News
 

Project Row Houses gives hope to young mothers

Program builds a sense of community in Houston's Third Ward
 

By Amanda Zirgulis
The Daily Cougar

The program for young mothers at Project Row Houses meant hope for 28-year-old artist Shy Morris.

"My son, Sanander, didn't have too much. We were both sleeping on the sofa at my grandmother's house," Morris, who went through the year-long program in 1998, said. "The Young Mothers Program added stability. I could be Shy instead of what everyone else wanted me to be."

Project Row Houses, founded in 1992 by artist and community activist Rick Lowe, converted two blocks of once-decrepit shotgun houses along Holman Avenue just west of the UH campus into a center of opportunity for the Third Ward.

"Rick saw these homes, and at the time they were run down and rampant with people using crack and other drugs," Robert Pruitt, visual arts coordinator at Project Row Houses, said.

In addition to installations celebrating African-American art, history and culture, the Young Mothers Program helps foster a sense of community. Young single mothers can live on the property in two-bedroom homes complete with kitchen and laundry facilities.

Aside from participating in life skills courses and counseling, the mothers can attend school and work knowing that their children are being cared for in on-site daycare. The program gives the mothers a chance to rebuild.

"I think a lot of young, depressed mothers struggle so hard to provide for their family," Morris said. "I think somewhere down the line, they lose their kids."

Lowe gave Morris -- who wants to open a gallery after she graduates from Texas Southern University -- the chance to open a gift shop at Project Row Houses from which she can sell her own work. She is a team leader with AmeriCorps, the national volunteering initiative, and recently worked with neighborhood kids on a mural covering graffiti on an Almeda Road building.

"The owner of the building has decided to keep our artwork permanent," Morris said. "After I volunteer 1,700 hours over a 10-and-a-half-month period, I'll be eligible to receive scholarship money to finish school."

Among Project Row Houses' other work is fighting displacement of residents in the Third Ward and preserving cultural artifacts that are all too often lost to development.

"Stopping displacement is hard," donor Lincoln Carr said. "Most people here are renting with subsidies. There is no legal recourse, because people who live here don't own the property. The owner has the right to sell if they want."

Carr said the value of Project Row Houses lies in education and empowerment for people like Morris.

"If you teach a man to fish, he can eat whenever he wants," Carr said. "Where you come from does not dictate where you'll end up."

 Send comments to dcnews@mail.uh.edu