John Beale, Post-Gazette New Image Landscaping, hard at work on Brushton Avenue in Homewood.

Allow me to introduce myself. I am 53, married to a Pittsburgher (no kids), a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and a 30-year resident of Pittsburgh who grew up in Louisville, Ky. And I write for the Business section, mostly about commercial real estate.

Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette Vanesse Rawlings breaks down upon hearing the news that her nephew, Kenyoda Daniels, had been shot to death in Homewood, Sept. 12. My Homewood is an online journal by Elwin Green about life in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Homewood that is struggling to find hope amid violence

Beginning last week, I also started keeping a diary on the Post-Gazette's Web site. We call it an Online Journal, but you could call it a blog (short for "Web log"). I call it "My Homewood." Its purpose will be to provide an ongoing narrative of what it is like to live in that section of Pittsburgh.

This is part of what it is like:

On Sept. 4, there was a shooting on my street. To my knowledge, two people were injured but none killed. And because bullets can travel pretty far, a bullet came through my living room window, although neither I nor my wife (who was in our living room at the time) had anything to do with anyone involved. Monday night, there was another shooting on my street, closer to my house and more brutal, too, injuring four men and a woman.

The first incident made me think seriously, for the first time, about moving to the suburbs (property taxes, I've learned, are remarkably low in Ben Avon Heights). But our home is paid for. Moving would not only mean being saddled with a mortgage, it also would mean dealing with the headache of either becoming professional landlords or selling our place.

And there is no housing bubble in Pittsburgh, least of all in Homewood. Our house, a 12-room brick number with stained-glass windows and hardwood floors, could easily fetch $200,000 in Squirrel Hill. In Homewood, we'd be lucky to get $40,000. But even if we could sell it, our immediate neighbors are among our best friends. So I really, really don't want to move.

I have another reason for staying put: I believe that of all the problems that Homewood has, one of the biggest is that too many people who could make Homewood better have left. And I believe, perhaps naively, that I can still help to make it better.

So I will continue to live in Homewood for now, and for the foreseeable future. And I will continue striving to craft sane responses when insanity rears its head -- calling 911 when I hear gunfire, praying and asking friends to do the same, struggling with the biblical injunction to love my neighbor and, now, writing it about it and sharing my experiences with you.

But I won't be the only one speaking. I hope to introduce you to people such as Pastor Ricky Burgess of Nazarene Baptist Church, which has created a community development corporation; Sarah B. Campbell, founding member of the Homewood-Brushton Community Improvement Association; and Rashad Byrdsong of the Community Empowerment Association, Inc. -- all institutions that help to sustain what remains of a once-thriving neighborhood.

And I'll seek out neighbors who may not be institutional leaders, but who have stories to tell, whether glad or sad, about our neighborhood. My hope, and the PG's hope, is that we can help to give a greater voice -- or a voice, period -- to those who are seldom or never heard.

I moved to Homewood in January 1984, and rely on the testimony of others about what Homewood was like before then. Especially what it was like before the riots that followed the April 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., This is what I've heard: You could buy anything you wanted in Homewood. People from around the city came here to shop. There were parades. There was a movie theater.

When I arrived, there was scarcely anywhere to shop, parades were on the verge of extinction and there was no movie theater. There was, however, an optimism among at least part of the citizenry, as we witnessed a burst of both residential and commercial new construction.

But at the same time there arose a darkening tide of drugs, theft and murder. The new construction stopped. The darkening tide didn't.

Although the journal is titled, "My Homewood," my goal is not merely to deliver a monologue, but to start a conversation. Perhaps together we can talk sense about what has happened, what is happening and what must happen in order for Homewood to survive, and even thrive again.

Even if you don't want to live in Homewood, you just may find it a fascinating place to visit.