Red Truck Stonecatcher

When Lare and Batana Bouganou arrived in the United States to build a new life, never did they think they would become pioneers helping to rebuild a neighborhood.

 

Their success has been hard earned. With no prospects for a better life, and living on just a few dollars a day, Lare and Batana secured a rare visa in 2006 to immigrate to the U.S. fleeing the slums of Togo’s capital city, Lomé. Fate brought them to Hartford’s South Marshall Street with what (to them) was the good fortune to rent just a bedroom in a shared apartment in the street’s rundown immigrant and refugee housing.

It was the start they prayed for. They found life safer with more opportunities than in Togo. Lare believed Hartford had everything they needed to succeed.

 

“Blessed” with minimum wage jobs, the next seven years led them to their own one-bedroom apartment on Collins Street, the birth of a daughter, and better paying jobs. Lare became a CNA, and is completing courses at Capital Community College for her dream job as an RN.

 

Batana has a steady job at a home products distributor. Their daughter is receiving a great education at the Achievement First Hartford Academy — all unimaginable opportunities back in Togo.

 

“People don’t know how lucky they are to live in America,” Lare told me. “If you live right and work hard, you can have a better life.”

 

In 2013, the Bougonou’s jumped at the opportunity to return to South Marshall to realize the impossible dream of homeownership. Through their determination to succeed, and with lots of nail pounding sweat equity, they bought a Habitat for Humanity townhome that they helped build — a new life, a new home.

 

“Every time I open the front door I’m going to heaven,” Lare said wiping her tears.

 

In 2011, Hartford Area Habitat for Humanity embarked on the most technically challenging development in its 27-year history, the construction of 16 affordable townhomes on Asylum Hill’s dangerous South Marshall Street.

 

With construction underway, Hartford Habitat and Rev. Ed Horstmann, then senior minister at nearby Immanuel Congregational Church, gathered area faith leaders to help raise funds to build one of the development’s homes. Immediately and importantly, in addition to successfully garnering financial support, a critical question emerged, “What more could be done to improve the quality of life for all residents on South Marshall Street that the new Habitat homes by themselves won’t address?”

 

That question launched the formation of the South Marshall Interfaith Coalition — a coalition of several Asylum Hill and Hartford area faith leaders uniting to address long-standing barriers to neighborhood improvement. Recognizing the extensive challenges, the coalition knew its efforts, as an unfunded network of faith communities, could not be a go-it-alone endeavor. Other organizations had been focused on these challenges, some for decades. We needed to team with them.

 

With the Asylum Hill Neighborhood Association (AHNA) heading the list, these organizations included The Aetna, The Hartford, St. Francis Hospital, the Marshall House shelter, Catholic Charities Refugee and Immigration Services, the Hartford Public Library, the City of Hartford, The Stowe Center, the Northside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance (NINA), Mutual Housing, Foodshare, Hartbeat Ensemble, the Habitat homeowners association, and, most recently, several South Marshall Street residents.

 

The coalition’s role is clear: Invest in each other and work together.