As long as we’ve had neighborhoods, neighbors have been a help to each other. Neighbors used to watch each other’s children, keep an eye out for older adults, run errands for each other, and let each other know of programs and services that could be of help.
But many of our neighborhoods – especially those like West Greenville – have changed dramatically as residents in rental homes have been displaced by development and increasing costs. The former residents may be disconnected from each other and from the help available to them.
That’s where people like Ma’ta Crawford come in. Ma’ta is a community navigator and on this episode shares her personal experiences of a changing Greenville, the ways she serves as a connection between government, nonprofits, and residents.
Produced by The Greenville Podcast Company. Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville.
Transcript
Katy Smith
As long as we’ve had neighborhoods, neighbors have been a help to each other. Neighbors used to watch each other’s children, keep an eye out for older adults, run errands for each other, and let each other know of programs and services that could be of assistance. But many of our neighborhoods, especially those like West Greenville, have changed dramatically as residents and rental homes have been displaced by development and increasing costs. The former residents may be disconnected from each other and from the help available to them. That’s where people like Ma’ta Crawford come in. Ma’ta is a community navigator and on this episode, she shares her personal experiences of a change in Greenville, and the ways she serves as a connection between government, nonprofits, and residents. Two notes about things you’ll hear in this episode. Ma’ta references spin in this conversation. It’s an organization that she founded, which stood for single parents in need, and she called those involved with it villagers, she has since spun off spin to other larger organizations who saw the need that she saw to better integrate single parents into their work. She also references that there are 3500 people experiencing homelessness in Greenville County. As she mentioned, there are different ways to tally this number. And the official 2021 figure was 3300. The next point in time count, which is a census of people experiencing homelessness, takes place in January of 2023. So now let’s hear from Ma’ta Crawford.
Katy Smith
I am joined today by a person who I admire so tremendously and have learned so much from and that is Miss Ma’ta Crawford. And I would love you to start Ma’ta by just telling us about yourself and what you do to make Greenville great.
Ma’ta Crawford
Well, Katy, thank you so much for that lovely introduction and for your kind words, I’m just Ma’ta Crawford, and I just do what needs to be done in Greenville to make my space and my neighbor’s space better. I’ve worked in the community for over 30 years, just taking care of myself and my neighbors. Whatever they may need. I started a little after school center at my house, when I lived in public housing over in West Greenville. Because there was children in our community that could not afford to go to our community center that was only two blocks away from us. And I found that those kids were being left out at home, they were latchkey kids, and they were not getting the snack, they were not getting the homework help that they need. And they had no one to watch over them while their parents worked. And because my house was like right in front of the bus stop. And I’d see how these kids come off. And then they go into separate ways. And then I’d see them just outside playing and, you know, not really doing anything constructive at the school. So I contacted the parents and asked them if it would be alright if their children could stop at my house. And I would provide them with a snack. I had a couple that needed after school medicine, and some homework help. And so that’s how I actually started helping in the community and becoming concerned about children or people that were being excluded from resources that were provided in our community. And I was a single parent myself. And I knew it was a struggle for me. And so I knew I was not by myself because these children were being left out, you know, just to do for themselves. And I wanted to help the parents. And so then in turn, when my little part time job came up on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I had someone to watch my children for me. So I, you know, it started to be a neighborhood village thing, and we would get together on weekends that I did not have to work and the kids, we would take them swimming and we would take them on the field trips, and the parents would get together and support each other. And, you know, if one person didn’t have something and the other person did, then you know we would look out for each other. And then I did not understand gentrification at that time. And and I had moved from one apartment to the next apartment and they tore my old apartment down. And then they came again and said, Hey, you, you have to move again. And that’s why I was raised that. My grandmother lived in West Greenville. My mother was raised in West Greenville. My uncle was raised in West Greenville. I was raising my children in West Greenville. And when they told me I had to leave. I was like, Well, where am I going? Because West Greenville was all I knew. And I was afraid. My family, my my daughters, my son. They don’t have a place that they can pass by and say that’s where I used to live because all the communities that we have lived in, all the homes that I have raised them in are gone. From there fast forward. 20, 30 years later, I’ve just helped because I could where I could, you know, and who I could. And so now I, I contract with larger organizations, as a consultant when they’re bringing resources or programs into our community, so that it is.. you’re people conscious, you’re inclusive, you’re culturally sensitive. We’re putting it where it needs to be. And we’re understanding differently, that we may have resources, but are the people that really need the resources, getting the resources and why are they not? And how can we fix that? I guess a lot of people call me a problem solver, because they’ll call me about different things. Just, you know, and I said, Okay, well, let’s, let’s try to do it this way. Or let’s try to do it that way. Let’s go talk to the people. Because if you’re not talking to the people that you’re helping, sometimes you’re doing more harm than good. We have to start to respect the people that we help. And a lot of times, it’s not that we’re intentionally disrespecting, but we’re not intentionally respecting.
Katy Smith
I want to explore two things with you. One is I want to talk about your neighborhood, how you saw it change and the many ways that not being there anymore has impacted you and all of the people that used to be your neighbors, and then I want to talk more about how we help people. So first, tell me more about where you used to live in West Greenville. What is there now and all of those people that you had developed a really wonderful, mutual support network with, are you still in touch with them? Where are they? How are they connected?
Ma’ta Crawford
Well, the people that my children grew up with, I really felt like if I got sick, or I was missing something that I needed, or my children needed someone to talk to, besides myself. I felt like they were safe in their community. They could go two blocks over and play, and somebody on that block would know who they were. And if something happened, they knew exactly where I was and how to get in touch with me. It built a village. My grandmother was there. My grandmother lived on Lindbergh Avenue. I was raised on Craven street right off of Bernie Street. I ran Bernie street, you know, as a child rode bicycles down the hill, skated in the parking lots. Used to be a grocery store up the street, just three, three blocks away, and everybody knew where the grocery store was. And where I lived at, if my children walked, they would walk down the backyard and make a left. And this lady named Miss Rose and I had another friend across the street that had children that played with my children. So when they would see children come to go to the store, there was a two way street that they would have to cross to get to the store. So when they get to the corner, either Miss Octavia or Miss Rose would help the children across the street. “You wait on those cars, baby.” I knew that I could depend on them to be there to walk my children across the street. So and they would walk across the street, get what they needed to get come back and Miss Rose would still be standing there. Come on, cross the street, look both ways. You know, or if their bag was about to bust baby, you need to put that in a better bag, you know. And if there was some troubles going on, you know how kids are. If she thought there was some trouble going on, she would walk them back home. That was the village. Their daycare was down the street from my house. My children at four and five and six, were able to go out their front door and I could just watch them from the door. And the teachers would be standing in the front waiting on them. We would make eye contact and they would walk two blocks down the street. That was the village mentality where we could work. We could go to school, we could live within our communities. And we would build relationships. Now in trade for Miss Rose watching my children go across the street, every now and then she would need a ride. Or she would need somebody to go to the store for her. Or you know come and read her medicine bottles for her. Just little simple things because she was like a, an elder in the community. Now we don’t have elders and if we do, you don’t know them. So you know, you just lost that. My children never attended a daycare. Am I still in contact with them? Occasionally, the historical black communities will have reunions. They’ll have reunions about every six months to stay and connect with each other and so we have the opportunity to go back. The biggest change I have seen is that.. culturally it’s changing. The apartments I used to live in.. they are minimized now. The units that I lived there, there’s whole units going to make more space. I see a lot of our elders are desperate, and a lot of our elders have spread it out now. We don’t, you know, it’s been found that lonely people don’t live as long as people that have someone to come home to. And it’s not so much it’s coming home to but knowing your neighbor will keep you from being lonely. And I just never imagine that my grandson, which just had to move out of West Greenville so it’s a generational thing. My grandmother, my mother, myself, my children and five generations came in West Greenville. Now, we can’t afford it. We could never.. I mean, I’m not gonna say we won’t ever be able to afford it. But I don’t want a $350,000 house in a community where I only used to pay 350. it’s just no way and people in Greenville, we have what we call implants. So I’m an original. But then we have the implants from outside of Greenfield that our government and our city and county seem to be making room for because they bring the money. But then you forget the people that were already here that helped build Greenville. We didn’t build Greenville for other people, we built Greenville so our children will have a future here. And I don’t mind the people coming in because they bring so much so many different things to do so many different cultures, so many different people, languages, food, you know, I’m a foodie. So I love some food. So.. and different cultures. And now we have, you know, Greenville is one of the top 10 fastest growing cities in America. But can we afford to grow anymore without taking care our foundation, which is the people that were already here.
Katy Smith
Were you and your family members.. were you all renters, and thus you are paying rent to someone? And then when it was time they were like, “oh, I want to sell this piece of property now.”
Ma’ta Crawford
Okay, let me tell you a story. My mom is in her 70s My papa is in his 80s. They lived on Dorothy Street. And I kept saying five, six years ago, I kept saying my mom, I said Mom, I’m in position to be able to help you afford to buy this house. Please get in touch with the owner and see what he wants for the house.
Katy Smith
And how long did they live in that house?
Ma’ta Crawford
They lived in that house 14 years.. You know, my pop is little garden in the back. They had a little puppy. And you know, he had his little cars that he worked on. He’s 80. So he’s retired. That’s what he do. He gardens he plays with tools. My mom had all flowers on the porch, and I screened in her front porch so she could sit on the porch and enjoy it and planted flowers in her front yard because this is where she wanted to be. I’ve been asking my mom forever, let me move you closer to me. But she said I was born and raised in West Greenville. This is where I want to die. I want to stay in West Greenville. But now, then last year, one day she called me and she was upset. She said I got a letter here. And I said what’s the matter? She said they want us to move. But she had been telling me that the owner told her that well, I’m not gonna sell. And if I do, I’ll let you know. And you’ll have the first opportunity. But evidently a developer came and her house was the last house on the street to be touched and the man held on as long as he could, I guess. But he did not get in touch with her. And of course the developer could offer more money than we could. And so they came in and she got a letter from a developer that she needed to move. She was devastated. She was devastated. That was seven months ago and my mom’s still not over that. She still goes by that house and looks at it and see what how they’ve changed it. She can’t afford to move back in it. Now, when I go back to West Greenville and I see the $350,000 homes and I see the $550,000 home or $600,000 home. Who do I know that’s gonna live there? Nobody. Because they did not build it for the people in Greenville. They built it for the people that they want to bring to Greenville. They want to entice other people to come in. But how are the people in Greenville going to benefit from that? Especially with the housing being what it is and the homelessness rate being what it is. Note it that last year 3500 People were homeless and those were the ones that they could count. But I almost guarantee you it is twice that many. You didn’t count all the people.. the federal government does not consider you homeles if you have some shelter. They only consider you homeless if you sleep in a car, sleep outside, or sleep in a shelter.
Katy Smith
Right. But if you’re on your sisters sofa, or a bunch of all your kids are there at your mom and dad’s house. Or if you live in a hotel, if you’re paying week to week and a despicable Hotel, Motel, like the economy inn that no longer is occupied.
Ma’ta Crawford
But there’s seven over the there’s seven of the hotels within three miles of the economy inn that most of the time, when they’re full and have no vacancies, is because people that have nowhere else to go are living there. I had a senior to die in a hotel in March, trying to get out of the door to get help. There was no help for him. He had been there at that hotel for six years. Six years.
Katy Smith
Paying good money for a terrible place to live.
Ma’ta Crawford
No less than $800 a month. And that was high then but they’ve gone up a little bit now. Then you have the families. Every hotel in my community has a bus stop, where children get on and off of a school bus every day. They’re paying so much of their income in hotel fee just to keep a roof over the heads that they have. They’re short on food. They’re short on medicine, if they miss one day, they’re out on the streets. Because at a hotel, if you don’t have money for the day, you got to go.
Katy Smith
Can you explain to anyone who doesn’t know Ma’ta, why would someone be living in a motel set aside if you’re involved in criminal activity, if you are a mom and kids what makes you find yourself in a motel rather than any other kind of rental unit?
Ma’ta Crawford
I’ll give you an example of a family that is on my mind and heart right now, because they just got evicted yesterday. It starts with the eviction process. Your rent is considered late if it’s not paid by the fifth of the month, so then after the fifth of the month, you can get whatever late fee, it can be $500, it could be $50, it could be $10. But whatever late fee that the owner or landlord decides to apply, then you have the late fee plus the rent that you weren’t able to pay. Then by the 10th of the month, they start an eviction process. So the eviction process, you get to just show cause paperwork, which is 10 days, now you they had to go to court, they put your name on some paper, and your served. So at the time you’re served, you have 10 days to respond to that eviction notice, to just show calls on why you haven’t paid your rent. So that means that the 10th of the month, then you serve on the 11th or 12. So you have until the 21st or the 22nd, to call the court and say I want to have a court hearing to talk to the judge to see if he can give me more time. If you don’t show up on that 10th day, or if you show up in the judge, just not finding your favor, it’s just that I don’t have it, then if you don’t leave then, they would do a seven day eviction. That means you have seven days to move at that point, there’s no other recourse. So then you’re at the 30th of the month, around the 30th of that month you got to move. So if you didn’t have the rent to pay it the first of that month, how are you going to have rent money to go to the next place and plus a deposit because now you violated.. you have you got a lease violation because you didn’t pay your rent. So I don’t have to give you a deposit back. So I get to keep your deposit. So you’re not getting anything back for me to go to the next place. And you also have the presence of an eviction on your public record. And that’s the number one thing that landlords look at, when you put an application, they won’t even check your credit. First, they go to the Public Index, look up your name. And if an eviction pops up, you’re already out and you probably pay $50 per adult that’s going to live in that place. You pay $50 application fee for each one. Okay, so that’s $100 at your move money and you have a recent eviction. Nobody’s going to touch you. So now you have to go into a hotel because nobody’s going rent because you got to have somewhere for those kids to go because if you don’t DSS gets involved.
Katy Smith
And now you don’t need a deposit. You don’t need to get your credit checked. You have a roof over your head and a bed for your family to sleep in. But the conditions might be awful and you might be paying a ridiculous unfair amount for the type of place where you’re staying.
Ma’ta Crawford
The cheapest room in that area is $55 a night. Up to I think is some $95 Night rooms, and you do have to put up a deposit. So some rooms you have a $50 deposit up to I’ve seen them up to $150. Like, if you’re gonna do it for a month, then you have to pay $150 upfront deposit. And then you have to pay that month, you know, a month. But then when you have a family of four in a hotel room, their health declines because they’re depressed. Their health declines because they don’t have time to go to the doctor. You’re in a room with everybody you have no privacy, right? You’re raising children in that room. Hmm. Then you have to think about eating every day. You don’t have a stove and a refrigerator. So now you’re eating unhealthy. So now on top of being depressed and stressed, now you can’t even get the good food that you need to at least fuel your body in a healthy way.
Katy Smith
Your kids can’t go play anywhere.
Ma’ta Crawford
They don’t have anywhere to play. Yeah, you know, so and you’re tired and you’re stressed out. You’re constantly in a mood, a mindset of survival. You’re in survival mode every day. Can you imagine being tense, being anxious, being stressed out? Depressed, every day, every day, every minute of your day? You know, you don’t have a place to live you going back to a motel you got to figure out what these kids going to eat tonight.
Katy Smith
Yeah. And and just so I’m I’m imagining that everyone listening is clear on this. But just to be absolutely sure. Before that family got evicted. I’m guessing mom is working, working hard doing what she can to pay for that roof that they did have over their heads. But one emergency can tilt things the other way. A flat tire, her needing medication that she couldn’t afford, someone needing something for school, needing to help a parent. That one thing tilts finances out of order that can then make an eviction possible and our state’s laws around eviction are very hospitable to landlords rather than to tenants. Alright, so everyone listening can hear that Ma’ta Crawford is a knowledgeable, passionate person who can connect people to resources, and those people with resources to the people who need problem solved more effectively. So, before we close, I would love for you to talk about your role as a community navigator, and how we need more people like you, and how people who have resources.. entities, governments, nonprofits, for profit companies, need to connect with the Ma’ta Crawford’s of the world to more effectively help families.
Ma’ta Crawford
I thank you so much for the kind words. Thank you so much. Community navigation and liaisons. I have contracted as a community navigator, I’ve contracted as a community liaison, contracted as the project manager in charge, you might say, you know, the one that kind of put this stuff together and connect to people with resources and resources with the people. But I know, I know that with all the new funding that we have. It’s okay to sit in your office and do what you do. Somebody needs to control, you know, from the federal government, state government funding come in, someone has to do the administration work. But if you can’t leave your office, how do the resources reach the people, especially if the people can’t get to the resources? That’s what people like myself and in some of my volunteers work out, because I mean, mostly what I do in the community is what people would call on a volunteer basis. You know, and the people that you know, usually work with me on projects with community freshstart work with me on a volunteer basis. It’s just the satisfaction of knowing that you could help somebody or set somebody in motion to get what they need. But I do know that like, most of the organizations that have services, they could put community liaisons out. These are the people that would take the resources that you have, and go into the community and let people know that those resources are there and how to tap into them to work in the way that they need them to work. Most of the time when I get to a family, like the family that just got evicted yesterday with two with two children. I can afford to put them you know, like smaller organizations like mine. We depend on the community to help. I reached out to a couple of private citizens and said, Hey, I need to put this family up for at least a week to give them a, you know, to give them some time to think to rest. And I know they’re going to be stressed out. So let’s take that off their mind at least for a week. And so we get the money together, and we pay for a week for them. And then we make sure that they have what they need. And I put supplied them with resources, you know, where you’re working? How are you getting there? Do you have everything that you need? You’re good with food? Do you have food stamps? Let’s try that. You have Medicare? Let’s try that. Do you know where to go to the clinic? If you don’t have a doctor? Have you ever had your COVID shots yet? Have? Are you registered voters? All this is important. Me being in the community and her being able to reach out and reach out to me and me to say okay, so you need to go over to live well and get this food box. You need to go over to United Housing connection and get in this program. If that program don’t work for you, go over to share. Let me make a call to let me make a call over here for you. United housing has some houses available. But I’m not really working for United house and I’m not working for share. I’m not working for live well. I’m not working for these organizations. I’m working for the neighbor.
Katy Smith
Well, this episode is going to be posting the month of December before Christmas. And I suspect that there are a lot of folks listening who think “I want to do something, I want to help in some way.” I would say number one, you can help everybody year round by speaking out for policies that are more supportive of families that can help make sure we don’t lose more neighborhoods like we’ve lost much of West Greenville. And think of ways to really support families of all kinds. Number two, your dollars can help and so you know giving to nonprofits that can help at Christmas time in the holidays is great. And I wonder three Ma’ta, is there a way that they can support your work?
Ma’ta Crawford
Sure. I am Ma’ta Crawford. Community Fresh Start is a 501 C 3 so it is tax deductible. You can you can inbox me you can email me at FreshStartofSC@gmail.com
Katy Smith
Ma’ta I am so grateful for you taking the time to share all of this with us. As I said I always learn from you and I hope everyone listening did and we really appreciate the fact that your navigation has extended well beyond your original neighborhood of West Greenville and you’re helping all of us in Greenville County connect with resources and connect with each other to help make folks lives better. So thank you very very much.
Catherine Puckett
Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville. Greater Good Greenville was catalyzed by the merger of the nonprofit Alliance and the Greenville partnership for philanthropy. You can learn more on our website at greater good greenville.org This is a production of the Greenville podcast company.
