that because I remember even as a little girl, you know, you've

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heard of the the Black Wall Street. Well, we had our own version of a Black Wall Street. As a matter of fact, different neighborhoods in

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the Houston area had their own Black Wall Street. Lyons Avenue was our main thoroughfare, where I remembered as a kid, they had shoe stores,

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they had drug stores, they had, of course, schools, they had businesses on like cleaners, they had washaterias, they had theaters, we had at least two movie theaters on Lyons Avenue when

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I was a little kid, and both of those facilities are still there, being used, viable. It is a community that I grew up with around people.

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I felt loved, and when a child feels loved, then they excel, and I think that that encouragement that I received and the inspiration of those that were around me, I mean,

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I could visually see people who were, that I wanted to mimic, you know. I love my mother, I love my father, we had that kind of an environment growing

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up. I grew up where the kids could safely, we could play in the streets, we played dodgeball, baseball, we ran, we did everything, you

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know, because there were so many children and families that lived here, so many, and it wasn't until I became an adult that I realized, you know, you don't think about things

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of income level or anything like that when you're growing up, because you could be visiting a friend's house and they might have, you know, my house we had, there were two

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children, but I have friends that they had eight children in the house or more, but when they sat down to eat, they fed me too, you know, so it was just

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that this is a community that it was, it's always been a part of me, but I didn't realize how truly blessed I was until I became an adult and you saw

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it being exposed to other areas and being exposed to people once I went to college from other countries and other states and things, so it is, this is a very important

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community for me and for many that grew up here. We had great cooks, there was nothing to walk down the street and just smell the

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food just coming from all these different houses where people cooked and, I mean, things from scratch and that's the kind of household and and village that I grew

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up in and Fifth Ward had what I call a special kind of flavor because you had people who excelled academically, they excelled sports, they excelled in various disciplines.

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The other day, we actually here at this church, we had the funeral of someone who grew up much older than myself, but he grew up in this community and I was

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telling someone earlier before you all came that this person was so outstanding, the person taught it at my school. We had teachers that lived in Fifth Ward,

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we had doctors that lived in Fifth Ward, everybody lived here, they lived together and I think that's what made, at that time, Phillis Wheatley was an outstanding school and I believe

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what made it outstanding was the fact that you had children that attended that school that came from every economic level, you know, every economic level and therefore we kind of blended

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in and we we shared different things or we had different things that crossed over onto somebody else or they were impressed by or that I was impressed by.

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So that makes a difference when you have that type of an environment in a school. We don't really have that now where you might have the the smartest or the brightest

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kids, they all go to maybe a school of choice or or they go to a charter school. Well, everybody went to the same school and

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I think that's what made us have a more richer environment in terms of education. And Wheatley was the boss, I'm telling you, when I was growing up.

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Like I said, I knew I was going to go to that school even before I started school and when I was able to get to Wheatley, I was so proud.

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My family was proud, everybody was proud, you know, and education was encouraged in this in this neighborhood. We had famous musicians to come out of

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this neighborhood, Joe Sample, we even have Joe Carmouche, you know, he gave a concert here this past December. We have a lot of, say, still we

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have a lot of historic structures in the community. Like I said, the house that my great -grandparents lived in, that's still across the street

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from where I am and it's still part of my family, the ownership. We have you can drive around Fifth Ward and you know that the old Peacock Records

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was here in Fifth Ward. You know some of the major entertainment across the nation came into Fifth Ward and entertained at places like the Club Matinee.

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The Matinee itself is not there, but we know where that location was and it's marked. And like I said, we had movie theaters. The DeLuxe Theater was an actual movie theater.

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That's the first time I saw Dracula. I remember it well. We had the Lyons Avenue Theater. The building is there, but it's a church

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now. Latter Day. They use it as a church. I was speaking to one of the pastors

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a few weeks ago and I said, are the chairs still in that building? Because their marquee of that theater is still there.

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They use it. But they said, oh we had to change out and get better chairs. But I mean the original chairs were still

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there up until very recently. So it's a testament. I think it really is a testament to how back in the day when things were

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built, it literally, even if it was built by so-and-so's daddy who was a construction person or whatever, they were craftsmen and they built things to last.

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The house I currently live in was built in the 30s. These are buildings that were built to last. And why not love a community that have

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structures like that and people like this? And like I said, we have had some outstanding people. We had this particular church

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since it was founded so long ago. And I can't say this structure was built in the 1950s. I think they had a fire and then

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they had to rebuild here in this place in the 1950s. But in 1865, it was actually created, founded under a brush arbor maybe a few blocks

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west of this church before you get to Main Street. So it was never that far from where this site is, where it was founded by

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a former slave that they called Uncle Toby. So this area itself, the Fifth Ward community, when I say it's in my blood, it is in my blood.

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And I have a lot to be thankful and proud of having grown up here. Thank you so much. So you talked about how vibrant Fifth Ward

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was as a community and how you always felt like you had a village. Can you please share with me some of your favorite memories, whether through music, people, food,

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or community events that made Fifth Ward truly special? Close to home, we used to have, I remember, I remember my great-grandmother in the

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backyard. We would have the Juneteenth celebration, you know, everybody be out in the back, barbecue. They had sodas and all, and ice cream

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at the time. You know, they have a little electric ice cream makers now. Back then, you had the ones that you

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had to do this with and they churned the ice cream, churned into ice cream. I remember sodas, what we call the soda water, in the, what we call

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a number three bathtub. It was this big tub filled with ice and they have sodas all in there and people would be on the barbecue

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pit and music. I grew up in a family that very musical. My grandmother taught piano.

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And so, all of us grew up learning to play the piano and so music was very important. I attended Atherton Elementary, which is over on

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Solo Street here in Fifth Ward. And even there, that school had a very, very strong music curriculum at the time.

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And I learned to play the violin there and I played the violin from elementary school all the way up to senior high. So, I grew up with people who sang,

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people who could sit and play church music. My grandmother, as well as my great-aunt, they were choir directors at various churches. My great-aunt for many years, Annie Mae

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Sharp, was the choir director here at Mount Vernon. And they could play anywhere. Back in the day, my auntie played for

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big bands and I had uncles that could play. My uncle, Ernest, and they could play anything for what they called, I don't know if

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you ever heard of boogie-woogie, all the way up to blues, church songs, and classical. I grew up on all of that. So, music was a soother.

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It was like, music and singing, it was just something that was calming and people were so good at it. And I grew up with people singing Christmas

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carols around Christmas. You know, you'd be in the living room and somebody's at the piano and you're playing, you're singing everything.

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So, we grew up that way. Just that type of family environment. And then also, like I said, I love Phillis Wheatley because I remember so vividly the

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band marching down the street, particularly Thanksgiving. Oh my god, the Thanksgiving, they'd have parades in Fifth Ward, down Lyons Avenue, and people would line the streets because it was really

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important that not only you were good academically, but they were good musicians. So, I watched the majorettes and I watched everything that would go down the streets and

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everybody would just have so much fun. And that's very vivid in my memory of growing up and knowing that this was a community that had a lot going on.

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We had some of the greatest Americans, in my opinion. They came out of Fifth Ward. Some of the greatest.

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They didn't all come out of Fifth Ward. They came from other places too. But out of Fifth Ward, we had Barbara Jordan and Mickey Leland.

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We had George Foreman, former heavyweight champion. As a matter of fact, I was speaking to someone and a guy was talking to me about an old story and he was

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saying, he was a little bit younger than George Foreman, but he was 13. That George Foreman was kind of a tough guy growing up, right?

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He was like, "either your lunch money or my fist." And he had me rolling. It was just so funny how kids would,

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you know, how you think about the how kids grew up in neighborhoods and you had all these different types of personalities and dynamics because I shared with him at that time

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that I knew someone that told me, and this is actually a female, she said, I helped teach George Foreman how to box. And I was like, and it was really

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funny because she was naively alluding to -- I can fight too. And I can tango with George too. So it was just, it was just funny.

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So you hear all those wonderful stories and and what I really love about Fifth Ward. Like I said, this guy was telling me

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this the other day and it was at the funeral of someone who was Dr. Isaac Bryant. And all these generations of people came to

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that funeral. Every generation you can imagine was there. And that was part of my upbringing as well, where every generation, even growing up, when

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it came to the holidays, came to Thanksgiving, people who had already graduated from school, they were full grown grown-ups, they would come back home.

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This was always home. And those are the memories that are so endearing to me and I will never forget, never, because it warms your heart to know

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that I lived during a time when this was very, very important and it helped mold me. It helped mold me.

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I think my mother, being the type of mother that, say, when I was growing up, she was that lady that would go and collect money if someone died.

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She went to collect money from different families. My mother was that mother that collected money for the March of Dimes. And so I was raised kind of in

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that service type environment. My grandfather was a, even though he did retire from Southern Pacific Railroad, he also was a United Methodist minister.

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And so I grew up with people, around people that when I would be at my grandparents' house and other people would come to visit, then we were the ones, we went

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to the kitchen to get lemonade or a cold glass of water and wrap it in a napkin and take it to someone and set it down on the table.

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You know, those were the kind of things that I have never forgotten and these are also skills that I use to this very day, right?

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Because it helped mold me into the adult I am and it also showed me, helped reinforce and also teach me how important community service really, really was.

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Thank you so much for sharing. It was so beautiful to hear you talk about Fifth Ward being your home and the community you grew up in, so thank you

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so much. You're welcome. Can you now please tell me about when and how you heard about the creosote contamination

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that affected your home and your neighborhood? Now that's really interesting. I, for, let's say when I first finished high school and maybe I was in high

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school, the first, one of the first jobs I ever had was, I was a poll worker, so I had to have at least been 18 years old to have done that

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and I actually worked for our judge. His son is our current state representative, Harold Dutton. His daddy was our precinct judge and even

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though before I was even able to vote, I would go with my family, you know, I witnessed them voting. They would take us with them and

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everybody would vote. They knew the people that were there, all these other grown-ups, and it wasn't until much later on I was asked to

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become a poll worker and I was a poll worker with Mr. Dutton, Harold Dutton's father. So when was this? I'm sorry?

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Like what years, what year was this? This had to have been in the early 70s, the early 70s, because I finished high school in 72.

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So this was the early 70s and I remember I was registered to vote once I turned 18 and so Mr. Dutton and his wife, being the alternate judge, and people

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knew everybody. Everybody knew everybody. That's what was really remarkable and I think that that is even important to this very

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day. There were relationships when we went to do things and when you're dealing with community service even in 2025, those relationships are powerful and

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they matter. They matter a lot in communities like Fifth Ward. So working with Mr. Dutton and also I

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think that was my first time, that year I actually, I don't even know how it happened, I wound up being a representative out of the community and I wound up

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going to the state convention because of Mr. Dutton and it was very interesting and I was one of the youngest people there, of course, but it kind of helped solidify the

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importance in my heart of politics and elections and how it's important to know what's going on, know what the issues are, read about it.

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Don't just listen to what somebody has to say. Yeah, listen to them, but you need to read for yourself.

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You need to research and look for different varying aspects of different issues. It's very important. So I learned those kinds of things back

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then. Otherwise, everything that I learned back then I've carried on. I carry it over.

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Yes. Did I fully answer your question? I'm not sure if I did or not. You answered parts of it for sure.

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You talked about how you got really involved in the state convention and how you learned about the importance of knowing what's going on. So on that same vein, can you tell

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me about when you learned about the contamination and how you kind of informed the community about what's going on in your role? You know, as a young adult, you do

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young adult things, right? So yes, I was having fun. I, when I left high school, I went to the University of Houston Central Campus and

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I literally had the privilege of living on campus in Third Ward. That's the first time I'd ever lived away from the house, even though I was in

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the same city, I lived away from the house. And I learned a lot by doing that. It exposed me to people outside of the

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neighborhood, people from other states, people from other countries. It exposed me to an environment that was very huge for me, very large.

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It wasn't a village. It was gigantic, being University of Houston. And in doing so and learning how to, say, navigate and communicate with different types of

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people. Besides that, once I finished college, I started working. I was also partying, doing whatever I wanted to do, making my own money and all

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of that. And then eventually over the years, I finally calmed down enough. And I had, I think I was still

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working and I got very sick at one point. Um, um, probably when I was about in my 40s, I got very sick at cancer

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and, um, and it kind of changed my world. So things started going on that kind of changed my world.

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And eventually, just to make a long story short, I was at home one day and I knew that I needed to, I knew that I really needed to do more than

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what I had been doing. Because I kind of become a little bit more, I guess, more introverted or more just sticking to myself and that sort of thing.

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And I needed to venture out. I needed to basically become me again, you know, after being sick. And I had cancer twice.

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So it was like I was just going through a bunch of changes for quite a few years. And then I, someone left a flyer in

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my door and it was to advertising the Fifth Ward Neighborhood Civic Club. And I thought about it and I said, I'm going to go.

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And I went and that was in 2013. And that was the beginning of my actually paying attention to, say, certain things that were going on in the community itself.

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And from that, I was introduced to the Super Neighborhood. And while I was in the Super Neighborhood, I think that was in 2014, like a

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year later. While I was there, the president that was there at the time lived right across the street from the rail yard, the Union Pacific

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Rail Yard. And she called me one day and she was very upset about this. They're digging in that rail yard.

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I said, OK, what's going on? And she said, it's contaminated. It's terrible. It's contaminated soil and they're digging in that

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rail yard. They're not supposed to be digging in that rail yard. So she was out there with a phone

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trying to film it or a camera trying to look at it. And she said they kind of rushed off the property when they saw her taking pictures.

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So it was something about her seeing that physically that was a problem. And then I learned from that point on, because it was such an issue with them

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digging and they weren't supposed to be digging that soil, that we wound up through Super Neighborhood having a rail yard or a Union Pacific meeting with the Super Neighborhood for the

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community so that they could talk about why were they digging in that rail yard? Because they weren't supposed to touch it. It was contaminated.

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And then I learned that there had been other things that were going on at the time where Union Pacific, prior to that, had approached neighbors, people living around there.

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And asked to purchase their water rights under the houses, the water rights. And being a community that is considered middle to low income, then whatever their offers were,

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which I'm sure were minuscule, whatever that minuscule amount was, it sounded like a lot to someone that doesn't have much. And so I was told by that person,

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that president of the Super Neighborhood at the time, and other people that I didn't sell my water rights. And somebody said that they did, just different

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people. You did it or you didn't. And they approached not only private property owners, they approached some of the businesses around there.

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And that was all around that rail yard area, around that Liberty Road area. And so then that kind of shined the light on something that

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had been going on for decades, just decades. Growing up in Fifth Ward, we literally have rail lines that are webbed.

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They web throughout the entire community. And what we used to call the logs on the railroad holding the metal up, they're actually called ties, railroad ties.

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And those pieces of wood, they used to pile them up at the end of the street where I lived. And they pile them up at the end

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of the street, I guess, eventually to replace any ties that were needed to be replaced. At the time, I had no idea that those ties were treated with toxic creosote.

00:31:26.420 - 00:31:36.640

We not only had that treated with creosote, way back in the day, you don't see as many as we used to. We used to have telephone poles in every

00:31:36.640 - 00:31:44.900

block. Those were treated. And it's [creosote] a wood preservative. So that's what made the wood last so

00:31:44.900 - 00:31:52.560

long. And they went throughout our community as well, and many other communities. And I'm going to say that there was

00:31:52.560 - 00:32:04.400

a time that no one knew the danger of creosote. But there was also a time where the railroad and other types of entities knew

00:32:04.940 - 00:32:18.680

that creosote was dangerous. Now, in between the time that they knew and the time that we knew, I promise you, was many, many years apart.

00:32:19.140 - 00:32:36.380

A long time before that information trickled to the very people that were directly impacted by the use of that preservative. I met people on the Liberty Road side

00:32:36.380 - 00:32:48.300

that were there when the wood preservative company, the manufacturing company, was right there in the rail yard itself. And there were houses directly across the street.

00:32:49.360 - 00:33:03.140

And I met people who were there at home living in the mid-'80s when that plant exploded. And it exploded and blew its debris and

00:33:03.140 - 00:33:20.420

chemicals everywhere, everywhere in that area. I know people who could literally tell me where they were standing, the windows, how everything was shaking, the smells, just everything.

00:33:21.480 - 00:33:33.420

And some of them are still around. A lot of them are not. They're not. And it was from that point, the things

00:33:33.420 - 00:33:48.080

I'm describing is how I grew to learn about what was happening with Union Pacific and the people who were in the immediate vicinity of that rail yard.

00:33:50.340 - 00:34:00.980

And then people could tell you, once the information started getting out, they could tell you throughout Fifth Ward, oh, yeah, he used to swim and play in the ditch and had

00:34:00.980 - 00:34:08.660

all that colored water and all that kind of stuff, a little rainbow water and all that stuff from what we would call tar.

00:34:08.820 - 00:34:19.900

Or we didn't know what else it was. But creosote treated things, chemicals. We all saw those chemicals. We all saw different colors in water or

00:34:19.900 - 00:34:30.420

in puddles and whatever. We just didn't know. We're learning as we go, more and more as we go.

00:34:31.560 - 00:34:48.360

And so that's kind of the beginning stages of me learning about the Creosote and learning how people were really having a tough time and how people were dying.

00:34:48.360 - 00:35:05.960

And the more I learned, and the more information that gets out, you have entities and non-profits that start coming into your community from the outside, and they start trying to

00:35:05.960 - 00:35:16.480

teach you or letting you know about different things that you didn't know ordinarily. These things aren't taught in school. I did not learn about Creosote in school.

00:35:19.340 - 00:35:35.200

And then you start meeting experts and people who are familiar with the impact of long -term exposures to a variety of things. And so that was kind of the beginning

00:35:35.200 - 00:35:47.680

of the creosote. And then being active in the community was also the beginning of learning more and more about not just the Creosote, but

00:35:48.300 - 00:36:00.000

a lot of environmental issues that are in this community. And learning, like I mentioned, that we had a lot of businesses and companies throughout

00:36:00.000 - 00:36:14.840

the community, and learning how important regulations really are. Even though sometimes you have some politicians on certain levels, they say, we don't need all

00:36:14.840 - 00:36:29.540

of those regulations because it smothers the profits that certain businesses can make, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you realize without regulations, then even

00:36:29.540 - 00:36:44.280

more people would be dead. So I've learned over the years more and more things that are tied into the same type of impacts that Creosote would have.

00:36:44.420 - 00:37:01.320

I've learned about groundwater contamination, lead in the water, all kinds of chemicals. Because back in the day, when you had cleaners, there weren't that many rules on what

00:37:01.320 - 00:37:07.720

you do with the chemicals that you used to clean. There weren't any. So people usually probably just opened up the

00:37:07.720 - 00:37:22.180

door and threw it out the back, or allowed whatever to occur. I learned more about asbestos when I was an adult, because I

00:37:22.180 - 00:37:33.040

had uncles and others that were still alive who had worked for many years for certain companies, and asbestos. You know, those companies eventually had to,

00:37:33.040 - 00:37:42.540

they were sued for it to happen, but eventually they had to start doing something for workers that were impacted health-wise because of those types of things.

00:37:43.100 - 00:38:00.160

So say from 2013 up until now, 2025, I've learned a lot about a lot of stuff, and not just Creosote, a lot of things that impact communities.

00:38:00.640 - 00:38:17.880

Because being the president, I became the president of the Super Neighborhood in, I think it was 2018, that's when I became the president, and learning a Super Neighborhood has to do

00:38:17.880 - 00:38:34.960

with every aspect of a community, everything that builds a community, everything that forms a community. We're talking infrastructure, housing, education, jobs, job training, crime, you name it.

00:38:35.580 - 00:38:45.660

You name it. Food, you name it. That's what Super Neighborhoods have to contend with in neighborhoods.

00:38:46.440 - 00:38:59.680

And along the way, I've learned a heck of a lot about my own community, and my description of Fifth Ward, which is the northeast corner of downtown, that it had two

00:38:59.680 - 00:39:19.900

major freeways driven through it -- that we usually get the bulk of whatever dangerous thing that somebody has created, or it gets dumped here, and

00:39:19.900 - 00:39:36.120

very little is done to remove it. And normally when it's dumped here, we're running behind it because the decisions were already made. Because we were never at the table to

00:39:36.120 - 00:39:46.440

decide. So yes, I've had a pretty good educational experience with the Creosote.

00:39:47.380 - 00:39:56.000

Thank you so much for sharing. You talked a little bit about how when you were in your 40s, you got very sick and got cancer twice, and then you

00:39:56.000 - 00:40:06.060

eventually realized that you needed to do more, which is when you started becoming a part of the Fifth Ward Neighborhood Civic Club and eventually became president of the Super Neighborhood.

00:40:06.860 - 00:40:15.060

Can you talk a little bit more about how your experience with cancer kind of empowered you to demand justice and demand that people were aware of what's going on?

00:40:18.500 - 00:40:33.860

Prior, when I got really sick with cancer, that's when I really learned about the aspects of the health care industry that I didn't know.

00:40:34.680 - 00:40:46.140

You know, when you go to school, go to high school, then you go to college, and when you graduate from college, and maybe your parents didn't go to college, or your

00:40:46.140 - 00:40:53.060

grandparents didn't go to college, so you kind of have a little bit of arrogance about you, whether you realize it or not, that you think you're a

00:40:53.060 - 00:40:58.960

little bit smarter than the rest of them, in a way. You don't say it, but you think you are.

00:40:59.640 - 00:41:20.120

Well, I learned after getting sick with something with cancer that I wasn't as smart as I thought I was, and I didn't know everything, and I literally could not fight

00:41:20.120 - 00:41:33.480

certain things that were invisible to me. And it was a rude awakening. It truly was a rude awakening. And I learned, you hear about certain things,

00:41:33.560 - 00:41:44.660

but you don't know it until you're in the middle of it. I learned how the health care industry, how people who are of middle and lower income

00:41:44.660 - 00:41:59.440

are impacted by processes and procedures within the health care industry. I thought I knew, but I realized as years went by how dumb I really was,

00:41:59.480 - 00:42:08.500

but I thought I was smart. I didn't know, I didn't understand how, you know, I would look at someone and say, they could have done blah, blah, blah.

00:42:09.180 - 00:42:17.380

I don't know why they wouldn't have done that, or it doesn't make any sense for them to still be struggling, you know, having that issue.

00:42:17.720 - 00:42:27.200

They could have taken their child to this, that, and the other. But see, I didn't know at the time how sometimes the processes for even signing up

00:42:27.200 - 00:42:40.600

or being able to get certain types of health care, I didn't know how difficult that could be and the obstacles that oftentimes people run into.

00:42:41.740 - 00:42:56.020

And at the time, when I mentioned I had cancer, when I was diagnosed with it, I was working contract for oil and gas, but I wasn't a full-time employee.

00:42:56.680 - 00:43:08.860

So guess what? I learned about the insurance industry quick, fast, and in a hurry about the holes that I fell through.

00:43:10.080 - 00:43:22.540

And it was just stunning to me, because you don't think like that if you've never been touched by that. You think you know, you heard about it,

00:43:22.560 - 00:43:33.000

you saw it on the news, but you don't know what it's like until it actually Impacts you directly, and you realize there were so many holes that someone like

00:43:33.000 - 00:43:48.860

myself, who was educated, was working, making pretty good money, how just a major illness could flip your world. Had no clue.

00:43:49.580 - 00:44:00.900

I didn't know, my idea of being broke was nowhere close to what brokenness really can be, but I thought I was. Oh child, I can't do that, I'm broke.

00:44:02.960 - 00:44:12.700

And basically it was like a, it was a rude awakening, and then I realized I'm broke, but I'm not as broke as some of the people I'm running into.

00:44:13.920 - 00:44:23.520

When I go and try to get this health care, and I can maneuver, or I can articulate certain things that they may not be able to articulate, or they may not

00:44:23.520 - 00:44:32.140

be able to communicate what's going on with them, or what's going on with their small child. I can stand my ground, because I can

00:44:32.140 - 00:44:45.460

stand toe to toe with you because of my education, but it was frustrating to me because I realized I was caught in a, in a health care environment that didn't have

00:44:45.460 - 00:44:55.500

humanity, that was lacking the humanity that it should have had, that I thought it had, because I was so smart back then. I thought I knew, and I didn't.

00:44:56.060 - 00:45:11.100

So these are things that help me to understand more clearly the need for other voices, and the need for the voices that nobody was listening to, they needed to hear them.

00:45:11.960 - 00:45:23.080

And if I was able to go toe to toe and convince somebody, you need to let this person, you need to do blah, blah, blah, and, and, and, and can stand

00:45:23.080 - 00:45:36.460

before city council, or stand before, no matter what your position was, a CEO, and articulate these things, and let them clearly understand, I was fierce enough to do that.

00:45:38.260 - 00:45:51.900

And that's kind of what helped mold me into being more of a advocate, more of an advocate, because there's a lot of people that are caught in a system that they

00:45:51.900 - 00:46:00.020

don't want to hear from, because the process is in place, and a lot of these processes were created by somebody even before them.

00:46:01.600 - 00:46:09.240

You were talking about the health care system, you were talking about the health care system, and that, if you want, if you have anything else to say, we could finish

00:46:09.240 - 00:46:22.340

that, since we got interrupted. Okay, okay, yeah. When it comes to the health care system,

00:46:22.340 - 00:46:37.580

I learned through fire, just how difficult sometimes it really is, and that how it is, the access is just, we're still struggling with the access over all these years, and

00:46:37.580 - 00:46:48.980

we should have progressed by then. Health care is slower than technology. Technology is just out of the chain. We're almost at the point of what we

00:46:48.980 - 00:46:58.040

used to see in a cartoon called The Jetsons, I don't know if The Jetsons was still around when you all were little, but we're almost at the Jetsons level, where we

00:46:58.040 - 00:47:12.540

got cars flying around, but the health care system is slow. It just hasn't connected to the people that really truly need to connect with, and the

00:47:12.540 - 00:47:29.940

access to health care, which is critical when you're in a neighborhood that sometimes, I refer to my own community, it's like a petri dish, where you have all kinds of little

00:47:29.940 - 00:47:42.160

things in that petri dish that need to be tackled. All of it. And what makes it worse is that the

00:47:42.160 - 00:48:01.040

human toll of it, since this fight with creosote, even though my journey began with community, the community service over the creosote was

00:48:01.040 - 00:48:17.980

really in 2014 with the creosote, but people started this journey decades ago, because they were telling people, I don't know why I have this cancer, I don't know why I got

00:48:17.980 - 00:48:26.280

breast cancer. My mother didn't have it, my grandmother didn't have it, I don't know. But all I can say is, I've lived

00:48:26.280 - 00:48:45.320

at least a block away from a rail line most of my life, the majority of my life, 99% of my life. And I've lived in a neighborhood that, like

00:48:45.320 - 00:48:57.460

I said, had a lot of different types of businesses and some did utilize chemicals that were determined to be toxic or carcinogens.

00:49:00.280 - 00:49:12.840

But all of it's still here, they haven't deteriorated naturally. It has not been removed by man intentionally, it just hasn't.

00:49:13.900 - 00:49:31.780

And that's a disconnect, that's a major problem. And then while we're dealing with that, or knowing that problem, the fact that the healthcare is not there.

00:49:33.140 - 00:49:48.080

There has been so many people, particularly around that rail yard, that we call the cancer cluster. Because we have a cluster of very unusual

00:49:48.080 - 00:50:02.360

cancers that stood out. And not only that, we have a high level of childhood leukemia. And it's very interesting, because when

00:50:02.360 - 00:50:09.660

I was a teenager There was a young man, he was a member of this church. He was older, maybe about four years or

00:50:09.660 - 00:50:18.980

so older. He and his friends, they took me in, they adopted me and they watched over me and that kind of thing.

00:50:19.360 - 00:50:32.340

And he had leukemia, I remember it well. But I didn't connect that as being something that was too prevalent for a neighborhood.

00:50:34.520 - 00:50:45.820

Until, recent years, when I was informed that Fifth Ward has a high rate of childhood leukemia. We're in what we call the Western Corridor,

00:50:46.260 - 00:50:57.900

what I consider the Western Corridor of Fifth Ward. And we have a high rate of asthma. When I was born, I told you I

00:50:57.900 - 00:51:10.160

was born on Lyons Avenue at St. Elizabeth Hospital. I was born with bronchitis. I outgrew that bronchitis -- it was in elementary

00:51:10.160 - 00:51:17.860

school. Because I remember distinctly how hard I used to breathe. I remember, because people would

00:51:17.860 - 00:51:27.680

actually call my name. Because I couldn't hear it, because it was part of me. But I would breathe so loud, I would

00:51:27.680 - 00:51:36.800

drown out the TV set. I would be breathing so loud, because I had bronchitis as a child. And I was born that way.

00:51:37.460 - 00:51:50.040

And you look in terms of why? Why people are saying they have lung cancer? Why are they saying they have all of these different types of cancers?

00:51:50.280 - 00:51:55.900

And why are these people dying at such a high rate? Why? It's a reason.

00:51:57.960 - 00:52:13.540

And our focus for the last four years, we have made more progress, in my opinion. And I'm just gonna stand and talk. We have made more progress in four years

00:52:13.540 - 00:52:26.440

than we've made in generations, in terms of helping the people that live in this community, the last four years. And the reason for that is because we

00:52:26.440 - 00:52:38.420

have what I call a real activist, vocal, fierce. And we have one young woman that I always call her the tip of the spear.

00:52:38.780 - 00:52:49.720

Her name's Sandra. I'm gonna introduce you to her later. But tip of the spear. You talk about fierce, raw, who lives right across

00:52:49.720 - 00:52:57.040

from the rail yard. Don't play. She does not play. Because there comes a time when you

00:52:57.040 - 00:53:10.460

have to push aside politeness. They want to serve you something like, it was a commercial about Grey Poupon, right?

00:53:13.120 - 00:53:20.180

It used to be a commercial about when they first started advertising Grey Poupon. And you'd say, would you pass the Grey Poupon?

00:53:20.180 - 00:53:33.380

And they would pass the Grey Poupon. And one of the kids would say, would you pass the jelly? We got some pass the jelly people that

00:53:33.380 - 00:53:43.320

get a lot of attention and they don't care. And that's what has really put a fire and a spark under folks.

00:53:43.740 - 00:53:56.100

That it's like, stop smiling at me. Stop trying to blind me with the whiteness of your teeth. Stop trying to feed me beautiful dinners.

00:53:57.220 - 00:54:08.100

When I first became a real advocate, I would tell politicians, you know, they'd invite me to dinner. Okay, we can go.

00:54:10.060 - 00:54:21.880

But you know that I've probably eaten better than whatever you can serve me with. You know, I had a corporate job. I ate well.

00:54:23.300 - 00:54:32.420

So you can't convince me of whatever it is you're trying to convince me with With a meal. And you have to be raw with them

00:54:32.420 - 00:54:39.120

sometimes. And let them know you are not playing with them. Because this is life and death.

00:54:39.520 - 00:54:46.480

We're not going to even be polite if we don't want to be. If you need to hear it the hard way, we're going to do it that way

00:54:46.480 - 00:54:56.040

as well. Because we have people that not only grew up in this community, that graduated from high school.

00:54:56.480 - 00:55:08.240

Then they went to universities or colleges. Or they went to the army or some branch of the military. And they never came back to live here.

00:55:10.160 - 00:55:27.040

But they grew up right there, they have gotten cancer or whatever. So we're not playing with you no more. Because we know, we've learned, there are

00:55:27.040 - 00:55:36.320

experts that have been teaching us. There are non-profits that have funding to show us certain things.

00:55:39.160 - 00:55:52.920

So it has really made us more ferocious when it comes to just letting people know, letting entities know. And we don't care what your position is

00:55:52.920 - 00:55:57.000

either. We don't care. It's okay. It's not important.

00:55:58.020 - 00:56:04.980

What's important is that you do right. And you've got to fight to make people do right when it comes to this sort of thing.

00:56:05.860 - 00:56:19.100

When you look at the cancer and the creosote, this is an old entity that we're battling. Probably the oldest business we have.

00:56:20.680 - 00:56:29.600

It was the railroad that went across the United States. It was a railroad. So they're everywhere.

00:56:30.540 - 00:56:38.700

And that's a lot of power at the beginning. That means you're still here too. And you cross every jurisdiction.

00:56:39.260 - 00:56:51.020

That's a lot of power. And to this very day, they haven't admitted to anything. That's why the last four years have been

00:56:51.020 - 00:57:00.940

critical in pushing for testing. We need proof. You don't have proof. I don't care what the corporation

00:57:00.940 - 00:57:05.720

is. I'm speaking about the railroad now. It could have been an oil and gas company.

00:57:06.080 - 00:57:12.680

It could have been a steel company. Whatever it is they did, they weren't going to do it until you could prove it. Even if they knew, they weren't going to

00:57:12.680 - 00:57:27.280

tell you they knew. But if you can't prove it, crickets, nothing. So that's why it's been very critical to get information and get the data and

00:57:27.280 - 00:57:38.160

to get it done well, that it cannot be challenged. I'm going to say that I don't know.

00:57:38.340 - 00:57:47.740

I don't have a lot of contact with elected officials. I have a lot of contact with people in my community, but not so much elected

00:57:47.740 - 00:57:54.600

officials. And a lot of that is intentional only because I don't have anything to talk to you about.

00:57:55.160 - 00:58:06.040

If I have something specific to talk to you about, I'm going to approach you then. But otherwise, no. Well, guess what?

00:58:06.440 - 00:58:16.520

One of them stood out very much so for me. And that was the late Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

00:58:19.400 - 00:58:33.740

She was real different from what I've come across when it comes to our elected [officials]. When I tell you she got into the neighborhood, right here, living room, wherever it was,

00:58:33.740 - 00:58:40.620

on your front porch, that's Sheila Jackson Lee. That was her. And she did not mind. She was a fighter.

00:58:40.780 - 00:58:48.340

People always said, oh, she just wants to take a lot of pictures. That's all she wants is photo ops. Well, she's having photo ops next to the

00:58:48.340 - 00:59:00.080

stuff she's actually done. So she can take all the pictures she wanted, all of them. Because she had the receipts to back what

00:59:00.080 - 00:59:09.300

she did. She really did. It was very unique, the power that she utilized coming out of Washington.

00:59:09.860 - 00:59:20.700

And I recognize that power was built over years. Some of these things that we're able to accomplish, you can't accomplish them overnight.

00:59:20.840 - 00:59:34.940

You just cannot. What did I say how important relationships were? They're important, very. And with her having the connections that she

00:59:34.940 - 00:59:52.480

built through the relationships, we were able to literally get the head of the EPA, the administrator, sitting on a front porch in a house, maybe a few blocks behind this church,

00:59:53.420 - 01:00:10.900

sitting on the front porch to talk about Creosote, to tour Fifth Ward. So we could talk about cement batch plants. We could talk about the air quality.

01:00:11.280 - 01:00:20.300

We could talk about everything that was going on. Because we were on a 16-passenger bus. And he toured everything.

01:00:20.300 - 01:00:29.960

And he was just focused on everything. And he came here because of the power and the influence of the advocates in the community.

01:00:30.320 - 01:00:44.900

Because we were fierce. But the help of Sheila Jackson Lee, because she had that connection, that powerful connection. He came down here twice, the head of

01:00:44.900 - 01:00:55.760

the EPA. He even made some adjustments to some of their policies. We were standing in, I mentioned the tip

01:00:55.760 - 01:01:04.960

of the spear named Sandra. You're going to meet her. Sandra, we were standing in her driveway. And we got a call out of Washington

01:01:04.960 - 01:01:12.940

from Sheila Jackson Lee. And she was telling us then what she had done with who she had talked to out of Washington.

01:01:12.940 - 01:01:22.420

We're standing in the driveway with a laptop on top of a trash can. Like four of us were just standing there. Why?

01:01:22.960 - 01:01:31.380

And she's just telling us what was going on. She connected to us. That's something that you don't find in a

01:01:31.380 - 01:01:39.560

lot of politicians. They connect to you in their office. They'll send their people. And don't get me wrong.

01:01:39.560 - 01:01:53.060

Their people usually are really, really good. If it weren't for some of their people, they wouldn't even have the power they have. Their people are just really outstanding.

01:01:54.120 - 01:02:03.040

They get things done for those politicians so they can stand before the cameras. They're really that good. But Sheila Jackson Lee, she not only sent

01:02:03.040 - 01:02:22.840

her people, she sent herself. She was there, which made her very unusual. She's the reason for the first COVID test site in 2020, because the nation had shut down.

01:02:22.920 - 01:02:29.640

Remember, the nation shut down in March. I want to say, I think it was March 12th. I'm not going to say it.

01:02:30.360 - 01:02:49.080

The whole nation shut down. Sheila Jackson Lee, in 2020, there was a food drop at what they call J Prince, the Prince Square complex,

01:02:49.300 - 01:02:59.860

Prince Complex, which is further down Jensen [Street] from us. And he's very famous because he made his money out of hip hop.

01:02:59.860 - 01:03:09.000

He's over at Raps A Lot records or whatever. I think Raps A Lot. But he's also a boxing enthusiast and has

01:03:09.000 - 01:03:15.800

a boxing gym. And they had a big food drop. And they can connect. They have a lot of reach

01:03:15.800 - 01:03:23.860

because when they have food drops, the cars are everywhere and they're way long. And they were having not only a food

01:03:23.860 - 01:03:32.460

drop, they were having a press conference. The Congresswoman was there. There were a couple of the politicians that

01:03:32.460 - 01:03:39.740

were there. The head of the, I want to say the Methodist [Hospital]. No, no.

01:03:39.880 - 01:03:48.420

I think it was the Memorial [Hermann] Hospitals. I think he was there with different people. So I got a call because I actually wasn't going to come.

01:03:49.060 - 01:03:56.080

I just didn't want to come. So I got a call from her, from the Congresswoman's people. And I wound up coming to the press

01:03:56.080 - 01:04:03.360

conference. And I wound up speaking briefly at the press conference as well. But I approached her.

01:04:03.420 - 01:04:10.040

That's the first time I ever approached her about anything. Because like I said, if I don't have anything specific to talk to you about.

01:04:10.040 - 01:04:26.680

I'm just not going to approach you. And I told her my frustration of not having a COVID test site in Fifth Ward that helped

01:04:26.680 - 01:04:35.920

us, that was actually close by. I think the closest at that time, there was something in Kashmere Gardens maybe. But not in Fifth Ward.

01:04:36.340 - 01:04:46.460

And I said, and the mayor just opened up another one, a drive-through. What about people that ride buses? Because we were still navigating how to handle

01:04:46.460 - 01:04:54.280

a pandemic. And so the medical people were trying to protect themselves as well. So you could drive through, but you weren't

01:04:54.280 - 01:05:05.880

walking up to them. So I'm like, people on buses are more than likely have a lot of comorbidities. They're at a higher risk than anybody in

01:05:05.880 - 01:05:15.120

attracting COVID-19. But yet, unless they're in a car, they can't get tested. And when I told her my dilemma, my

01:05:15.120 - 01:05:27.420

frustration, she said, give me a week, a week and a half, and I'll get back to you. And within that time frame, whatever she did,

01:05:27.680 - 01:05:43.280

they wound up getting permission with Dogan Elementary, which sits right at Waco and Liberty Road, right by the bridge. And we utilized Dogan Elementary, I think it

01:05:43.280 - 01:05:54.020

was like a week. I'm not sure exactly how long, and they accepted walk-ups. So people on buses could walk up and

01:05:54.020 - 01:06:06.100

get tested for COVID. She did that, she did that. That was my first time really dealing with her.

01:06:06.220 - 01:06:17.260

And she proved to me over and over again that she was interested in the people that actually lived in these communities. Because she repeated other types of things.

01:06:17.260 - 01:06:24.940

She sent our people out. She helped us with food drops, because a lot of people, they weren't working. Businesses just shut down.

01:06:25.660 - 01:06:31.620

They didn't have food. They only had enough money to last, maybe that month or whatever. You had problems with food.

01:06:31.780 - 01:06:42.140

You had problems with people being able to pay mortgages, people being able to pay rent. We needed those kind of folks that could help us maneuver that sort of thing.

01:06:42.140 - 01:07:00.640

And she was one of those people. So her helping us with the creosote and still being viable when President Joe Biden was still there and he came up with the

01:07:00.640 - 01:07:14.820

Inflationary Act and the infrastructure bill and all these kinds of things that brought funds, mega money, what I call, into communities. That was critical.

01:07:15.480 - 01:07:25.620

That was critical. I was actually at a meeting at LBJ Hospital. I went to this meeting that I was

01:07:25.620 - 01:07:35.720

invited to. And LBJ was trying at that time to talk about funding and getting the money to do

01:07:35.720 - 01:07:45.720

the expansion that they're going to do. Because it takes a whole lot of money to expand a hospital. And that is one of our county hospitals,

01:07:46.300 - 01:07:57.440

LBJ and Ben Taub. And I remember going to a meeting in a conference room at LBJ. And it had all these heads of all

01:07:57.440 - 01:08:13.660

of these different departments. And Sheila Jackson Lee had brought the Democratic whip out of Washington to talk about how important, how much we would appreciate any type

01:08:13.660 - 01:08:28.300

of funding that was voted in, that was approved to help extend and expand LBJ Hospital, all of that. So I had never known the

01:08:28.300 - 01:08:37.200

Democratic Whip out of Washington to come into Houston. But she brought her and she sat at that table and she listened to every person

01:08:37.200 - 01:08:48.340

that was seated and what they had to say. And at the time, I could actually share when I was so sick,

01:08:48.340 - 01:09:00.380

because I was contract and didn't have a regular health insurance. Trust me, when I was real sick with cancer, when I stopped

01:09:00.380 - 01:09:11.140

working, I tried to do that COBRA thing. Cobra bit me like a snake, like it was a cobra. Because cobra was extremely expensive to maintain individually,

01:09:11.380 - 01:09:23.120

extremely. And I knew, after looking at what I had and what I was able to live on, you know, through my own monies, that

01:09:23.120 - 01:09:29.760

I could not maintain that forever. I did ain't no way. It was gonna be a time, it was a time frame for that.

01:09:30.760 - 01:09:39.320

And it was through Ben Taub, when I got diagnosed, it came as a shock. Like I said, something that I couldn't fight,

01:09:39.720 - 01:09:46.360

could not talk to it, could not run from it. It was invisible, but it was dangerous and deadly. I went to Ben Taub

01:09:47.460 - 01:10:03.480

And I can tell you that I had some of the best doctors imaginable. My doctors came out of UT Health Sciences Center, and they came out of Baylor.

01:10:04.960 - 01:10:12.000

So when people want to look down their nose, oh, the county hospital, I can't go there. I must go to blah, blah, blah.

01:10:12.380 - 01:10:24.200

It's like, that's on you. Because I had the best. And when I say that they were attentive, my surgical teams, that's because I knew what

01:10:24.200 - 01:10:32.460

county hospitals were capable of doing. That's why I was important. When I was called into that meeting or asked to be a part of that meeting

01:10:32.460 - 01:10:43.040

at LBJ, I could tell them how critical and the importance of expanding a county hospital. Because they help everybody. Everybody.

01:10:45.900 - 01:11:02.560

And so when it comes to healthcare, like I said, I learned through fire how to maneuver that type of environment. And I learned sitting in the offices, in

01:11:02.560 - 01:11:19.640

the clinic area, in the waiting rooms, that even though eventually I was able to get disability because of my health, I sat next to people that

01:11:19.640 - 01:11:29.340

couldn't breathe, that couldn't get help, that were turned down for disability. Literally with lung cancer. Couldn't breathe.

01:11:30.400 - 01:11:38.920

Had no help other than what their family members were able to do for them. And what the county hospital was able to do for them.

01:11:39.900 - 01:12:00.740

So it's critical that the health situation be looked at, be pushed for, processes and procedures be narrowed, be more in computer speak, would call user

01:12:00.740 - 01:12:09.760

friendly. They need to be people friendly, human friendly, in order for everyone to benefit. Everyone.

01:12:12.880 - 01:12:27.140

I think I mentioned earlier that that was something that started yesterday. An initiative by one of our city council people, Dr. Letitia Plummer, through her own efforts.

01:12:27.360 - 01:12:38.520

This is her own efforts. This is not a City of Houston project. Through her own efforts, she's partnered with a national organization and there are advocates even today,

01:12:38.620 - 01:12:48.680

they're knocking on doors, trying to talk to people that are within what we call the four zones. They have four geographic zones around

01:12:48.680 - 01:12:59.660

the rail yard, the Englewood rail yard for Union Pacific. And within that geographic area, they're knocking on doors trying to ask people if they would

01:12:59.660 - 01:13:11.620

mind participating in a study. It is called the Cancer, I might get the name wrong because I just learned the proper name Friday and a lot of things

01:13:11.620 - 01:13:26.700

have been going on. But it is a study, a cancer shifting initiative that if the person is able to participate in that study, they're going to get

01:13:26.700 - 01:13:40.320

blood drawn and they're actually going to look at markers, cancer markers, in order to track and watch for certain things for the next about three, four years.

01:13:41.540 - 01:13:57.500

And it is a very unusual study when I say I'm not aware of a study like this coming into the neighborhood, a study of this kind concerning the cancer cluster.

01:13:58.180 - 01:14:08.000

So we're excited about it. I need to personally learn more details about it, but we already started knocking on doors.

01:14:08.000 - 01:14:20.360

And one of the partners besides the national organization that Dr. Plummer is partnering with, they're utilizing a little clinic that's right here on Liberty Road called Grace Clinic.

01:14:21.700 - 01:14:36.980

That's one of the partners. And so we're looking forward to that because that to me is opening a door of possibilities and will help long term, because we

01:14:36.980 - 01:14:45.280

need to look at this and we need to look at this from the human side. Now we've had a lot of people come in and do studies on samples, just like

01:14:45.280 - 01:15:01.480

the EPA is over looking right now. The testing that Union Pacific is responsible for, and we've had studies participate a few years ago with a study with Texas A&M.

01:15:01.480 - 01:15:09.080

They were testing soil. They were testing, looking for lead in the water, testing air, just testing different types of chemicals.

01:15:09.840 - 01:15:17.600

We knew that type of testing was done, but never something that focused on the human being. And that we are so appreciative of.

01:15:18.100 - 01:15:30.540

And we hope that opens the door for more funding and more studies of this type to help families. Thank you so much.

01:15:30.540 - 01:15:39.680

You're welcome. Can you please tell me what has been the biggest impact of the creosote contamination on you and the overall Fifth Ward community?

01:15:42.480 - 01:15:57.260

The biggest impact is the education of a lot of people in the community. You know, when you say creosote, it's like, okay.

01:16:01.800 - 01:16:09.220

We don't know what that really, you know, people don't really don't know what that is. They don't know, they heard of it and they know it's something bad.

01:16:09.580 - 01:16:19.480

But the fact that we're able to, whatever goes on with the EPA's help, we're able to get our flyers. I was explaining to someone the other day,

01:16:19.540 - 01:16:27.700

I said, when we're dealing with the super neighborhood, I have people who make phone calls, they call up whatever list we have. We got your phone number.

01:16:27.820 - 01:16:35.360

We're calling you. Flyers. We're putting them in various locations around the community. We do emails.

01:16:36.940 - 01:16:49.680

We do text. We send it any kind of way that we can to inform people and to educate them on what's going on, what's happening, where

01:16:49.680 - 01:17:02.340

we are. That's been the biggest impact to me. And it still has to be improved upon, because Fifth Ward is big.

01:17:02.960 - 01:17:13.880

We're big. The super neighborhood itself, my boundaries started at Buffalo Bayou on the south, all the way to Collingsworth, a little bit past the Collinsgworth

01:17:13.880 - 01:17:29.520

area, on the north, Hardy & Elysian on the west, and all the way to just past Lockwood, where the railroad track is, and then there's also a little street called Zindler,

01:17:30.300 - 01:17:39.560

a little old street. It's big, really big, with a lot of people. And we can't reach everybody if they haven't

01:17:39.560 - 01:17:52.080

come to a certain type of meeting that we have you on a distribution or whatever. So sometimes, like I said, we're leaving flyers at different locations, the neighborhood grocery stores.

01:17:52.240 - 01:18:01.520

We leave them in Fifth Ward. We leave them in Kashmere Gardens. We leave them in Denver Harbor. One of the things the EPA has done

01:18:01.520 - 01:18:11.620

over the past year, we started working on it a year ago, and we're now kind of getting our footing a little bit better, but they worked on what we call a

01:18:11.620 - 01:18:26.840

CAG, C-A-G. And that's a community advisory group. And we were voted in by people at a public meeting, residents in the room.

01:18:27.160 - 01:18:41.060

We were voted in to sit on that CAG, and the purpose of that CAG is to oversee and to look at the sampling and the way that's being done for, that's

01:18:41.060 - 01:18:53.420

been mandated by the EPA that Union Pacific must complete. The consultants that are doing, the consulting firm that is doing the testing, it is paid

01:18:53.420 - 01:19:02.740

for by Union Pacific, but the oversight is by the EPA. That is a coup when the EPA comes into Houston.

01:19:03.660 - 01:19:15.700

Because before that, all we had was what I call TCEQ, the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality. Do not let the title fool you.

01:19:17.720 - 01:19:35.480

Do not. Because quality is not their forte, and they have proven by the decisions they make and the permits they issue, human

01:19:35.480 - 01:19:46.800

beings are not a priority. We're a priority because we're there, they can't miss us, but in terms of [people's] quality of life, that's not

01:19:46.800 - 01:19:54.920

it. So to come out from under that was a coup. That's a coup.

01:19:56.140 - 01:20:09.700

Because they're powerful. We still are, who knows what day it'll be, fighting against a cement batch plant that was given a permit to

01:20:09.700 - 01:20:23.320

continue doing what they're doing. We have filled rooms of people fighting against it, including friends of Fifth Ward or people that know what happens.

01:20:23.320 - 01:20:36.560

Other environmental-focused non-profits coming in telling them, this is wrong, you shouldn't do this, blah, blah, blah, because of blah, blah, blah, spitting facts at them.

01:20:39.520 - 01:20:53.260

And they'll listen and turn right around and move forward. So to get from that testing from under them, them not being the oversight, was a

01:20:53.260 - 01:21:04.820

coup. And that's outstanding for us. Like I said, our true progress that I can see that's really moved has happened over

01:21:04.820 - 01:21:21.560

the last four years, and it's because of grassroots activists fighting and not being afraid. And people calling, people saying thank you, or people letting you know what's going on

01:21:21.560 - 01:21:29.560

with them, telling you about different things, opening up to you, because they might have seen you and said, I know you've got to fight for us, let me tell you about

01:21:29.560 - 01:21:36.160

blah, blah, blah. Now, sometimes some of the things they're telling us about have nothing to do with Creosote, but that's okay.

01:21:36.260 - 01:21:52.040

That's what super-neighborhood, like I said, we try to help with every aspect of a neighborhood. But it's been really uplifting, matter

01:21:52.040 - 01:22:09.900

of fact, today is the first day of the lying in state for Congressman Sylvester Turner. Before, when Sylvester Turner was the mayor, he and I did not see eye to eye.

01:22:09.900 - 01:22:19.060

I admit, we did not see eye to eye on some things. But he promised me, once he became the congressman, he said, Ms. Stevenson, I'm going to

01:22:19.060 - 01:22:26.220

prove to you, everything's going to improve. I'm going to do right. I'm going to do what I need to do as a congressman.

01:22:26.500 - 01:22:32.200

He looked me straight in my eyes, and I know he was going to do those things. He just didn't have a chance.

01:22:33.080 - 01:22:45.020

But I can tell you what he did do. He really was only able to function six weeks, but in those six weeks,

01:22:46.180 - 01:22:58.780

that man set up a town hall, not in person. It was a telephone town hall. It was so many people in that town

01:22:58.780 - 01:23:09.320

hall, it was unbelievable. And he was telling us -- the whole purpose was to tell us about every executive order that had come out of

01:23:09.320 - 01:23:24.200

Washington, D.C. And he brought that to us within that short time frame that he was able to really function in his position before we lost him the other day.

01:23:26.340 - 01:23:39.700

Don't you know that was just the beginning stages of what was going to happen? We've lost him, but I still stay encouraged.

01:23:40.360 - 01:23:51.020

I stay encouraged because he was the congressman of the 18th congressional district, which is one of the most famous congressional districts in the nation.

01:23:51.770 - 01:24:09.580

And it's famous beginning with people that walked the streets right here in this neighborhood. Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, as well as Mickey Leland. And they both had international fame after growing

01:24:09.580 - 01:24:22.720

up in this neighborhood, going to Phillis Wheatley. They were Wildcats. And then, of course, we had Craig Washington, Sheila Jackson Lee, who became an honorary Fifth Wardian and

01:24:22.720 - 01:24:33.720

Wildcat. And then we had Congressman Sylvester Turner. And today is the first day he's laying in state in City Hall.

01:24:37.020 - 01:24:43.580

So now we're going back to square one, trying to, whatever. I don't know. We have no idea what's going to happen.

01:24:44.900 - 01:24:57.340

We're waiting on the governor, I guess. That's very fair. You talked a little bit about the EPA and how you believe that they're really helpful

01:24:57.340 - 01:25:06.640

with handing out flyers and stuff like that. Can you please tell me about your perception of the EPA's response to the contamination in Fifth Ward?

01:25:09.620 - 01:25:25.160

In the beginning with the EPA, like I said, we had the administrator come in twice, sitting on porches and in yards. We're part

01:25:25.160 - 01:25:36.440

of what we call Region 6 of the EPA. And we had Dr. Nance. She was a former professor out of Texas

01:25:36.440 - 01:25:42.740

Southern University. I'm sure Dr. Nance was part of the Bullard Center, the Robert Bullard Center.

01:25:43.640 - 01:25:58.540

And Robert Bullard is actually the father of environmental justice, Dr. Bullard. Yes, he is. And Dr. Nance was head of Region

01:25:58.540 - 01:26:09.920

6. And in the beginning, when we first started, the EPA was able to take over and actually issued a mandate for Union Pacific

01:26:09.920 - 01:26:27.080

to do more testing, to provide more data, Dr. Nance was at the helm. And I remember that it takes a while to go through the processes

01:26:27.080 - 01:26:37.080

that are already set in place, particularly when you're dealing with the federal government. You're talking about a sea of red tape, a sea of "this is the way we've

01:26:37.080 - 01:26:47.960

always done it", or a sea of "this is how we're going to do it, and we don't care that you're here." Well, Dr. Nance came in and helped move

01:26:47.960 - 01:26:57.580

us to a level of testing that we richly deserved. And it wasn't going to be a run -of-the-mill test that they don't care about.

01:26:58.400 - 01:27:10.500

She pushed back against so much to make that happen. And for that, we will forever be grateful to her for doing that and running that

01:27:10.500 - 01:27:20.940

Region 6 office. She's no longer there because we've changed administrations now. But I can tell you, we had some

01:27:20.940 - 01:27:35.100

fierce supporters that were powerful, and they worked to make sure that the actual test that was going to happen, was going to be quality and one that we needed

01:27:35.100 - 01:27:47.000

in this community. And that's what she did, heading the Region 6 office of the EPA. So with the EPA, now we have a

01:27:47.000 - 01:27:59.800

group of people that come out of the Dallas area once a month or twice a month, really, that work with us. They helped us to eventually form the CAG

01:27:59.800 - 01:28:10.980

that I mentioned earlier. They inform us, they keep us updated of things that's going on. The CAG actually consists of three neighborhoods, Fifth

01:28:10.980 - 01:28:22.820

Ward, Kashmere Gardens, and Denver Harbor. And there were representatives that were voted in for all of those three neighborhoods. And they work with us with the CAG.

01:28:22.820 - 01:28:34.260

And then usually once we have a CAG meeting, which is once a month, near the end of the month, we will have a community meeting with the EPA,

01:28:34.640 - 01:28:50.000

where they come in and they explain what's going on. Now, the last meeting was different because on January 31st, they issued the first

01:28:50.000 - 01:29:03.160

set of data for some scattered commercial sites. They weren't necessarily within the four zones. They were scattered.

01:29:04.520 - 01:29:16.440

And some were schools, parks. One of the parks was the historic Hester House that was created by Julia C

01:29:16.560 - 01:29:28.880

Hester. She lived on Lyons Avenue. I think she started maybe around late 30s, 1939 or

01:29:28.880 - 01:29:35.820

so. But I know that where they are now, that was around 1942. I think that facility was been there since

01:29:35.820 - 01:29:45.320

1942. And they tested over there. That was one of the sites. And they did find some contamination.

01:29:46.100 - 01:29:59.060

And Hester House is outside of the zones that were set up. And they found not only dioxin, I think the other one, I hope I'm pronouncing it

01:29:59.060 - 01:30:06.080

right. I want to say it was benzopyrene or something. It's some very powerful toxic chemical.

01:30:06.460 - 01:30:14.040

Yeah, benzo(a)pyrene. Yeah, that's correct. And the EPA, one of the things at the last public meeting that they mentioned is

01:30:14.040 - 01:30:21.320

that, well, they're looking at what they call screening levels. And the screening levels is what they consider to be okay.

01:30:21.420 - 01:30:29.220

And anything above the screening level, they have whatever their EPA committee is determine whether or not it's something they need to take action on.

01:30:29.480 - 01:30:41.360

They're still looking at those. But at that meeting, it was stated that, well, that some of those levels, some of the things that they found over there, it

01:30:41.360 - 01:30:53.780

looks like even if it exceeded just a little bit above the screening level, it wasn't actionable or whatever. And, but they're still looking at final determinations

01:30:53.780 - 01:31:04.960

of some of the sites. And when I tell you, just listening to the way they presented it, it set off a firestorm in the meeting, a firestorm.

01:31:05.240 - 01:31:12.320

Me and Abi were there, Shay wasn't there, but it was such a mess. It was, they explained it really poorly. It was really bad.

01:31:12.320 - 01:31:22.620

And, you know, they would say, oh, this is above the screening level for children, but it's below the screening level for adults. But that screening level goes from 20 to

01:31:22.620 - 01:31:27.660

500. So it's like, everything's going to be over for children. But then they say, because it's under adults,

01:31:27.700 - 01:31:33.580

they don't test it. It's, it's, it's actually like a joke. It's so bad. It's so bad.

01:31:34.480 - 01:31:40.300

Yeah. So I'm going to tell you one of the things that's going to help us with the CAG.

01:31:41.040 - 01:31:48.640

We have gotten permission with the EPA. We wanted to bring in our own experts that we trust.

01:31:51.640 - 01:32:01.300

And they were like, well, we have our experts, you know, that are already vetted with the federal government, yada, yada, yada. And, you know, we

01:32:01.300 - 01:32:08.440

need to be able to use them to -- okay, you can bring them, but we want to bring ours too. And so they went in,

01:32:08.520 - 01:32:16.180

and talked to whatever the powers that be, and they realized that we were adamant and we wanted our own people. And then we put the cherry on

01:32:16.180 - 01:32:26.760

top. They'll come in for free. One of them is Dr. Grace Lewis, who is with the Environmental Defense Fund.

01:32:27.600 - 01:32:35.620

We've been meeting with her every week for years because of the things that have been going on in Fifth Ward. Powerhouse.

01:32:36.220 - 01:32:43.240

And the other is Dr. Denae King, who is a professor out of Texas Southern University at the Bullard Center. She's one of the directors.

01:32:44.060 - 01:32:54.120

She's like the alternate. We got Dr. Grace and then Dr. King. We call Dr. Grace Lewis, Dr. Grace, but we've been working with them for years, for

01:32:54.120 - 01:33:07.060

at least four years, because I really got to know them because of the study that Texas A&M did in Fifth Ward, and

01:33:07.060 - 01:33:13.720

they trained some of us to be citizen scientists. So we were actually helping to do some of the testing and getting some of the

01:33:13.720 - 01:33:27.060

samples for water and lead, which also led to a partnership with the city of Houston a few years ago Where we

01:33:27.200 - 01:33:35.100

got our own plumber to start testing the water that we had done through that study with Texas A&M.

01:33:35.380 - 01:33:46.060

And then we started looking at the pipes from where the city starts, to the house, looking for what type of pipes is it? Why do we

01:33:46.060 - 01:33:55.640

have these different levels of lead in the water? And then the city of Houston decided they would help and they started testing the pipes

01:33:55.640 - 01:34:12.640

from that meter to the city. The city of Houston literally does not know what they have underground. They don't know what it is.

01:34:15.180 - 01:34:24.760

I now know I have copper pipes. Some people have copper, some parts of Houston so old, I'm sure they got cement down

01:34:24.760 - 01:34:32.680

there, but the city of Houston couldn't tell us nothing. So that, and because of the work we had done with Texas A&M, that's how

01:34:32.680 - 01:34:38.000

we managed to get the city of Houston to do that. And then they started testing your water for free.

01:34:38.460 - 01:34:45.300

So we started as Fifth Ward block captains. And we started with the city of Houston's help.

01:34:45.440 - 01:34:53.400

We would get their information, provide a bottle from the city of Houston. We go to the house, talk to the people, ask them if they would like to

01:34:53.400 - 01:35:01.960

have their water tested for lead and other chemicals. And they said yes, and the person would have to run their water first thing

01:35:01.960 - 01:35:10.440

early that morning, maybe in the bathtub or wherever, but that water. It'd be the first drop of that water,

01:35:10.720 - 01:35:16.620

first drop. They'd run that, put that water in it, and they'd sit a bottle on the porch.

01:35:16.780 - 01:35:24.320

So the city of Houston can come pick it up and test it for lead. And that was because of the work we had done with Texas A&M.

01:35:24.680 - 01:35:33.820

And that's how we were able to help them with testing water for free for houses in the city of Houston. I don't

01:35:33.820 - 01:35:42.500

know if that program is in existence right at this very moment, but it definitely was in the under in existence prior to the current administration.

01:35:43.340 - 01:35:57.440

So what years? Last year, up to last year, when Sylvester Turner was still the mayor, because one of the things

01:35:57.440 - 01:36:07.000

that he did at the very end, he put aside about $5 million for any relocation that anybody that wanted to relocate out of the cancer cluster.

01:36:07.780 - 01:36:19.680

And then later on, the city of Houston city council helped to protect that money, and say, don't touch this money.

01:36:21.280 - 01:36:30.780

This money is for the relocations where people want to relocate, be it renters or homeowners. Yeah. So Sylvester Turner did do that before he

01:36:30.780 - 01:36:38.300

left as mayor. So it's very recent in terms of the water testing. As far as I know, they're still doing

01:36:38.300 - 01:36:49.120

it. I think, I'm not sure. Anyway, it's worth looking into. It's so crazy, everything that Trump has gotten

01:36:49.120 - 01:37:00.820

rid of. It's safe to assume that everything is gone. It's so bad. It's like every day is something

01:37:00.820 - 01:37:05.900

new. Every day. 24/7. Something odd is happening every day.

01:37:06.560 - 01:37:15.420

Yeah, yeah. And I have another question. You said that Sheila Jackson Lee brought in the worker from the EPA or the director.

01:37:15.420 - 01:37:21.940

It was a man. It wasn't Dr. Erthea Nance. No, Dr. Nance was over the region six seat.

01:37:22.420 - 01:37:29.840

EPA is divided across the nation in different regions. So she was over region six. So Region Six, definitely they're headquartered in Dallas,

01:37:30.320 - 01:37:39.660

but region six covers the Houston area as well. So that's Dr. Nance. The administrator is over the entire nation.

01:37:40.320 - 01:37:48.640

And his name was Regan. And I'm sure he's been replaced. You know, within 24 hours of his inauguration, he replaced

01:37:48.640 - 01:37:56.420

a bunch of people. So Regan was one of them. But that was Regan was his last name. Dr. Michael Regan, I think.

01:37:56.520 - 01:38:08.960

I can't remember his first name, but I always called him Administrator Regan. Okay, thank you. So we ended talking about the EPA and

01:38:08.960 - 01:38:16.340

your perception of their response to the situation. And all of our other questions, you've pretty much answered while talking. So thank you so much.

01:38:16.460 - 01:38:24.340

If there's anything we didn't ask you about that you'd like to talk about, or like any closing comments you'd like to end this with.

01:38:33.490 - 01:38:49.950

In particular? Oh, okay. Yes. Um, the thing that I would like to.

01:38:51.950 - 01:39:08.650

There's something that I think that helps to maintain a status quo in an underserved community. And that thing is, like I said, the

01:39:08.650 - 01:39:28.950

education and the understanding that community members have about what impacts them. And sometimes in a community like this, we have folks that are literally clueless of how

01:39:28.950 - 01:39:38.390

government works. Now, a lot of that, I think, has something to do with the fact that when I was in high school, you could not

01:39:38.390 - 01:39:51.070

graduate unless you had civics and economics. And what I think I'm seeing, and I'm not sure I could be wrong about that, but I think it's one of the contributing

01:39:51.070 - 01:40:03.950

factors of what's keeping us in dire straits. The lack of knowledge in those areas. People literally don't understand civics at all.

01:40:04.610 - 01:40:14.550

They don't. They go and they don't understand that there are not just laws, there are ordinances.

01:40:15.350 - 01:40:23.610

Say, in the city of Houston, this isn't a law that was created. They're dealing with not just laws that the state or the federal government had.

01:40:23.850 - 01:40:41.410

They're dealing with what we call city ordinances. And these city ordinances can be impacted if, first of all, you know they exist. And then if you know what's in them,

01:40:42.170 - 01:40:50.550

because they impact us day to day, day to day. So when you're looking at something and you see something on the news or somebody's talking

01:40:50.550 - 01:40:59.030

about something, that person not only probably has been on the news, that person's probably been up there at City Hall to talk about whatever the detail of that ordinance is.

01:40:59.290 - 01:41:11.270

Because sometimes our ordinances are crazy. One of the things that I'm seeing, for example, they're literally going to look at people who might have lost their homes, not

01:41:11.270 - 01:41:22.010

because they lost their jobs, basically. You got to make money to pay a mortgage. You just have to.

01:41:22.130 - 01:41:32.650

And mortgages are not cheap. And what I've seen over the past five years is that mortgages and rentals have just escalated.

01:41:33.450 - 01:41:41.350

That has nothing to do with the administration we have now. It was just escalating. And you have,

01:41:41.350 - 01:41:50.050

we're undergoing in this community what we call gentrification. So you have people who might have lost their jobs because of

01:41:50.050 - 01:42:03.430

a major illness -- a major illness will take you completely off. When it comes to finances. They're going to literally almost criminalize the fact

01:42:03.430 - 01:42:14.860

you don't have a place to live. And I don't think some of the people, they're looking at, all these homeless people.

01:42:15.660 - 01:42:26.800

Oh, here they are hanging in there. And don't get me wrong, I had some issues with certain things concerning the homeless situation in Fifth Ward.

01:42:27.600 - 01:42:37.580

Well, that impacts Fifth Ward, myself in the past. But one thing I never thought is -- just because you're homeless don't mean that you

01:42:37.580 - 01:42:45.400

should go to jail. That's crazy. I can't describe it in any other way, it's crazy.

01:42:47.640 - 01:42:56.400

You're going to be punished because you're poor? Seriously? And you can't afford to live somewhere? What?

01:42:57.960 - 01:43:08.020

Because they got to go somewhere. So if they don't have a place of actual structure, they're going to sleep in the park or they're going to sleep on a

01:43:08.020 - 01:43:15.400

bench or whatever. But the fact they're trying to criminalize it is taking it to another level. I've never seen this before.

01:43:15.800 - 01:43:27.780

And I got an issue with that part because I got people who we've lost through gentrification. They couldn't pay whatever the rent was or

01:43:27.780 - 01:43:44.900

they were living somewhere and maybe the landlord, because of the ordinance, the way the ordinances are written, they don't really punish somebody who literally won't fix the toilet in

01:43:44.900 - 01:43:52.240

somebody's rental. They don't really hit them. They don't. And I don't understand that.

01:43:52.950 - 01:44:04.380

But people's first reaction is that if you don't do this, then I'm not going to pay you rent. Because they don't understand the power of paying

01:44:04.380 - 01:44:16.440

that rent. And what happens is when they go before a judge or JP, which is usually the oversight entity, they side with

01:44:16.440 - 01:44:23.400

the landlord, even though the landlord got you in a house that when you walk into the kitchen, everything is about to fall down on your head.

01:44:26.420 - 01:44:37.260

Because we have ordinances in place that don't really address or go after that. It's as though they lean towards that property owner.

01:44:37.820 - 01:44:48.360

And this is not a condemnation of all property owners because a lot of them, they're not this way. But you got enough of them that's just

01:44:48.360 - 01:45:01.440

rotten to the core when it comes to how they treat human beings. And without changing certain ordinances, they're going to keep doing what they're doing.

01:45:03.910 - 01:45:10.450

So you live in a place and you decide you can't go pay the rent and then you get evicted. Where are you going to go?

01:45:11.430 - 01:45:19.130

You don't have no money. Where are you going to go? On that bench or in that park. And now you're going to get arrested.

01:45:20.050 - 01:45:32.050

I mean, they're pushing towards that, criminalizing. I'm not into that. Now, they had a homeless navigation center a few years ago.

01:45:32.130 - 01:45:39.390

That's one of the reasons me and another politician kind of bumped heads. Because they brought it into my community and we didn't know nothing about it.

01:45:39.390 - 01:45:50.770

We were totally blindsided by everybody else's idea of what should come over here. And I'm like, you're trying to what now? You're trying to bring homeless into Fifth Ward?

01:45:51.950 - 01:46:01.330

We got people that need help with their bathrooms. They need help with their pipes. They need help with their roof.

01:46:01.350 - 01:46:08.270

They have no roof. Everything's raining into the house. They have no money to help that. And then what you're telling me is you're

01:46:08.270 - 01:46:16.050

going to spend millions to bring homeless into Fifth Ward and put them in what you call a navigation center. And then let's just face it.

01:46:16.110 - 01:46:26.270

They go lie to me and others and say, it's to transition them in 45 days into permanent housing. 45 days.

01:46:26.910 - 01:46:35.010

Did you tell everybody else about that miracle working? Because that's a miracle. And they pushed it and they forced it

01:46:35.010 - 01:46:44.210

in here. And what they did is -- it is a facility that was set up without the community, I had like

01:46:44.210 - 01:46:52.150

almost 800 signatures saying, "don't put this over here." And our politicians went against it. They voted against it.

01:46:52.350 - 01:47:08.150

They voted against the community because at that time, the mayor wanted it. And I know when you start looking and connecting your dots, those that

01:47:08.150 - 01:47:19.430

took civics, started connecting the dots and said, the people that now live downtown and there's a lot moving downtown, they're sick of stepping over those homeless people.

01:47:19.990 - 01:47:27.310

They live downtown on the sidewalks and in nooks and crannies. So you look around for a place to put them.

01:47:28.190 - 01:47:35.470

So you send them into one of the poorest neighborhoods. You can figure it out because we didn't have somebody protecting us that you talked to.

01:47:36.330 - 01:47:44.090

And you did that to us. Then we have to start educating people. This is what they're trying to do to us.

01:47:45.110 - 01:47:55.570

We know that your pipes don't work. It's a never ending problem because we don't understand how government works.

01:47:55.570 - 01:48:06.350

So only a handful of us may go and complain before city council. We need a mob and we need people to understand.

01:48:06.930 - 01:48:14.670

Sometimes it's not just the folks that you always depend on to show up somewhere to start talking about stuff. We need you there too.

01:48:15.630 - 01:48:24.950

And that really can apply to every neighborhood. Every last one of them. We need other people. We know you want to go and just

01:48:24.950 - 01:48:31.950

have dinner and then watch us on the news. But we need you to show up and not have dinner right then.

01:48:32.290 - 01:48:39.890

You show up with us. Even if you don't speak, sit in the audience because when they see you, they know you care.

01:48:44.830 - 01:48:58.130

My message right now is to tell anybody in any neighborhood, particularly in what's called underserved neighborhoods, sometimes we need you to show up. And if you're working and can't show up,

01:48:58.350 - 01:49:07.190

we need you to pick up a phone. When we say call that person's office and tell them you don't like blah, blah, blah, call them.

01:49:08.430 - 01:49:16.270

You have a right. That is your right. They're supposed to serve. Their oath is "I'm a public servant."

01:49:17.870 - 01:49:27.430

They need to follow that oath. But if you don't hold them accountable, stop depending on a handful of people to always speak for you.

01:49:28.490 - 01:49:38.270

Sometimes we need you to stand there to hold us up. And we need that message to really resonate among a lot of folks.

01:49:38.510 - 01:49:50.950

Because when you hang around us, you learn a lot about stuff that really impacts you. Because that's how we learn by showing up. That's how we know what stuff is.

01:49:51.390 - 01:49:59.410

I didn't even know about the Homeless Navigation Center until somebody picked up a phone and called me. And they told me, Ms. Stevenson, did you

01:49:59.410 - 01:50:08.370

know? And they found out by accident themselves. But that's how I learned. You'd learn too if I knew you.

01:50:08.870 - 01:50:16.370

And I know you if you show up every now and then. So when you show up to certain things and we get your

01:50:16.370 - 01:50:25.870

name or number or whatever, we send you whatever information we get. Because we tired of you being blindsided because we tired of being blindsided too.

01:50:26.470 - 01:50:36.470

But we need you to be a little bit more out there. We ain't asking you to riot. We're not asking you to do none of

01:50:36.470 - 01:50:43.570

that. We're asking you to pay attention. Pick up a phone sometimes or send an email when we ask.

01:50:44.250 - 01:50:55.270

Because we cannot continue to do it all. We just cannot. And we need it on every age group because I'm on the other side of the

01:50:55.270 - 01:51:04.930

marker. I'd like to go sit on my front porch and watch cars go by. So I need folks to know something when

01:51:04.930 - 01:51:15.350

I leave. You gotta know something. Because when you don't know nothing and I'm gone, all you are is prey. Looking

01:51:15.350 - 01:51:24.470

at you like you a french fry. They're gonna eat you alive with a smile. Remember I told you about those shiny teeth? They're gonna eat you alive with a smile.

01:51:25.110 - 01:51:32.350

And you won't know what's happening. We need you to know something. You're gonna know something when you show up. That's all we ask.

01:51:32.670 - 01:51:38.810

That's it. I ask that and every community needs to know that. All of you.

01:51:41.910 - 01:51:43.190

Thank you so much.