She smiled.
“Something I'm thinking about.”
He examined the photograph.
The building looked tired.
Several windows were boarded.
The entrance steps were cracked.
Weeds grew beside the parking lot.
He frowned.
“Mom, that place looks terrible.”
She laughed.
“It needs work.”
“That's an understatement.”
She smiled.
Then pointed toward the windows.
“Do you know how many families could live there?”
He counted.
“Maybe twenty?”
“Twenty-four apartments.”
He whistled.
“That's a lot.”
His mother nodded.
Then her expression became serious.
“Imagine if every family living there knew the building would be maintained, the rent would be fair, and nobody would be treated like they were disposable.”
He looked at her.
“That's what you want?”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
He studied the photograph again.
Then asked something he'd remember for decades.
“Why not buy a nicer building?”
His mother looked toward him.
“Because a nice building already has somebody willing to pay for it.”
She touched the photograph.
“This one needs somebody willing to see what it could become.”
The boy didn't fully understand.
He was seventeen.
His main concerns were basketball practice, final examinations, and getting accepted into college.
But the words stayed with him.
Years later, after he became a teacher, he would use the same idea while discussing community development with his students.
Some people looked at a neighborhood and saw only its current problems.
Others looked at the same place and saw the people who could flourish there if someone was willing to invest in them.
His mother eventually purchased the building.
Not alone.
She worked with a small group of trusted relatives, obtained financing, and established an ownership structure that would protect the property and clarify responsibility if something happened to her.
The purchase was difficult.
The building required repairs.
Its previous owner had deferred maintenance for years.
Water leaked through the roof.
Several heating units were unreliable.
And the mailbox system had been damaged so often that some residents collected their letters from the post office instead.
The new owner spent the first year organizing repairs.
She replaced faulty electrical systems.
Improved security.
Repaired plumbing.
And hired a local contractor to restore the entrance and common areas.
It cost more than she expected.
There were nights when she sat at the kitchen table surrounded by invoices and wondered whether she'd made a terrible mistake.
Her son had graduated from college by then and was beginning his teaching career.