The Hood by Keturah Kennedy

I have a few guilty confessions to make. I like pop hip-hop, I like Eminem, and I like listening to pop hip-hop featuring Eminem really loud in my car. Today I was driving and heard the new “Airplanes” remix featuring Eminem. I can’t always make out the words to those songs but there was one line I understood and can’t seem to get out of my head, “I didn’t have neighbors that’s why they call it hood.”

There is a common misconception about the “hoods” I live and work in with Mika. Apartments may have more than one family living in them, there may be loud parties on the weekends with lots of people, and there may even be lots of little kids running around on the street, but that doesn’t always mean we know each other or treat each other like neighbors. I was listening to Facia, one of our neighborhood leaders share her story again yesterday and even though I’ve heard her tell it several times the part that stuck out to me this time was that although she had lived on Center St. for 12 years previous to her involvement with Mika, she didn’t know her neighbors. Everyone stayed in their own little world. Over the last 4 years she has now become the woman everyone knows. When neighbors know one another and care for one another your hood isn’t just where you live it becomes where you’re friends are, where you systems of care and support are, and where you know you are loved. The first “I” in Mika’s VISION stands for Interdependent Relationships with God and with Each Other so we care that neighbors who never talked before now say hello as they walk down the street. We care that more neighbors get invited to Quinceaneras, first baptism parties, and birthday celebrations. We care that neighbors know they can rely on one another in the good and the bad.

At the risk of sounding cheesy and somewhat cliché…which isn’t really a new thing for me – I’d like to think the work of Mika is helping put the neighbor back into the hood

Keturah Kennedy is Mika’s Director of Operations and lives in the Shalimar neighborhood.