Integrating art into a community

This article talks about a neighborhood in Houston which has become a inner city artists' residency program. What makes it noteworthy is the way it is able to change lives -- both artists and local residents.

Project Row Houses - Rick Lowe - - Art - Report - New York Times: "The campus, as Mr. Lowe calls it, now includes eight houses for visiting artists, local and international. 'We give them a key,' he said. 'They come for anywhere from a week to five months. They can do whatever they want. There are a lot of other places for artists to prepare exhibitions for museums or alternative spaces. We encourage them to figure out how to be creative within this community.'

"...Project Row Houses has created the Young Mothers Residential Program, the brainchild of Deborah Grotfeldt, who worked with Mr. Lowe at the beginning. Since 1996, it has provided a year’s housing and support for single women struggling to finish school and get their bearings. It has been as successful as the artist residency program.

"Assata Richards was one of the first mothers to move in. 'Back then, I was 23,' she told me when I called her up in Pittsburgh, where she is now an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Pittsburgh. 'My son was 6. I was financially struggling and having a hard time with housing. I was low on self-esteem. I had been a high achiever, but motherhood, working and going to school were taking a toll on me.'

"The program offered child care, classes in child rearing, workshops on spirituality and sexuality, and mutual support. 'We learned that we didn’t have to be single mothers, even if we weren’t married,' Ms. Richards said. “We didn’t have to do anything by ourselves.'”