Melquiades Gagarin 🌹 🇵🇭 🇵🇷Konto zweryfikowane

2. An older gentleman who I thought was the super let us in. His English was limited so I spoke with him in Spanish. He was mopping the floor with an old rag and a broken broomstick handle.

3. Turns out he cleans the floors of the building for his neighbors because they aren't maintained by staff as they should be.

4. He told me he took what little money he can afford to buy cleaning supplies to help keep the building clean with his makeshift mop. He was retired and said it helped him keep busy, but that he was also sick and couldn't always afford to cover his diabetes medication.

5. He had insurance but still ended up paying around $340 out of pocket. For someone like this gentleman "how am I going to pay for it" is a personal one and literally a matter of life and death.

6. Yet he blamed himself for getting sick and lamented that he worked hard and never made it to the middle class.

7. He was proud of his sons that went to college and refuses their help because he doesn't want to be a burden. It broke my heart, especially because he reminded me of members of my own family that were equally proud and sacrificed for their kids and grandkids.

8. But it also made me angry. I know that public housing has been neglected. That billions in funding have yet to make it into the system, that there's a slow crawl to privatization via R.A.D., meanwhile luxury condos are sprouting up by the minute .

9. It's an election year so of course NOW electeds care about public housing, masquerading as progressive-all-along while taking campaign cash from the very developers displacing our communities; unable to address basic needs that a phone call and some pressure would have fixed.