JACKSON, Miss.—Months after sharing her plans to bring a 60-unit, tiny-home village to assist the homeless population of Mississippi’s capital city, Jackson Resource Center CEO Putalamus White is a step closer to making those intentions a reality.
“Envision the suburbs, if you will. In my mind, that’s where they will be living, in their own suburbs,” she told a group of politicians, community members and reporters gathered for a press conference on Nov. 26 before unveiling a replica model of the homes. White estimates that builders will get the first home up on the Capers Avenue campus by April 2025.
Tupelo-based company ModBox designed the units, which are permanent, affordable residences for those Jacksonians who have had to find shelter on the street, a friend’s couch or in their own car, White said.
However, housing is just one piece of The Junction, a sprawling, multi-million-dollar homelessness resource campus that White envisions will sit on 18 acres of land that she acquired in West Jackson.
White’s ambitions also include partnering with companies that can offer on-site services such as health-care treatment, mental-health counseling and substance-abuse rehabilitation.
“We’re always looking for partners,” she said in a Dec. 2 interview with the Mississippi Free Press. “The more partners we have, the more people we’re able to serve. We want everything from just the general, clinic-type check-ups to the specialties.”
In addition to coordinating with service providers and contractors, she is also in conversations with state and local officials to provide input on the role lawmakers could play in addressing homelessness as the state’s 2025 legislative session looms.
‘Tremendous Lack of Affordable Housing’
Before onlookers laid their eyes on The Junction’s tiny-home model on Nov. 26, they heard from several speakers including Jackson’s Ward 7 City Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay, who praised White for her determination to bring the idea to fruition.
Months earlier, the two joined several others for a legislative hearing inside the Mississippi Capitol Building.
The lawmakers who comprise the Mississippi House Capital City Revitalization Committee listened intently on Oct. 30 as law-enforcement officers, nonprofit leaders and local politicians shared the most pressing challenges and some possible solutions for addressing homelessness in Jackson.
The gathering was the second of such meetings ahead of the 2025 Legislative Session. The committee’s members include the following:
- CO-CHAIR: Clay Mansell, R-Jackson
- CO-CHAIR: Shanda Yates, I-Jackson
- Chris Bell, D-Jackson
- Lawrence Blackmon, D-Madison
- Angela Cockerham, I-Magnolia
- Ronnie Crudup Jr., D-Jackson
- Jill Ford, R-Madison
- Stephanie Foster, D-Jackson
- Justis Gibbs, D-Jackson
- Jonathan McMillan, R-Madison
- Fabian Nelson, D-Byram
- Gene Newman, R-Pearl
- Brent Powell, R-Brandon
- Fred Shanks, R-Brandon
- Lance Varner, R-Florence
- Price Wallace, R-Mendenhall
- Grace Butler Washington, D-Jackson
- Lee Yancey, R-Brandon
The hearings allow lawmakers to “hear from various experts, invested parties, etc., and gather information needed to craft possible legislation to address the issues presented,” Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, said in a Sept. 9 statement to the Mississippi Free Press.
One challenge that pushes people to live on the streets in Jackson is the city’s “tremendous lack of affordable housing,” Lindsay said on Oct. 30.
“Literally, there are no places for a lot of these people to go,” continued the councilwoman, who in December introduced and then delayed the vote on an ordinance that would ban sleeping on city property.
Lindsay cited 2016 data from The Eviction Lab at Princeton University showing that the City of Jackson had the fifth highest rate of evictions in the country and that the State of Mississippi ranked eighth in evictions.
The state’s eviction rate remained consistent from 2000 until 2018 when The Eviction Lab stopped collecting data, Juan Pablo Garnham, communications specialist from The Eviction Lab, said in a Dec. 9 statement to the Mississippi Free Press.
He specified that one reason for the state’s high eviction rate compared to other states may be “due to its low filing fees” for landlords to evict tenants. But he added that more research is needed to demonstrate a direct correlation between eviction rates and the homeless population in a city.
Evictions disproportionately affect Black families, research shows.
A 2020 national study by The Eviction Lab found that while Black people make up less than 20% of American renters overall, they make up 32.7% of all eviction filing defendants. Jackson State University’s Margaret Walker Center featured an exhibit illustrating the data in 2021.
During the Oct. 30 legislative hearing, lawmakers also discussed the consequences of St. Dominic Hospital’s 2023 decision to close its Behavioral Services Unit, which housed 83 beds for psychiatric treatment, and the legality of ordinances to curb panhandling.
Jackson city officials previously considered a panhandling ordinance that would require anyone asking for money to have a city-issued permit. However, the city council unanimously voted to repeal the City’s panhandling ordinance in October 2020.
Arguing that panhandling was protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and the National Homelessness Law Center campaigned against panhandling bans in the state.
Ward 5 City Councilman Questions Project
Jackson Ward 5 City Councilman Vernon Hartley was not in attendance for the unveiling of the model tiny home on Nov. 26.
While he has previously said that he supports the work of homeless outreach organizations in the capital city, he has questioned how an additional homelessness housing complex may affect his community since Putalamus White announced her plans to build the campus in West Jackson earlier this year.
During a Feb. 13 meeting where the Jackson City Council discussed allocating $2.7 million in federal funds for the project, Hartley said that he felt it was being “shoved down the throats” of the residents of his ward.
“Where’s the $3 million to help the elderly folks renovate their homes and fix their roof? Where’s the $3 million to clean up the abandoned properties?” he asked.
At the time of her tiny home unveiling, the City of Jackson had not yet presented a finalized contract awarding Jackson Resource Center the $2.7 million for the project, White said. But she is in ongoing talks with the City about it, she added.
The Mississippi Free Press reached out to Councilman Vernon Hartley for a comment on this story but did not hear back by press time.
