JACKSON, Miss.—As North Jackson resident Shirley Lee looked at the heavy machinery and partially dug-up dirt on the property where developers plan to build a 64-unit apartment complex in Ward 2, she wondered about the ramifications on her peaceful community.
“My initial concern right now is ‘Who’s moving over there?’ What kind of residents are they putting in that property?” she said.
Her North Jackson neighborhood is tucked away near the corner where Northside Drive meets Medgar Evers Boulevard, feet from where developers plan to build the complex, which developers say will bring affordable housing to the area with one, two and three-bedroom units.
But as Lee, who is the Northwest Hills Terrace Neighborhood Association president, drove through the neighborhood earlier this month, she reflected on her quiet life in the neighborhood and pondered how that might change with the new development.
“We’ve had a couple little house burglaries but we don’t really have crime per se, praise God. We don’t have any shootings,” she explained in a Jan. 2 interview with the Mississippi Free Press.
‘It Will Be Well Managed’
Despite frequent concerns about affordable housing across the country, a 2022 University of California, Irvine study found no correlation between the presence of affordable housing developments and increases in crime. The study, focused on Orange County, Calif., instead found a decrease in crime, particularly violent crime, in areas near affordable housing sites and an uptick in property values.
Jackson Housing Authority Executive Director Allison Cox sought to allay concerns from North Jackson residents about the project during a Ward 2 community meeting last week.
About 50 residents, including Shirley Lee, gathered for the Ward 2 public meeting that City Councilwoman Tina Clay hosted on Jan. 9. Clay is running for re-election this year.
“Affordable housing: People hear that and they often think, slums, a bad place, something terrible, high crime,” Cox told the group gathered inside the Fresh Start Christian Church on Manhattan Road on Jan. 9.
“I’m very proud of the revitalization and work we’ve done in the community,” Cox told the group. The Keystone Estates on Agape Drive and the Ashton Gardens Apartments on Albermarle Road are two of the properties the Jackson Housing Authority owns in Jackson.
Affordable housing is “desperately, desperately needed,” the director said, explaining that the project will cost about $15 million.
“It’s not public housing,” she continued. “It’s not Section 8. It is a tax credit development. It will be nice. It will be well-managed.”
Cox told the group that there was “never any intention to keep it secret.”
“When you’re talking about a tax credit development, there’s a radius that we send notices out to. We did all that,” she said in a Jan. 13 interview with the Mississippi Free Press. “We also ran public notices and posted a sign on the property during the application process. We did all that.”
Despite that, some homeowners, including Lee, in the area say they did not receive any information about the plans.
Lee lamented that no one has facilitated an opportunity for members of the community to ask these questions of developers.
Lee told the Mississippi Free press that she is “not against anybody needing housing” and that she understands the need, but she wants the community to have a voice regarding the new development in her neighborhood. She hopes that city leaders, the housing authority or the developers will be open to meeting with residents directly to answer questions about the project.
But after the public meeting on Jan. 9, she doubts that will happen, she said.
Local Leaders Split Over Affordable Housing
Local leaders have spoken out in recent months about the need for affordable housing in the capital city. But even elected officials have been split about where to build affordable-housing units and the effect the plans will have on existing communities.
On July 2, 2024, the Jackson City Council debated whether or not to allow developers to move forward with The Village at Livingston Place—a project that will bring 200 new homes to West Jackson.
Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes and Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley said they thought residents needed more opportunities to ask questions about that project, which will sit behind the Jackson Medical Mall.
“Those citizens over there do not want it,” Stokes said at the time. “Nobody has talked to those citizens. Nobody.” He also expressed concerns that putting affordable housing in the community could lead to increased crime in that area.
But Ward 6 City Councilman Aaron Banks rejected that argument, urging his colleagues to be “more optimistic about growth happening in the city of Jackson.”
“Regardless of the crime. Regardless of cars being stolen. … At some point we have to be optimistic and try to build some city of light where there’s darkness,” said Banks, who has since been indicted and pleaded not guilty to charges in Jackson’s federal bribery case involving FBI agents who posed as real estate developers. That case has no relation to the housing developments in this story.
During an interview with the Mississippi Free Press last year, attorney Robert Gibbs, who consulted developers about the Village at Livingston Place proposal, said that he believed criticism of that project was overblown.
He said that the development will be particularly beneficial for young professionals who want to buy homes in the city rather than live in the surrounding suburbs. “I’m confident that the community is not as opposed to this as it appears. There’s a couple people that just don’t want to see the city move forward,” Gibbs said on July 2, 2024.
On Jan. 9, Ward 2 City Councilwoman Tina Clay echoed similar statements regarding the Woodcrest Apartments, saying that she is “excited” for what the 64-unit affordable housing complex could mean for her ward.
“There needs to be more affordable housing everywhere. Everybody has a need and we need to meet people where they are,” Clay told reporters gathered after the meeting. “We shouldn’t have people unhoused because they can’t afford a house.”
