East side woman willing to put mortgage on home to help teens in need
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A woman who’s lived on the east side of Indianapolis most of her life is taking it upon herself to try to help stop the violence. While there hasn’t been a murder since January in that 42nd and Post area, and ten people were arrested last week in raids headed up by the FBI and IMPD. People who live on the east side say more needs to be done to help the teens and young adults. Michelle Grays said she is ready to go all in to do her part. “Yep I don’t see Mr. Squirrel,” she said, disappointed. “It’s too late in the day for him.”Every day, Michelle Grays steps outside to feed a squirrel in her front yard. “He’s God’s creature. He needs to eat,” she said as she waited. She’s lived on the 4100 block of Arborcrest Road most of her life and lives to serve her neighborhood. “They call me nanny,” she said. “Everybody calls me nanny.” Whether a meal or sometimes a trip to the juvenile jail, she’s always willing to help out, especially when it comes to the young adults and teens. “People don’t believe in these children. Because they don’t understand from which they come,” she said. “I live this life.” She’s seen heartache: a son dead from drugs and a house sprayed by bullets. And she said the teens, many that she knows, in her neighborhood need her help. “By age they’re children. By mental thinking they’re children,” she said. “By the people who are encouraging them to do different, they’re an adult. Period.” A few years ago she started an organization, Parents Against Gangs, to help clean up the neighborhood.But two years later, the building they said would be theirs remains empty, falling part. Life got in the way for Michelle. “They discovered I had a brain tumor,” she said. “I was kind of down for a minute but I’m back up.”Now, she’s ready to turn her home into a workshop, a place for teens to learn a craft from experts in plumbing, electric work, and carpentry. And then she hopes they can apply for Indiana Plan, the state’s program to boost minority apprenticeships. “These boys and men are going to be able to make a decent living,” she said.She’s willing to put a mortgage down on her home to get the program up and running by letting these kids fix up a dilapidated home that she will buy. “I believe in them. I absolutely do and I’m willing to step out on the line,” said Grays.As she put it, this could be a way for these teens that have seen so much to find a reason worth living. Michelle Grays said she believes IMPD has been doing a great job curbing some of the violence in the area but that it’s going to take more from the community. She is hoping to start up her training this spring.