July 10, 2024
GROWING COMMUNITY MEDIA
AT HOME ON THE GREATER WEST SIDE A GCM GUIDE TO HOMEOWNERSHIP
How a West-Side family has used their home to create community and connection
Since the Great Migration, the West Side has welcomed thousands of Black Americans searching for a new place to call home By DELANEY NELSON and FRANCIA GARCIA HERNANDEZ Special Projects Reporters
For generations, West Side families have called home communities like Garfield Park, North Lawndale, and Austin. In this series, we talk to longtime West Side residents about the meaning of living, owning, and staying on the West Side.
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AUSTIN
elicia Oliver has lived with her family in Austin for around 40 years. In her Austin home, near the intersection of North Menard Avenue and West Washington Boulevard, Oliver said she and her husband created a safe, thriving and strong place for opportunity, for her family and for the community. Aisha Oliver, Felicia’s first-born daughter, said she remembers moving into the house in 8th grade. Oliver is also an occasional columnist for Austin Weekly News. Some of her core memories were made within the home’s walls, on the front porch and in the backyard, where family, friends and neighbors continue to gather. In many ways, Aisha said, that home shaped who she is and how she shows up for the community. She still lives in Austin, just a walk away from her family home. In an interview with Austin Weekly News, Aisha and Felicia Oliver shared the hurdles and value of owning a home in Austin, and, perhaps more importantly, what the significance means for the family. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. AWN: How did you find this home? Felicia: When we started our homeownership process, we were living in my aunt’s building [on the West Side]. It was a family building. They were getting older and we wanted to give
TODD BANNOR
Felicia Oliver (at right) and her daughter Aisha sit on the steps of their family home on Wednesday July 3, 2024.
them a home — I think that’s everyone’s dream, or at least, I think it’s most Americans’ dream to have home ownership. So we started this process. We found a realtor and we had only looked at three houses, literally. I remember when we went to see the homes, this was the last one. And I remember walking through, and, you know how you just know when something is it? We were like, “OK this is it.” It had enough space. One of the things that we knew was that we wanted to give our kids somewhere to call their own. So we came from LeClaire Courts in the projects, left there, and went to my aunt’s building, and from there, to our own home, and we’ve been here ever since.
AWN: What was it like moving into this home in 8th grade? Aisha: I am the oldest of all my siblings. So, I was old enough to know what was going on. We’re really family-oriented, so we’ve always been around our relatives in some capacity. Even when we lived in the projects, the rest of my family lived two blocks away, so our entire family was in one neighborhood, one community. I never felt like we were being taken out of space and thrown into something new, because I knew wherever I went, my family was close by. We moved into a space where it was community.
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