As plans for a $600,000 homeless housing complex in Jackson, Mississippi are considered, residents speak out against the project over concerns of increased crime.
Police in Jackson. MS responding to a homicide incident/Facebook
“We have folks saying, ‘Don’t let it go through. Don’t let it go through,'” Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Harley told WLBT 3. “We need to do something about the homeless problem in Jackson, [but] building additional facilities without managing the overall homeless picture won’t do any good.”
Hartley also revealed his supporters complained that homeless individuals have caused a variety of problems. These include, in some cases, causing derelict properties to burn down after they set fires to stay warm.
He stressed that he focuses on taking care of West Jackson residents before inviting new people into the community. Hartley also pushed for community grants to restore homes as well as money to clean up streets and properties.
“If we build it, they will come,” he added, according to the WLBT report.
Others have claimed that the plan, which also includes a communal kitchen and bathrooms on an 18-acre location in West Jackson, could attract even more homeless people to the area.
Resident Sheka Epps said that she is in favor of housing for people experiencing homelessness, but the current site is too close to West Jackson homeowners and schools.
“It’s going to overwhelm the area with more homelessness, more blight, and more businesses leaving our area,” she told WLBT. “We have a lot of land. We have a lot of country land here in Jackson and in Hinds County as a whole. They can build a homeless camp anywhere on the outskirts.”
But advocates, such as Jackson Resource Center CEO Putalamus White, say that the plan would help to house the nearly 3,000 homeless people in the city.
“Building this would get us, as a city, going in the right direction,” White said during a recent city council meeting. “It would definitely pull a lot of our homeless in West Jackson off the streets.”
The Biden administration said last week that they would allocate $3.16 billion to fund over 6,000 projects similar to the one proposed in Jackson across the country.
Original article source: Plans for massive homeless village in Jackson, Mississippi panics residents: ‘Don’t let it go through’
