SOLVED. book about a teen whose family moves from poor to fancy apartment building [s]

[Wendy]

The story was from the perspective of a girl whose family moves from a poor neighbor to a fancy new apartment building. I think she was African-American and I think the story was set in Chicago. At first she and her family are excited but eventually begin to miss the close knit community of their old neighborhood.

I read the book between 1996 and 1999 and it was also published between 1996 and 1999

[Emily]

Was it YA, Children, or Adult book?

[Wendy]

Adult

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Only Twice I've Wished for Heaven

"Eleven-year-old girl Tempestt and her family are given what is considered the chance of a lifetime: to move on up to Lakeland. It's a chance to leave behind the gritty neighborhood Tempestt has known throughout her entire life for one square mile of pristine beauty carved out of a Chicago ghetto and secured by a 10-foot-tall, ivy-covered, wrought iron fence. Tempestt is quickly drawn to the streets beyond the fence, to a place of colorful, often dangerous, characters: 35th Street. Here the saved and the sinners are both so "done-up" you can't tell one from the other: Alfred Mayes, the oily preacher and connoisseur of "fine young thangs," whose line is as smooth as honey and whose looks are twice as sweet; and Miss Jonetta, a former lady of the evening who knows everyone's stories, and whose own history is as long and dark as 35th Street itself. Barely a month after moving to Lakeland, Tempestt will witness the death of friend, cause the arrest of a preacher, and start a chain of events that will send 35th Street up in flames."

[Cheryl]

PM and link sent, OP is active on GR (!).

[Wendy]

That's it! I'll move the query to solved.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

I shelved it.