Tamika H

At 26, Tamika has a boy and a girl aged 1, born 10 months apart.

A photo she took was of a bathtub in which lead paint was chipping off, a threat to her kids.  Like other women in the project, she has complaints about welfare works. “They need to stop acting like it’s money out of their own pockets,” she said.

Tamika had been counting on a chance for Section 8 housing, “but the Katrina people came and pushed our applications back,” she said. “I want to help people, but we got pushed back two to three years on the list.”

She lives with her two children in one room in her mother’s house because she can’t afford to live anywhere else on her income. She and her children all have asthma, and while they are all insured through Medicaid Tamika is still not able to afford the equipment she needs to treat her asthma. Tamika pays her mother rent for her room and contributes Food Stamps to the house; she struggles to buy everything her children need with the remaining money.

Tamika is currently in school, taking classes to become a medical assistant. “I want people to know there are children in this world who need help, and that we are trying to make things better for them.”