WOMEN LIVE WARILY IN I.C. 'GANG AREAS'

Marian Good says she is a prisoner in her own home.

The 32-year-old locks herself inside her Broadway apartment in fear while
alleged gang members cut deals on the outside.

"There's a number of reasons why I don't like living here," she said. "The
violence and crime, the wheelin' and dealin', the loud music and parties
that go on all night, and having to worry and be scared when I'm here."

The most vivid images that come to mind when she thinks of her home, she
said, are of people smoking marijuana on her front steps, open drug sales
in her apartment parking lot, the screams of people fighting outside her
door. She said she once witnessed police chase a man through her front lawn.

"I lock all of them outside and keep to myself in here," Good said.

Good's southeastern Iowa City neighborhood is dominated by women like her
-- single mothers in subsidized housing, many of whom isolate themselves
inside their homes.

Isolation is a common social response for women living in crime-ridden
areas, said Michael Lovaglia, a UI associate professor of sociology. One
way to cope with the fear and isolation is through networking with others
in the area and going out in groups, he said.

But coping with crime is not always so simple. Good spoke loudly and
pounded her fist on her knee as she explained about the infestation of
drugs and crime that her neighborhood suffers from.

When asked about the drug sales and crime in relation to gang members, she
suddenly grew quiet. Her hands tugged anxiously on the tattered ends of her
navy Walt Disney T-shirt.

"I don't know about the gangs here too much, I guess," she said, her eyes
lowered. "I think there might be some going on. I mean, there's a lot of
people here from Chicago and all."

If she could afford it, Good said she would move out of the tiny,
two-bedroom apartment she shares with her 1-year-old daughter and two other
adults.

"I'm stuck in this area," she said. "I just can't afford no place else
right now."

Several of the neighborhood women don't have the financial resources to
leave the area. Many are thankful for the government-funded Broadway
Neighborhood Center. Free childcare, parenting classes, neighborhood
parties, and transportation are among the services the center offers.

"The general feeling is that people still don't feel comfortable living
down in that area or going out at night, still," said Marcia Klingaman, the
coordinator of Iowa City Neighborhood Services.

Like Good, Rachel House, 21, said she, too, keeps to herself when violence
ensues outside. The single mother of two said she moved into the Broadway
Apartment complex to escape the drug activity she grew up with on the
streets of Chicago. "It is much slower here, but the drugs and gang members
are still around," House said. "Most of the time, I feel safe here --
except at nighttime. I get this feeling sometimes that something's just not
right."

She says she often has to take alternate routes to get to and from her
apartment to avoid a "crowd of guys."

"When I go outside, I just like to not get involved with no one," she said.
"But I feel safe inside my apartment until somebody kicks my door in or
something."

House said some gang members in the neighborhood attempt to persuade single
mothers to allow them to stay in their apartments.

"A lot of them just want to use the girls for their apartments," she said.
"One of them kept coming up to me all the time trying to get me to let him
stay here, but I wouldn't."

While many men claim they are not in gangs, House said, she is not fooled.

"I hear them out in front always comin' up to each other and saying,
'What's up, folks?' you know, like the gang, Folks. The gang members here
are mixed up because when they here, they say they not in a gang," she
said. "But when they go home to Chicago, then they are in a gang again."

House speaks matter-of-factly about gang members living so close to her and
her two sons. Gangs, she explained, have always been a part of her life.
She grew up with gang members as neighbors and had friends who joined
gangs. Her youngest son's father, a former gang member, was injured in a
gang shooting in Chicago.

A picture of him with their son is just one of the many pictures that House
has on her walls.

A recycling bin sits neatly beside the garbage can in the kitchen, and
candy canes and plastic gold bulbs hang perfectly spaced on her 5-foot
Christmas tree. Her apartment is meticulously kept, perfectly clean --
quite a contrast to the chaos and confusion she described on the outside.