Jackson Free Press

City War on Homeless Escalates

City Council President Ben Allen said last week that he wanted the city to crack down on soliciting, particularly in the downtown area. Allen said aggressive panhandling was helping drive businesses out of the city and discouraged new business and tourism in the area. He said that city attorneys were devising a proposal that limits panhandling to certain spots in the city.

"We've been getting more and more complaints every year about aggressive panhandlers accosting citizens and visitors in Jackson, and we've never had an ordinance to address that," Allen said before the backdrop of a burning house near Lanier High School. Allen held the press conference at the site of a burning of a dilapidated building by Mayor Frank Melton. "What we're proposing is not going to infringe on anybody's First Amendment rights. We're not touching any freedom of expression or anything like that. Our city attorneys say this is nothing that hasn't been done in other places," Allen added.

City Attorney Sarah O'Reilly Evans assured reporters that the city would not be liable for First Amendment attacks regarding the possible new ordinances, which will restrict panhandling from the downtown business district and impose fines for repeat violations.

"The kinds of things that we are proposing today have been successfully defended in other cities in the courts, so we think they are legally safe," she said.

Michael Raff, deputy director of the city's Department of Human and Cultural Services, (and one of the organizers of the city's 10-year plan to combat homelessness in Jackson) said he stood behind the proposition.

"This proposition has no effect on the city's homeless," Raff said. "It's a completely different issue. The people effected by this proposal, and the homeless are two different people," Raff said.

Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, warned that banning panhandling from a portion of territory was often only the first step in a wave of discrimination.

"When you start passing these kinds of laws, it leads to more laws, which could eventually lead to teenagers doing violence against homeless people," Stoops said. "The bottom line is anti-panhandling laws have been around a long time, they're expensive, they don't work, they don't get rid of homeless people, and it never solves the greater issue of how to combat homelessness."

The council discussed the proposal at the Aug. 29 council meeting. Allen said the city was crafting an ordinance similar to a panhandling ordinance already in use in Atlanta and that the discussion item would be on the agenda for next week.

Melton Playing With Fire

Last week, Jackson Mayor Frank Melton burned down dilapidated houses around Lanier High School—without approval from the Department of Environmental Quality, according to DEQ officials. DEQ spokesman Robbie Wilbur said the city had permission to demolish the houses but not to burn them because of certain building components, including many plastics, which break down into caustic fumes when burned.

"The problem is that state regulations don't allow open burnings. There are substances like linoleum and carpet that go into the air, and we'd want to minimize putting things like that in the air," he said.

Asbestos exterior wall shingles are common components in homes built during the production years around Lanier, but Wilbur said the city should have already removed the dangerous shingles in preparation for demolition.

Still, the National Fire Protection Association's standard on live fire training operations offers a 92-page book of hoops to jump through before a city sends out the fire department to do a control burn on a piece of property. Some of the recommendations include removing or protecting utilities services adjacent to the property, city ownership of the building—including evidence of clear title—or written permission from the building's owner for the burn, and informing all neighbors in the vicinity of the burn.

Melton told The Clarion-Ledger that he didn't care about getting DEQ's permission to burn the property, admitting that his office and DEQ had been fighting over the matter.

The Mayor likely will get away with any infractions for a few months. Wilbur said DEQ's compliance and enforcement division for companies and municipalities hadn't gotten on the city's trail just yet.

Information on DEQ's Web site says that penalties against offending parties could be $25,000 per day of violation, but Wilbur defines the penalties as a guideline rather than a rule.

"Usually the DEQ works out an agreement with the offending party that will be something other than a monetary penalty," Wilbur said.

Entergy also said that Melton's fires likely caused one of their wires "to melt and fall to the ground," Entergy spokesman Checky Herrington told The Clarion-Ledger. Entergy is investigating.