Jackson Free Press

Some Jackson residents are growing concerned about the high number of halfway houses and homeless shelters populating the midtown area.

"I think all these shelters and halfway houses are dragging down the community," West Jackson resident Tawana Chapman told the Jackson Free Press. "This community is turning around. We've got the new Habitat (for Humanity) homes over here, the Katrina (victims) neighborhood, a nice park, a good school. I don't want to see it fall again."

Chapman is nervous about Stewpot Community Services opening a 100-person daytime homeless shelter for men, The Opportunity Center, at 844 W. Capitol Street, in close proximity to the new business she plans to open in August. Stewpot is opening a similar shelter for women, the Flower Shelter for Women and Children, at 555 Livingston Street.

Rev. Frank Spencer, chief executive officer of Stewpot Community Services, told the JFP that he expects both facilities to be open and running by early May.

"We want to help the community as much as possible, and we're doing that by getting the homeless off the street," Spencer said. "The homeless are already here. We're trying to change them and give them the opportunities that they need to succeed in life."

Battlefield Community Association President Daisy Mildred Davis said homeless shelters serve a purpose but complained about their concentration in the midtown area.

"The environment they create isn't good for them or the neighborhood. They help make a community that attracts the wrong kind of business: drug buyers and dealers," Davis said, adding that the shelters act as a magnet, creating an "unloading zone" for transients.

Ward 6 Councilman Marshand Crisler said he feels midtown bears a disproportionate burden, with three shelters, and, according to TherapistUnlimited.com, at least five halfway houses. Crisler said the city needed to find a way to spread shelters out so that they don't have a harsh impact on any single community, and suggested the use of "fair share" ordinances.

"It shouldn't be relegated to certain demographics, but that's exactly what they are," Crisler said. "There is a very real concern that they will decrease the property value. It's no coincidence that you don't find them in Ward 1," he added. "The affluent can keep them out, while the poor communities don't put up a fight. That's just wrong."

Acknowledging that there were no shelters in his ward, Ward 1 Councilman Ben Allen denied that this was through any maneuvering on the part of Ward 1 residents.

"That's all about economics," Allen said. "Non-profits tend to go where the property is affordable. ... They don't buy property in Ward 1 because property in Ward 1 is still getting bought by businesses."

Jackson Homeless-plan Coordinator Lewis Armstrong said that one reason for the midtown concentration is favorable zoning, but he argues that shelters are more of an asset than a detriment.

"The shelter will get homeless people off the street and into a confined environment where we can assess their needs and get them into the appropriate social services element. ... It's really a plus," Armstrong said.

Halfway houses, liquor stores and sex clubs fall under the category of "Locally Unwanted Land Uses," or LULUs, and many U.S. cities already disperse them. Other cities already mandate versions of fair share laws.

Mary Zdanowicz, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va., said fair-share laws dispersing underprivileged groups—such as the mentally ill—over a city would benefit those groups.

"People with severe mental illnesses have a higher likelihood of abusing substances, so putting them in an area with high drug use is a prescription for disaster," Zdanowicz said. "Ideally, housing for the mentally ill and those with drug disorders need to be in a healthy environment conducive to their recovery."

Jackson engages in its own LULU dispersal, relegating sex clubs to "light industrial" zones and requiring them to be a certain distance from schools, but Robert Nasdor, legal director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, in Washington, said residents can use fair share laws to violate disadvantaged citizens' rights, no matter how well intentioned they are.

"Cities who go about trying to restrict where a non-profit can operate are on pretty shaky ground," Nasdor said. "The Fair Housing Act provides that a city can't restrict housing opportunities to disabled people. The term 'fair share' implies that the city is trying to allocate its undesirable citizens to different areas of the city. Those types of attitudes lead to criminalization measures and other actions that would violate the civil rights of homeless people and the disabled."

Nasdor suggests cities use other incentives to tempt non-profits to different areas of the city, such as reduced fees for city services.