Palm Beach County residents were asked:
Please tell us about an important moment in your life that would help someone understand what it’s like living in your neighborhood.
The stories and micro-narratives they submitted (as part of the We Are Here SenseMaker project) are listed below. Click ZOOM IN to learn more about the community member and how they interpreted their submission. NOTE: Some stories were partially transcribed by volunteers who shortened the narratives and referred to the storytellers in the third person (e.g., “her experience was” instead of “my experience was”).
Neighborhoods with poor quality housing, few resources, and unsafe conditions impose stress, which can lead to depression. The stress imposed by adverse neighborhoods increases depression above and beyond the effects of the individual’s own personal stressors, such as poverty and negative events within the family or work-place.
Getting off drugs changed my life. I was on drugs bad and i had to realize who i was. I went to rehab to get my life together and things been good ever sense.
Two positive, one positive being everyone is a whole, such as being a diversemulticultural community. Another being welcoming and feeling like a family from different races
Well I was Always good in my neighborhood it was my grandchildren that wasn’t they left me they didn’t want to come see me. Because all the violence that was going on. Mother and farther got tired of it tired of them crying
I lived in boynton all my life. Beautiful city but ugly people. There are people that have great hearts and I’ve met plenty of them but one time i went to the corner store and and i saw a mother and a child outside she had one bag of chips. Her daughter cried she was hungry and she pushed her the chips she looked up and asked her mom if she was hungry and mom shook her head no but when i asked she said yes i gave her money i went back to that same spot a couple months later she gave me 40$ and told me thank you. And she looked great