Darlyn, Daniel, and Daphany Sanchez
Daphany Sanchez (she/ella)
Cooper Park Houses, 1992-Present
My family has lived in the projects for generations, and when I was raised here, originally, I didn’t see anything of it. My parents, young, beautiful Puerto Rican and Costa Rican kids, did the best that they can to make sure I felt comfortable at home. They met on the L train, and got married within a year.
My father was raised in Marcy houses and he then raised me in Cooper Park. I loved our family get together. My great grandmother used to cook a huge pot of rice and pernil, my cousins and I would be running around in a small apartment, my dad would blast music. It was the beauty of our culture mixed in the walls we all grew up in. But I remember, in middle school, it was the first time I heard someone tell me my life didn’t matter because I’m from the projects. I was furious, angry, annoyed; why were the four walls that brought me so much joy something I should be ashamed about? Why are people defining who I am by where I lived?
I went down the rabbit hole of learning about what the projects were and why did people have a negative view of a place I grew to love. I started going down the route of learning more and more about housing and sustainability. I started to realize, public housing, in NY was created by Robert Moses, a man of privilege, utilized eminent domain to take land from Black and brown communities and placed public housing in redlined areas. Then, funding was neglected for operation and maintenance. It was infuriating to see how my community was neglected and shunned based off something that came from structural racist practices. The injustice presented to us before we are born made me so mad.
As I grew up, I decided to fight to support the projects, these buildings, the families, the culture that was woven into each development. For me, its important for each person that lives and grows in NYCHA can have a safe, healthy, home to live in. Living in NYCHA has made me feel so happy with all the memories of my family get together, seeing the stability of having my cousins being able to stay in NY with an affordable place to live; it has given me so many opportunities to learn and work in the city, that I wouldn’t have overwise.