News

Chip Off the Old ‘Block’?

Posted August 1, 2010

Source:  Valley News, August 1

By Bret Yager

“Windsor – Like just about anyone who grew up in Windsor, Jessie Gobin had heard about “the Block,” the mass of squalid, undersized apartments bee-hived into a brick and steel building that once sheltered crime and misery.

So Gobin, the mother of a 7-month-old boy named Eli, had some understandable trepidation when she moved in. But what she found at the former Armory Square Apartments pleasantly surprised her.

“Now it’s like a friendly home place,” she said. “I’ve only been here three months and there are so many people who are Eli’s grandparents.”

Faustino Ramirez has his own unpleasant memories of the earlier days. He moved into the Block 21 years ago from Las Vegas, remembers racism, a handgun being pulled on him, drunkenness. He managed to stomach it all for eight months, then moved to another part of Windsor. On disability, he recently found himself in need of affordable housing, and came full circle…”

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