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The park where Jeannine Silvestrone played as a girl is cordoned off by a chain-link fence, and the spot where her childhood home stood is now thick with 10-year-old weeds.

“The site was beautiful. … There was lots of outdoor space. The community was very involved with each other, they helped each other and supported each other because we were all in financial need,” Silvestrone says as she stands outside the once-vibrant Little Mountain housing project near 37th and Main Street.

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“I cannot believe that this very valuable piece of land that was supposed to have social housing for 224 families is still empty.”

She, her mother, stepfather and two brothers were among the families who once lived in the federal government-run project that offered 224 affordable, multi-bedroom apartments and row houses to low-income parents for more than five decades.

But when the land was sold to a private developer in 2008, the families were asked to leave, most of the homes were torn down, and a decade later a majority of the replacement social housing has not been built — despite escalating housing costs that have chased many families out of the city.