# West Poplar: Residents Learn to Network Within Neighborhoods

 

https://vimeo.com/18394876\]

 Brick houses with green lawns rest next to vacant lots with overgrown weeds creeping through the chain-link fence. Pink-pedaled remnants of spring blanket the sidewalks.  A group of young men smoke a blunt in the backyard of a church.  ![](https://philadelphianeighborhoods.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/sp1037spotnewsindividualenterprisewestpoplar1-300x199.jpg)Kevin Cox, left, instructs Rose Middleton at the computer literacy classes offered at the West Poplar Apartments Neighborhood Networks Computer Training Center.  Welcome to the projects in West Poplar, where shades of suburbia are blurred with the grit and charm of the city. The fixed-income homes in West Poplar, which includes West Poplar Apartments and Poplar Nehemiah, comprise approximately 400 homes. 

 “I don’t talk to a lot of the kids who come around this neighborhood,” says Davin Jeter, 24, who has lived in the West Poplar Apartments for a year and works as a handyman. Jeter says the quiet neighborhood is a hangout for many young people looking to hustle who are not residents. “I wish they would just go home,” he says, spinning screwdriver bits on and off between his fingers. [![](https://phillyn-media.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/26023559/sp1037spotnewsindividualenterprisewestpoplar21-150x150.jpg)](https://philadelphianeighborhoods.com/2010/04/15/west-poplar-residents-learn-to-network-within-neighborhoods/sp1037spotnewsindividualenterprisewestpoplar2-2/)African-American women account for the majority of students enrolled in the 13-week computer literacy program. Older community members like Rojer Kern, a member of the Office of Neighborhood Economic Development, recall West Poplar being plagued by drugs and crimes within the past two decades. The area had formerly been populated by Richard Allen row homes, which Kern says have grown synonymous with urban decay in Philadelphia. “At one time Richard Allen was more than 1,900 units,” Kern says. “Now there are 500 units.” The federal government allotted $20 million to develop the 205 Poplar Nehemiah housing projects in 1996. The Nehemiah projects included driveways, garages and green lawn space in their design to take advantage of the vacant space, Kern says. The remaining Richard Allen homes were demolished from 2001 to 2003. The West Poplar Apartments followed the design of suburban ranch-style homes. The design has proved popular among the West Poplar residents and a cost-effective way to beautify the stigmatized housing developments in the city, Kern says. “The Office of Housing and Urban Development used the same model and style of housing for its housing and reconstruction ever since,” Kern says. With its proximity to Center City and Northern Liberties, Kern sees the opportunity for West Poplar to transform into one of the city's most ethnically and economically mixed neighborhoods. “The whole area is changing at warp speed,” says Margie Pierce, director of the West Poplar Neighborhood Advisory Council. “You have a lot of older homes in West Poplar that are abandoned, uninhabited, and we have developers coming in who are trying to refurbish these homes, and more of a trendy kind of people coming into the area.” ![](https://phillyn-media.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/26023559/sp1037spotnewsindividualenterprisewestpoplar3-300x199.jpg)Rose Middleton, of Northeast Philadelphia, will graduate from computer literacy course a the West Poplar Apartments Neighborhood Networks Computer Training Center at the end of April.  The Neighborhood Advisory Committee office is located within the Mother African Zoar United Methodist Church, the second-oldest in Philadelphia, but operates independently of the church. Whatever changes await West Poplar, Pierce says she hopes the deeply rooted neighborhood partnerships are involved.  Some development firms have built and refurbished properties without consulting with the Neighborhood Advisory Council ahead of time, Pierce says, but others have been receptive to the community and hired West Poplar residents. Most recently, the NAC helped find part-time and full-time work for 15 West Poplar residents at the Green Grocer on North Broad Street. 

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