Latch-key kids and their parents at the West Rock projects are “crying out” for after-school activities. Patrina Reddick (pictured at right) has a program set up and the families signed up, but she and officials downtown haven’t been able to work out sending the money.
Reddick and her son Pierre founded People Involved in Motivating Our Students Higher, or PIMOSH, a tutorial, mentoring and enrichment network for kids and their families, in 2002. It is in the West Rock Family Center on Wilmot Road. And it represents the kind of youth program all sectors of New Haven have been clamoring for in the wake of recent deadly teen violence.
Reddick was one of the outspoken participants in the recent brouhaha over a rumored “lockdown” at the nearby Westville Manor public housing project. Her service, which supplies high-level individualized tutoring as well as music and enrichment activities for kids and their parents, is very busy in the summer, but these days most of the chairs, as a former mentor in the program, Courtney Liverman, is demonstrating, are empty. Currently PIMOSH has only six or seven kids in the tutoring program.
“In the summer, there’s no problem, with lots of kids in our programs who are subsidized by Board of Ed programs or DCF, but come September there are very few parents, especially around here in West Rock, who can afford the program, despite the fact that so many of these kids desperately need it,” she said.
“So many of them are latch-key kids, with the 8‑year-old home cooking for the 5‑year-old, and that’s why the report cards, which just came out, are really awful in this area. But the parents are poor, if there are other programs that are free, they often don’t know about them or can’t get there, and there is no subsidy for kids who need it the most. At PIMOSH we do homework prep, one on one, and a lot computer-based, and we’re directly in touch with the kids’ teachers. It’s high level, like Sylvan, but we charge only half as much, and with assessments and our mentors providing reports directly to the teachers. I think the powers that be, the Housing Authority in particular, have a responsibility here. In October they promised us some relief, subsidies for some of the kids, supplies, and computers, and I don’t see a lot of action.”
Reddick is referring to a meeting she and Curtis Jennings, who heads the West Rock Development Corporation (for whom Reddick is a part-time worker), had with the New Haven Housing Authority personnel , including Executive Director Jimmy Miller and Acting Resident Services Manager Sylvia Cooper (who declined to be photographed).
“At that meeting,” Reddick asserted, “we told them the whole picture of child and adolescent services needed here, and they said they would put out an RFP (request for proposals) by December. Well, I haven’t seen it. Also, they said for our immediate needs “” and look at this place, the computers and the library were all vandalized at the end of summer “” they would provide us with about $30,000, a third for scholarships for the kids, a third to get the computers fixed up, and a third for music, dance and other enrichment activities, including pay for the mentors and teachers. Well, none of that has happened, except for a consultant who came around here, maybe as a result of the meeting and the news reports on Tuesday. We have people crying out for the services. I’m reaching the end of my rope.”
Did Reddick, in her zeal to provide services, misunderstand an empathetic response from housing authority staff and interpret empathy as commitment and immediate provision of funds?
Reached by telephone at the housing authority, Sylvia Cooper said, “It’s not possible that kind of commitment could be made verbally. And, by the way, there are lots of programs in the city that West Rock parents and their kids could avail themselves of in addition to Patrina’s. The city could use a calendar with everything available to families.
“Regarding what she says about a verbal commitment for funding, no. Everything goes through a procurement process. Mr. Miller could never have said that. As to the computer consultant who came by and talked to Patrina about setting up computers in the family services room there, that has nothing to do with what she’s talking about. That was bid out weeks ago and it was in the planning for a while, as is the fixing of the roof and the walls of the center.”
Reddick insisted she was clear enough in the conversation. (By the way, she also heartily endorsed the idea of a Board of Ed all-year-long after-school, vacation, and weekend activities calendar, one as thorough as the summer’s, and perhaps published in the Independent and the Register.)
“Look, we sent out confirming memos into the New Haven housing authority and flyers out to residents in the West Rock projects to sign up for classes in November. The interest is high, but no funds are in sight except for grants that Reddick has been able to raise through Empower New Haven for video workshops for six kids.
Ever entrepreneurial, Reddick, a woman— who herself grew up in the Church Street South projects, lived in Section 8 housing, became a Section 8 landlord, and earned an MSW degree — supplements the PIMOSH revenue stream with the sale of CDs made by the Crunch Bunch, kids and their parents in the summer music program. Using urban rhythms to write songs to reinforce language and math lessons, they’ve produced two CDs, and are pursuing the interest of a record company. The Bunch is performing on Dec. 13 at the Lawn Club at Empower New Haven’s Christmas extravaganza.
Now what of that grant? Reached by telephone, Miller said, “I support the goals and programs at West Rock, but everything must go through a public procurement process over the $30,000 threshold. If there’s a misunderstanding here, and if I misspoke “” I was in that meeting for five minutes “” it’s regrettable.”
And the RFP? “It will be out there for bidding in the winter or the spring.”
That’s a long time for an edgy social entrepreneur, and the kids of West Rock, to wait.
As I read this article and recent news coverage about the youth forums and the proposed curfew, the kids are telling us what we already know. They want a future - both immediate and long term. Let's give them this future. How? Through high quality schools. It's not impossible.