| No Images? Click here   By Samantha Storey and Nick BaumannFormer Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz likes to frame his story as one of rags to riches, a classic tale.“I’m self-made,” said Schultz on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last month. “I grew up in the projects in Brooklyn, New York. I thought that was the American Dream.”Schultz has been publicly weighing a 2020 bid for president, releasing an autobiographical book and launching a media blitz. His Horatio Alger story has been a central part of his publicity tour, using his childhood in the projects as proof of his humble origins and exposure to diversity.But academics and residents of those same projects in which Schultz lived, take issue with his using the Bay View Houses to describe his youth as coming from “nothing.”HuffPost's Rebecca Klein was skeptical of Schultz's narrative and discovered a different kind of projects.What was the seed for this story?A few months ago I read a book by scholar Richard Rothstein about the history of racist housing policy in America. When Schultz announced he was considering a run for president a few weeks ago, I wondered how his humble origins might play into larger policies. I started doing some digging, and as I suspected, the projects of his childhood were pretty different than the projects of today.How did you go about researching his claims?I started reaching out to scholars who had studied the history of the New York City Housing Authority as well as people who grew up in the same public housing project as Schultz. The scholars pointed me to census data that provided hard stats about the environment in which Schultz grew up. The residents provided more every day details.What was most challenging?It was a challenging story to write because nothing Schultz has said is necessarily false. He did grow up in public housing. His family may have been poor. I don't want to discount his experiences. However, since he is so strongly claiming the projects as formative to his development, I do think it is important to clarify that they were safe, and designed for middle-class families; very different than the projects of today.What was most surprising?I spoke to a woman named Sheryl Boyce who felt like Schultz had largely abandoned the community. While Schultz has donated a lot of money to a local public school, he has not helped out the public housing project, even as it deteriorates. Boyce said there was some resentment in the community about that.Anything you’d like to add?Schultz has talked a lot about how he "doesn't see color," and cited his upbringing in a diverse housing project as evidence of this. My reporting challenges this narrative -- his housing project was overwhelmingly white, and even still, there was a lot of racial tension in the neighborhood.
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