
DATE: Monday, November 3, 1997              TAG: 9711030242

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO. . . THE MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILY THAT MOVED FROM GHENT TO PARK PLACE?

In the spring of 1992, Bill Thomas moved his family from their picture-perfect three-story home in Norfolk's well-kept Stockley Gardens to a battered old Victorian house in the poorer Park Place neighborhood. He said at the time that he wanted his children to see firsthand what life is like for many blacks in America.

Just six weeks after Bill Thomas and his wife and three children settled into their home in Park Place, Thomas told a reporter from The Virginian-Pilot that they planned to stay for at least five years.

They lasted about 2 1/2.

That was more than long enough for the family to see how difficult, dangerous and depressing it can be to live in a community where drug traffic, crime and poverty, and feelings of hopelessness, are high.

It also was long enough for them to endure two drive-by shootings in the neighborhood - including one that blew out the windows of a neighbor's home - and to watch drugs being sold and used openly in the street.

They saw the powerful effect negative peer pressure can have on children and how the lack of achievement in school can discourage them from striving to do well.

Most frustrating of all, they said, was finding out how difficult it is to persuade city officials and others in the community to improve conditions in such neighborhoods.

``If I had grown up in that environment, it wouldn't have been that bad,'' said Thomas' wife, Debbie, who, like her husband, grew up in suburban Kansas. ``But I had never been around all that.''

It was concern for the safety of their children - now 16, 13, and 10 - that finally pushed them out.

``I didn't want them to get caught in the line of fire,'' Debbie Thomas said.

After leaving Park Place, the family moved into an apartment near Old Dominion University. They continue to live there and plan to stay ``awhile.'' The house they rented in Park Place has since been torn down by the owner.

Bill Thomas, a financial consultant, said they don't regret having moved to Park Place. In fact, he said, he and his family learned a great deal from their time there and they are better citizens as a result.

``It certainly opened my eyes up and gave me a view of what it is like to suffer on the bottom,'' Thomas said. Before he moved there, he said, he was cocky and arrogant, and thought he had all the answers. ``I've definitely been humbled.''

And the lessons his children learned were ``the greatest blessing of all,'' he said. ``They understand now what it is like to be without opportunity and to have to be dependent on people and things outside of their family, like the government. They're very independent now and very directed in what they want to do with their lives.'' MEMO: Whatever Happened To . . . appears every Monday, and we welcome

your suggestions for people and subjects to update. Dial INFOLINE at

640-5555 and press 7878 to leave a message for Jane Harper. ILLUSTRATION: In their 2 1/2 years living in Park Place, the Thomas

family learned some lessons, says Bill Thomas, center. His children,

he says, ``understand now what it is like to be without opportunity

and to have to be dependent on people and things outside of their

family.''

DENIS FINLEY

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