Reporter's note: Two years ago, the State Journal profiled residents in five neighborhoods with a history of crime and other challenges. This year, we tried to contact them to find out if anything had changed since 2007. Residents in two neighborhoods agreed to interviews. We interviewed different residents in the others.

On the night Terry Cork and his family moved into their first Allied Drive apartment there was a drive-by shooting near the parking lot of the building next door.

"I said to (my wife), 'What did we get into?' " Cork recalled.

Despite the ominous welcome, Cork, his wife and their children spent 13 years in that apartment, then moved to one just down the block about a year ago. This fall they planned to move into another just a block away, and Cork said he'd consider someday buying one of the owner-occupied units expected to go up in the place where his current apartment building stands.

The reason the family has stayed in the troubled neighborhood is partly economic -- Cork, 48, is the only wage earner in a family of eight -- but mainly educational.

"The school district is good with all our kids," two of whom have disabilities, Cork said, and he and his wife have never wanted to take them out of Crestwood Elementary, Jefferson Middle and Memorial High schools.

He also said the family, especially his children, have made many good friends in the neighborhood.

Allied Drive was a hotbed of drug and gang activity in the 1990s but began to turn around about two years ago, as the city began a multimillion dollar revitalization project that includes buying and demolishing nine apartment buildings to make way for low-income rental units and privately developed townhomes, duplexes and single-family homes. Cork's first Allied apartment was among those demolished.

Police also cracked down, and residents are taking more of a stake in their neighborhood, Cork said, and a lot of people who were causing problems before have moved.

The changes are welcome, but Cork remains disappointed his family wasn't able to get one of the new apartments.

"They said that (those whose apartments were torn down) were guaranteed an apartment and that each one would have a Section 8 voucher attached," he said.

But he said when he applied for one of the new places, he was told that his family was too big for one of the three-bedroom units and that he made too much money to qualify.

"We got shot down all the way around," he said.

Percy Brown, deputy director of the city's Community Development Authority, said city officials would have never guaranteed an apartment or a Section 8 voucher, but they did emphasize residents would get priority in applying for both.

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