First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark Advocate
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateThere is rawness to life in Franklinton, infamously known as the Bottoms. Streets are littered with abandoned houses marked by signs warning off trespassers, yet advertising their vacancy for a transient population who use this neglected space to get high or make money for their next fix. Yards are overgrown, and windows are shattered from years of neglect. Sex workers and homeless wander the streets while traveling to soup kitchens and churches that offer food and free salvation.Franklinton sits just West of Downtown Columbus, and has a rich history. Founded by Lucas Sullivant in 1797, it predates the city of Columbus. Prone to severe flooding it was designated a floodplain in 1983 which restricted building in the area. This ordinance help to push Franklinton further into poverty. A flood wall was later constructed which has allowed for redevelopment to begin. The eastern half of the neighborhood is scattered with public housing projects and dilapidated warehouses, although a few warehouses are being filled by artist studios or new bars in an effort propelled by private-public partnerships to revitalize the neighborhood. The western half of the Bottoms is generally populated by those with strong ties to Appalachia, but in recent years a steady influx of mixed demographic newcomers have relocated here. Home ownership is no longer the trend, and while the neighborhood was well maintained through the 70s by working class homeowners, many houses have succumbed to a preponderance of absentee landowners and local slumlords.Despite the struggles that exist here, a reformative energy is driven by groups of newcomers and residents whose families have lived in the neighborhood for generations. They are working as grassroots initiatives to make positive social change within Franklinton by combat problems plaguing the area, and by promoting the positive aspects of the neighborhood’s distinct identity. Mikey Haught has been residing in the West side neighborhood, Franklinton, for more than 10 years. He has lived on the streets, worked as a drug runner and still has trouble with alcohol. Mikey has become part of a transient population, working within an informal economy to survive.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateLocal boys stand on their front porch. They live in the eastern part of Franklinton, which is mostly comprised of abandoned warehouses. The city of Columbus is focusing its efforts on converting this part of the neighborhood into an artist district with studios, bars and restaurants.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateAmy has been working the streets in the "Bottoms" for years. Her addiction to crack and heroin keep her working. Amy has been raped, robbed and beaten several times.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateA man stands on the corner of Broad and Central with a bible and sign preaching to passing cars. He is a member of one of the many churches that offer salvation in the "Bottoms."
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateEvery Sunday Rev.Lee Anne Reat hold a church service on the corner of Central Ave and Broad street. Each week dozens of people living in the "Bottoms" gather for prayer and food.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateEvery Sunday Rev.Lee Anne Reat hold a church service on the corner of Central Ave and Broad street. Before serving the meal after, she baptizes Mikayla and her siblings.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateLou used to work the streets of Franklinton to earn money for crack. She began going to Street Church and got herself cleaned up. Her way of giving back is by bringing food to hand out to Street Church goers every Sunday afternoon. She has just gotten custody of one of her children after years of fighting the system.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateOn Princeton Ave most of the houses are vacant leaving them open to sex workers and addicts. These home are susceptible to burning down.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateLou used to work the streets of Franklinton to earn money for crack. She began going to Street Church and got herself cleaned up. Her way of giving back is by bringing food to hand out to Street Church goers every Sunday afternoon.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateThere are many homeless camps set up alongside the railroad tracks, most have been trashed. Mark, who has squatted on this bit of land for seven years is proud of his home and works hard to keep his campsite clean.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateAs houses are torn down throughout Franklinton, residents scavenge for metal they can scrap for extra cash. This practice is illegal with out a permit, and the police crackdown is swift.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateAn informal economy is booming in the Bottoms due to lack of jobs, and transportation to jobs. Brian supplements an unsteady income by tattooing residents in their homes.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateThere are many homeless camps set up alongside the railroad tracks with a view looking into downtown Columbus. The homeless often leave messages for each other along the tracks as a way of communicating with no phones.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateOn a snowy afternoon a man walks down Rich Street with a shopping cart full items including a sofa chair.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateCaitlin, 16, sits with her daughter Eva and younger brother Brennen on their front porch. Caitlin got pregnant at 15 and remains at her parents house in Franklinton.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateAdrian shows off a baton he says he never leaves his house without because of conditions in the neighborhood. Adrian resides in Sunshine Terrace which is a subsidized housing unit set to be torn down. Some of the residents have been able to obtain papers to move to other housing projects in the city, but have not.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateFranklinton is full of abandoned housing stock that often house squatters using the empty spaces to get high or turn tricks. They add to the crime in the neighborhood and bring down real estate values.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateLocal artists work on murals at Urban Scrawl, an annual festival in Franklinton. The event focuses on bringing art food and music to Franklinton and drive interest in the neighborhood.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateThere are many grassroots orginaztions dedicated to improving life in Franklitnon One of the most prominent is Franklinton Gardens which hosts seven garden sites and provides fresh produce to residents and excepts EBT cards. Nick Stanich is the director of the Gardens and can often be found at any of the sites working the land.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateFranklinton Gardens tries to employ as many people from the neighborhood as possible, like Rick, who repairs the Garden's trucks whenever they need fixed.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateJeremy Miller tears down ceiling beams from an abandoned house on Dakota Ave to salvage for future projects. Miller and many others see this as a way to recycle old materials and save money.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateElbie and Cory both live in Franklinton and work within an informal economy to make ends meet.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateNighttime shot of a house n the corner of Rich and Martin Ave.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateLocal boys play in an alley behind their home. During the summer months it is not uncommon to see the streets filled with children passing time playing games.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateSally's Market, located on Sullivant Ave is a hotspot of drugs, violence and prostitution in Franklinton. Neighbors here gun shots in the night, and see girls selling themselves on the corner at all hours. Corner stores in the neighborhood are often a source of corruption and are the closest place to find food.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateA candlelight vigil is held for Amanda Kirwin, 14 who was fattily shot while standing in front of her home with friends Monday night. Nearly a hundred people showed up for the vigil and placed candles in the street where she was gunned down by a stray bullet.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateAs part of the city's efforts to turn Franklinton into an arts district the Independents Day Festival was moved to East Franklinton next to 400 West Rich, an artist studio warehouse. The annual event brings in local music food trucks and artists.
First Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Jessica Phelps / Newark AdvocateMany young people have begun moving into the neighborhood because of cheap rent and its proximity to downtown. Jerah and Ellen are two such friends. They have been living in Franklinton for over a year and are involved in the growing urban garden movement getting food to the most vulnerable neighbors.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley /
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchIt is a family’s horror and our community’s shame. Babies born in some parts of Columbus, Ohio die at rates the nation as a whole hasn’t seen in 50 years. And black babies in Ohio are more likely to die before their first birthdays than anywhere else in the nation. Through the first half of 2014, with 81 babies gone, citizens face another year in which they see three lives a week end in Franklin County before they’ve barely started. The rate of infant deaths here — 7.7 per 1,000 last year — signals trouble that goes beyond lives lost. It is evidence of broader weaknesses in our community, of areas where the challenges that pile up at people’s doorsteps make Columbus a hard place to start life, say public-health experts and others who are pushing for change.Expecting mother Ariel Tackett, 23, listens during a moms2b meeting at the Mount Carmel West Hospital in Columbus, Ohio on June 26, 2014. Tackett is 29 weeks pregnant. Moms2b is a group founded with the intent of educating expecting mothers during and following their pregnancy on ways to deal with anger, ensure good nutrition, care for their infant and many other techniques to ensure the health and care of their child.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus Dispatch Anne Marie Phitayakorn, 31, holds her son Miles Phitayakorn while her husband Ron Phitayakorn carefully watch the monitor in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Nationwide Childrens Hospital in Columbus, Ohio on June 24, 2014. Miles, who was born weighing less than one pound, now weighs over 5 pounds but is still on a respirator. Anne Marie and her husband Ron Phitayakorn make sure to spend time every day in the unit, they are now able to do a care style called "Kangaroo Care" which involves the baby engaging in skin to skin contact with a parent. Miles passed away on August 13 of 2014.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchJimmy Jenkins, 17, holds his girlfriend Mary Henley, 16, while she cries while discussing the loss of their child Jiimar D'angelo Jenkins at the Jenkins home in Columbus, Ohio on July 9, 2014. Jimmy and Mary lost their son to extreme prematurity on March 4, 2014, they tattooed his name on their bodies after his death. Mary was afraid to tell her mother she was pregnant, and did not receive pre-natal care until late in the pregnancy.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - / The Columbus DispatchBrian Conrad reaches for a set of chimes given to he and his wife Niki Conrad as a gift of remembrance at their home in Blacklick, Ohio on July 7, 2014. The Conrads kept many of the mementos they were given after losing their son Blake Conrad to extreme prematurity. Their nursery still contains his crib, a changing table, and other products they purchased before losing their son. "I feel that when I hear the chimes, he's talking to us," Brian said after learning of others they knew who had lost children, “We were shocked at how many families this has affected."
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchJennifer Iduozee, 30, breaks into tears while discussing the death of her daughter Princess to extreme prematurity in her home in Columbus, Ohio on July 8, 2014. Iduozee and her boyfriend Kirk Thomas, 50, were able to spend a month with their daughter before she died from complications of prematurity.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchExpecting mother Iracema Ibarra pastes correlating names to parts of the anatomy while receiving instruction from Maria Fernandez, L, during an exercise at a meeting of B'More for Healthy Babies Moms Club meeting at the Highlandtown Healthy Living Center in Baltimore, MD on July 15, 2014. The program hopes to educate expectant mothers in healthy ways to prepare for the birth of their child as well as providing a supportive community where they can ask questions. Experts in the City of Columbus are looking to Baltimore as an example of a city that was able to turn around their high infant mortality rates, creating programs similar to this one.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchA man pushes a stroller while he walks past a billboard advertising the Columbus Health Department's "ABC's of Safe Sleep" campaign on Sullivant Ave. in Columbus, Ohio on August 19, 2014. The "ABC's" of Safe Sleep stand for the words alone, back and crib- asking that parents place infants in their cribs alone and on their backs for bedtime to prevent complications.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchAlyssah Munson cries as she remembers the death of her son Andrew Alan Edwin Roth at just six days old during an interview in her home in Columbus, Ohio on July 30, 2014. Andrew died due to complications from a genetic defect called Anencephaly which is caused by a lack of folic acid. A plush kangaroo sitting next to her plays a recording of the heartbeat of her son, which doctors were able to capture on audio before he died.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchI'Yonna Taylor, 17, keeps the blanket of her son Izaak Makai Taylor above her bed at her home in Columbus, Ohio on July 29, 2014. Taylor's son died two hours after his birth on January 5, 2014. A pillowcase on her bed has his name painted on it, she is now finishing her senior year of high school.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchNora Duran, 34, holds a footprint made of her son Kaniel Bucio who she lost to a genetic disorder soon after he was born. The hospital made the plaster footprint, she keeps it in a case with other materials. When Kaniel was born, Nora immediately knew something was terribly wrong. “The baby didn’t cry. The room filled with doctors,” she said, “Your baby is not going to live long,” they told her.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchCandy Chenault, who is 7 months pregnant, holds up her son Zion Hightower, 11 months, after changing his diaper during the "Moms to Be" program at the Grace Baptist Church on 6th Street in Columbus, Ohio on June 5, 2013. The "Moms to Be" program helps women who are pregnant and also those who are new mothers to create a community for them.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchI'Yonna Taylor, 17, is reflected in a mirror in her room that holds photos of her son Izaak Makai Taylor as well as his ashes at her home in Columbus, Ohio on July 29, 2014. Taylor's son died two hours after his birth on January 5, 2014. “I still kind of talk to him at night before I go to sleep. I tell him what’s going on and that I miss him and wish I could see him again.”
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchMichelle Jackson smiles while being readied for a bath by her mother Mickaela Jackson at their home in Columbus, Ohio on August 12, 2014. Michelle lost her twin sister Melissa due to complications eight days after their birth. Michelle survived and is home, on oxygen and a heart monitor.
Second Place, James R. Gordon Ohio Understanding Award - Brooke LaValley / The Columbus DispatchKay McCall cries while talking about the loss of her daughter Kamora Ivery during an interview in her home in Columbus, Ohio on July 30, 2014. Kamora died as a result of "Unsafe sleep" according to the coroners report. Unsafe sleep describes a variety of situations, and is considered one of the most common cases of death for infants in Columbus. It is also one of the most preventable.
