Habitat for Humanity Home Gets Boys Out of the 'Hood

A good mother often makes huge sacrifices for her children and Stephanie Patterson is no exception. About a year ago, Stephanie determined that her twin sons, who were approaching their teen years could be in serious danger if they remained in the apartment in Lake Heights.

Lake Heights is a Carbondale neighborhood, consisting mostly of public housing, and with a bad reputation locally. "A lot of people there are involved with things I didn't want them into - drugs, shootings, theft," Stephanie said.

Young African-American males have a hard enough times without having to fight their environment, she said. So, she began looking for a way out.

"I took the apartment there thinking it would be a temporary thing," she said. "But a short time turns into a year, turns into five years, and you know you have to get your kids out of there."

"I didn't grow up in that kind of environment and I didn't want them to either," she said. Stephanie grew up in Carbondale, mostly raised in Brookside Manor, an apartment complex close to SIU. "I always had it in me to want better for them, so we had to get out of there. I didn't want them to become the victims of crime or the crime environment."

Josh and Simeon are polite, well-behaved and hard-working young men, Stephanie pointed out with a mother's justifiable pride, "and I want it to stay that way."

Friends knew that Stephanie was looking for a way out and that as a single mother raising two boys, she didn't have a lot of extra cash or good options. "I knew someone who was familiar with the Habitat for Humanity program and recommended me for it. Because of my situation, we were moved to the top of the list."

In fact, Stephanie and her boys could have had a new home sooner, but the first ones that they were eligible to help build were in another neighborhood that Stephanie was not happy with. "It would have been like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire," she said. "You can build a brand new house, but if it's in the 'hood, then you are still in a bad place."