C4 tobytown from C1 “In Montgomery County, we
think of ourselves as an affluent county, and it’s easy for people to assume we don’t have any poor people,” said TediOsias, the direc- tor of legislative and public affairs for the county’shousing authority, which oversees Tobytown. “They don’t stand out. That’s why they are invisible.” InTobytown, the effects ofhard
times are clear. “See the housing surrounding
us?”WesleyWilson, 53, an unem- ployed landscaper, asked as he played dominoes in a courtyard recently. “If it’s hurting them, you knowhowit’sdoing forus.”
Trying to secure stability The recession has been hardest
for Tobytown’s younger genera- tion, the 20-something grandchil- dren of those who purchased the modest littlehouses over time. They’ve stayed because they
can live cheaply with family, scrounging rides to the nearest bus stop—fivemilesaway—toget to jobs as store clerks and restau- rant cooks. Like their forebears, they, too, dream of homeowner- ship.Butnothere. One recent afternoon,Shannon
Braxton, 21, scooped up a free weeklyfromastackofnewspapers dropped at the community center and eagerly scanned thewant ads for hotel or receptionist positions. Shewasdisappointed. “They don’t have that much in
here thisweek,” she said. A tall young woman with
braids,Braxton lives rent-free in a houseownedbyhergrandmother. Shewas laidoff froma full-time
job as a restaurantmanager earli- er this year and scrambled to find a part-time job at a bar. She also signed up for theWheaton volun- teer rescue squad,whichgivesher access to college-credit courses. Transportation is a constant
worry since her used Jetta sedan began overheating in August. To get to her 18-hour shift at the fire station, she first asks for rides to the bus stop, then transfers three times. It cantakehours. “I’mworriedabout itnow:How
am I going to get to work tomor- row?” she said. “I justwant toget a full-time job, and Iwant to getmy car working. I just want to be stable.”
More suburban poor ScottW. Allard, a University of
Chicago professor who co-au- thored a new Brookings Institu- tion study on suburban poverty, saidmore poor people nowlive in the Washington suburbs than in theDistrict,whichmirrorswhat’s happening elsewhere. Nationally, the suburban poor
exceed those in big cities by 1.5 million, the study found, and the demand for social services in those communities is soaring. At the Manna Food Center in
Gaithersburg, for example, the numberofpeopleseekinghelphas jumped 45 percent during the downturn. The county’s housing authority has 15,000 residents on thewaiting list forhousing vouch- ers.
Meanwhile, donations to some
nonprofit groups have fallen, and state and local budgets have been slashedacross the region. This year,Montgomery County
cut its total spending for the first time in40years, slicingmore than $200 million by cutting back on everything from emergency ser- vices to — at one point — toilet paper for senior centers. Tobytown has long relied on
helpfromthe government. For decades, its residents lived
CAROL GUZY/THE WASHINGTON POST
Yaleasha Johnson, 15, calls numbers during bingo night. Tobytown’s poverty worsened with the economy. Bryant finallyquit in2007,after
in tar-paper shacks with out- houses and no running water as estates rose aroundthem. In 1972, the housing authority
used federal housing funds to build26duplexesandsingle-fami- ly homes and a small community center.Thegoalwasforthelow-in- come residents to eventually pur- chase the inexpensivedwellings. Florice Martin, 49, a longtime
residentwho is raising her grand- children in Tobytown, grew up in the shacks and vividly remembers when the development was un- veiledto great fanfare. “All the rich people were here,
the people thatmean something,” shesaid.Therewerejournalistson hand and a big reception. It was the first time shehadseencaviar. The glowing promise of the day
was never fully realized. Over the years, 17 families purchased their homes forabout$16,000.Butnine units remain in the control of the housing authority, which also maintains the community center
andgrounds. “It seems like they forgot us,”
Martin said. “It seems like we’re nothere.”
Distant neighbors AllisonBryant, abusinessman-
agement consultant from Rock- ville, first discovered Tobytown in the 1980s, when he and his wife were driving around Potomac looking for a home to buy.Hewas surprisedbywhathe saw. “At first blush, it did not seem
like a depressed community,” Bry- ant said. “Underneath the veil of suburbiawas infactagreatdealof not only need but a community that had trouble integrating be- yondits borders.” In response, he and others
formed a group called Friends of Tobytown. They helped to set up a computer lab and a tutoring pro- gramand offer other support. But they grew frustrated when their efforts to “empower” residents metwithresistance.
plans to create a homeowners as- sociation board for residents dis- solved into endless squabbling. Friends of Tobytown fell apart af- ter that. Thesedays,Tobytownresidents
have little contactwith their Poto- mac neighbors except for a smile and awave on theway to the C&O Canal for a jog or a game of tennis in the park. In years past, the neighbors’ faces were mostly white,but they’vebeenjoinedbya wave of successful immigrants. Regardless of ethnicity, most
affluent residents whose homes surroundTobytownlargely ignore it.
“They sort of wish it weren’t
there,” saidAlVivino,ownerof the Travilah OakMarket up the road, which sells imported wine, Bel- giantruffleicecreamandsashimi- grade tuna. “They don’tmesswith it.”
The isolation worsened when Tobytown lost a programfor low-
cost taxicab vouchers inMay.One resident, Deborah Martin, said she had to quit her job as a store clerk because she had no way to get towork. A Montgomery spokeswoman
said that the county couldn’t af- ford to put upmatching funds for a federal transportationgrant ina timeofbudgetwoes.Of$70,000in vouchers available, only $21,000 werepurchased, she said. The county also slashed after-
school programs across the coun- ty, including Tobytown’s, which was cut fromfivedays to four.
Rich friends “Thebiggestproblemis thatwe
have nothing to do,” said Willie Martin, 13, playing outside with his friends one recent afternoon. The sun glinted through the tall trees, and the sounds of skate- boards scraping the pavement filledthe air. Willie—with a round face and
puckish charm — came to live in Tobytown with his father and grandparents two years ago after thedeathofhismother. After moving around a lot, he
has found a sense of stability at Robert Frost Middle School. He has a lot of friends. But he’s well aware of the economic chasmsep- arating himand the vastmajority ofhis classmates. “EveryoneIknowis rich,”Willie said. “They have everything, and I
NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST Wesley Wilson, 53, and Clarence Carroll, 50, play dominoes in Tobytown, a tiny, isolated enclave of modest homes surrounded by mansions in Potomac.
havenothing. I’vehadtheseshorts for, like, three years.”He gestured down to his baggy black cargos. “I can’t afford to gain anyweight, or I'll growout of them.” Money is so tight, he can play
his Xbox only for an hour or so a day lest he strain the family’s elec- tric bill. He can’t help but compare his
lifestylewith those of kids outside Tobytown. “Wejustboughtabike, theyjust
bought an RV. We just paid our [utility] bill, they just got their house redone,”he said. Martin,Braxtonand her cousin
India Shaw, 20, who works at FashionBug, oftenorganizebingo nights to give Willie and other childrensomething todo. One recent evening, they gath-
ered in the community center at folding tables. Braxton cranked a basket and called numbers as the kids marked their cards, compet- ing forplastic toys fromtheDollar Store. Hip-hop music streamed fromaboombox inthe corner.The kids ate hot dogs and hamburgers and sprinkle-decorated cupcakes Martinhadmade. Afterawhile,ShawandBraxton
took a cigarette break on the cen- ter’s frontporch. Braxtonhadbeenworking long
hours andseemedtired. She’dstill like to get a full-time job, go back to college and become a nurse someday, but at that moment thosedreams seemedas remoteas theplacewhere shewas standing. “People hear about this neigh-
borhood, and they say, ‘You, like, rich?You live ina bighouse?’ ” she said. “I say, ‘Ha ha ha.’ Then I tell them what it’s like and they say, ‘Oh, you live in the ’hood.’ I don't live in the ’hood, I just live out in the middle of nowhere. And they say, ‘Howdo youlive like that?’ ” Braxton kept smoking. There
wasno easy answer.
gowena@washpost.com
EZ SU
KLMNO
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2010 Suburban poor struggle amid Montgomery’s affluence
Suicides shake Va. campus, where students ‘want to be perfect’ suicide from C1
Campus suicide awareness campaigns often have focused on getting students comfortable with using words such as “depres- sion” and dispelling myths about the counseling center. “None of the students on this
campus want to have problems,” said Caitlin Goldblatt, a senior literary and cultural studies ma- jor who was friends with Mayer. “They want to be perfect.” Nationwide, the number of col-
lege students who have mental illnesses increases each year, as improved diagnoses and medica- tion make it easier for them to stay in school and manage cam- puslife.Butproblemscanintensi- fy amid the stresses of social con- flicts, course work and the diffi- culties of transitioning to life away from home. “Generations ago, some of the
peoplewesee on our campusnow would not have made it to col- lege,” said Patricia Volp, William andMary’s dean of students. Although statistics on college suicide rates are limited, experts
say there are at least 1,100 a year nationwide, making suicide the second-most common cause of death for college students, after car accidents. Still, people of col- lege agewhoare enrolled in class- es are less likely tocommitsuicide than those not enrolled in school. “Being in a college can be a
protective factor,” because stu- dents are part of a community stocked with easily accessible re- sources, said Elana Premack San- dler, a specialist at the Suicide PreventionResourceCenter,ana- tional group that tries to help curb suicide. “They can envision their future, and they have that kind of structure.” But it can be difficult for colleg-
es to monitor the health of thou- sands of students while also ad- hering to privacy laws and mak- ing appropriate decisions about when one has become too ill to safely stay enrolled. “Whois going to speakupif the consequence of speaking up is getting kicked out?” asked Court- ney Knowles, executive director of the Jed Foundation, a New York-based group that works to
prevent campus suicides. “Some- times staying in school is the best thing for a student who is strug- gling.” Yet helping students who re-
main on campus can be difficult, even when colleges have fully staffed counseling centers. Stu- dents with serious issues do not always seek help—andwhenthey do, it’s usually from friends or family members, not university officials.Many colleges, including William and Mary, have added information about mental health issues to orientation sessions for students and parents. Officials also have trained professors and residence hall advisers to spot the signs of depression. New York University, which
has struggled with suicides in recent years, screens every stu- dent who visits the health center for depression. The Massachu- setts Institute of Technology ex- tended its counseling center hoursinto the night severaldaysa week and encouraged faculty members living in the residence halls to closely watch the stress levels of students.
At Cornell University, at least
six students committed suicide last school year. Three of those deaths were in one month, prompting the university presi- dent to take out full-page ads in the studentnewspaperurging: “If you learn anything at Cornell, please learn to ask for help.” Even before the recent run of
deaths,WilliamandMary—char- tered by British royal authority in 1693, making it the nation’s sec- ond-oldest college, after Harvard University—hadacquiredawhis- pered reputation as a “suicide school.” In May, a group of com- menters on College Confidential, an admissionsWeb site, passion- atelydebated the label inadiscus- sion about William andMary. After the deaths last semester,
the university added a case man- ager in the dean of students office who carefully tracks vulnerable students and coordinates with all departments on campus to moni- tor them. When a student is hav- ing a mental-health crisis, health professionals and administrators assess the student and make a plan of action. That sometimes
includes a leave from school. “They could be doing
straight-A work, but we have to focus on their medical issues first,” said Virginia Ambler, Wil- liam andMary’s vice president of student affairs. “The goal always is to get a student to a pointwhere they can succeed.” Volp added: “And be alive.” Some of Mayer’s friends said
they knew she had dealt with mental-health issues since high school, but others said they had no idea. This semester seemed to be
going well for Mayer. She was thinking about majoring in envi- ronmental sciences. She was in- volved with several clubs and had an internship as an event planner for an environmental nonprofit group. She had a new boyfriend, sophomore John Klepadlo. She spent hours atLakeMatoaka with her friends, canoeing, camping, watching a meteor shower and sitting on the dock. She filled her e-mails with exclamation points andwordswritten entirely in cap- ital letters. But her demanding load of
classes included a difficult chem- istry course. And the problems of the worldseemto weigh too heav- ily on her, said Klepadlo, a psy- chology major from Virginia Beach. “At times she was happy, but
she always had this thing eating away at her,” Klepadlo said. “She didn’twantto botheranyonewith her problems.” Hours afterMayer’s death, her roommate, Jess Yon, found typed letters sitting on a desk in neat rows and columns—messages of love and apology fromMayer to a number of people in her life.May- er also left instructions on how to take care of her house plants. On the front door was a letter to Yon, explaining what had happened and detailing the steps she need- ed to take, including notifying the campus police of a student death. “It was just so thorough. She
told me what to do. She said, ‘It’s not your fault,’ ” Yon said. “She was so passionate about so many things that weren’t academic. I can’t comprehend what the trig- ger was.”
johnsonj@washpost.com
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