Oral history interview with Michelle Riddle, 2014

Biographical Note

Michelle Riddle was born in 1962. She lived her earliest years in St. Albans, Queens. Following a house fire, her parents split and her mother moved to Brooklyn with the children. After a couple years of short-lived housing arrangements, they settled in the Marcy Projects. By the age of sixteen, she had her first son with her boyfriend Butch. They had started using marijuana and then began using cocaine. Their daughter was born in 1984. When that relationship ended, she moved out of the Marcy Projects and landed at the Prince George Hotel shelter in Manhattan. She and boyfriend Purnell were married in 1986 before the birth of their daughter. They divorced after she found him stealing from the family to buy crack cocaine. By the late 1980s, Riddle was also using crack and engaging in sex work to support the habit. In 1992, while attempting rehab at Phoenix House, she learned she was HIV positive. In the early 1990s, she started dealing crack to support the habit. She also had a son and daughter during this period. In the late 1990s, she was incarcerated on drug charges. In 2000, she was released from prison and began a series of programs including Phoenix House, Narcotics Anonymous, Women in Need, and the Education Outreach Program (EOP), the original life skills empowerment program, run by New York Catholic Charities. In 2003, she graduated from the EOP, and she began working for New York Catholic Charities. In 2001, she met Calhoun (CL) at an AIDS Walk, and they were married in 2007. He died in 2010. By the late 2010s, she was living in an apartment in Brooklyn, working as a companion and coach for sick people. She also served as a mentor in various contexts, at New York Catholic Charities, and on the board of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing

Scope and Contents

In this two-session interview, Michelle Riddle examines her life story, including her experiences with addiction and homelessness. Many stories and analyses are revisited across both sessions. Riddle shares her memories of her youth in St. Albans Queens and in Brooklyn on Gold Street and the Marcy Projects. She shares memories of her parents and analyzes their personalities and her relationships with each of them. For her father, this includes memories of his careers in the military and as a mechanic, his work ethic, his alcoholism, and his support of her. For her mother, this includes their fraught relationship, her substance abuse, her mental health, and her colorism. She describes episodes from her childhood including a house fire at the St. Albans house, unwanted attention from her mother's boyfriend, and a stay at the Brooklyn Arms shelter after another fire. Riddle describes aspects of her teenage years at the Marcy Projects including declining interest in school, her relationship with Butch, her introductions to marijuana and cocaine, the births of children Wes and Marianne, and housing arrangements through this period. She discusses her time at the Prince George Hotel shelter in the late 1980s, including her relationship with Purnell, introduction to and use of crack cocaine, and the birth of daughter Nichelle. She also describes activities to support crack habit including sex work and drug dealing after learning that she was HIV positive. She describes activities in the early 1990s including relationships, housing scenarios, and the births and adoptions of her children Michael and Brianne. She describes her incarceration, association with the Christian group in prison, rehab at Phoenix House, and connecting with the Education Outreach Program (EOP) of New York Catholic Charities through the Women's Prison Association and Women in Need. She compares the storytelling experience at the EOP with that of Narcotics Anonymous. She discusses her marriage to Calhoun (CL). She describes services used to help obtain housing and her work and volunteering at the time of the interview. She also muses on religion and sobriety

Subjects

• Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)
• Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York.
• Cocaine abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Drug addicts--Rehabilitation--United States.
• Greenfield, Susan C., interviewer.
• Homelessness.
• Homeless persons--New York (State)--New York.
• Imprisonment--United States.
• Interviews.
• Marcy Houses (New York, N.Y.)
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Phoenix House (Organization)
• Riddle, Michelle, 1962--Interviews.
• Saint Albans (New York, N.Y.)
• Spiritual formation.

Access Conditions

Copyright by Michelle Riddle. The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York hold a non-exclusive license to enable library activities