Homeless in Jackson

 

There's a perception that part of the "problem" with Jackson is that there are so many homeless people.  When I was fourteen, my church and six others joined together and created an entity that became known as "Stewpot."  My mother volunteered to be the first manager of Stewpot, which meant she volunteered for us four kids and my dad as well.  I literally grew up coping with the homeless in Jackson, and here is my perspective:

1) The homeless go where you go.  Food doesn't fall from the sky like it did for Moses, so at some level, just like you and I, the homeless must be around enough people for them to find food.  Many would rather not socialize or have difficulty socializing, but no matter how you cut it or who you are, food comes from other people; it's the same for the homeless as it is for you and me.  If you haven't noticed, the homeless are now in Ridgeland, and soon they'll be in Madison.  They go where the people are.

2) Many of the "vagrancy" laws that used to keep the streets clear of the homeless were struck down in court, making it difficult to keep them off the streets.  To be honest, many of these laws and practices were cruel.  Often the only legal way you can keep the homeless out of your neighborhood is by gating it, which is one of the reasons why gating has become so popular.  

3) This isn't a liberal issue.  Jackson was a very conservative city when the downtown churches banded together to do something to alleviate the homeless problem.  Being conservative doesn't make the homeless go away, and being liberal doesn't attract them.  They go where the people are.  As Jackson's population shrinks, the homeless have been moving to cities in Rankin and Madison counties, very conservative cities in Rankin and Madison counties.

4) I've known hundreds of homeless people, and I've yet to meet one that I thought was lazy, and I've never met one that I thought was evil, not even the one that shot Matt Devenney.  Having a stable home means you're able to regularly complete complex and difficult social tasks, and some people aren't capable of it.  As a person who's had difficulty socializing at times, I can appreciate this.  They're not all addicts, either.  Some are, but sometimes the addiction is a symptom of another disease.  

5) In his last sermon to the people of Israel, Moses says: "the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land."  I'm not asking you to believe Moses is real or God is real or anything like that.  You have to make your own decisions in that regard.   I am telling you that people hundreds of years before Julius Caesar was born were concerned enough about the homeless to include instructions about it in their sacred texts, and you see this all over the world in every culture.    I've spoken to people infinitely wiser than I about this, and they don't know a solution to the homeless issue either.  It is a condition of our life together and has been for thousands of years.  

Goodbye Friends

 I'm no good at obituaries, so let me tell you a story.  I had kind of a rough week.  My best friend was out of town, and I lost two women who featured heavily in my youth.  I had a loving family and the best friends in the world, but I was a painfully shy kid.  I had a significant stutter that made it difficult for me to talk in front of people unless I was cutting up, and a reading deficiency kept me in constant fear of being moved to special education classes.  Finding a way through that prickly shrubbery made it difficult for most adults to reach me, but there were two who made it effortlessly.  

If you're on my list, there's a good chance you knew both of these women.  The first was Sarah Jones Nelson.  Sarah was our perennial class mother.  When you're small, most grown-ups treat you like children, but Sarah treated us like friends, like somebody she knew, and that made a huge difference.  She was with us on field trips, camping, and cross-country journeys by bus to the nation's capital.  She helped us through the rough years between childhood and the universe of teenagers.  Sarah ended up moving next door to my sister and her family, where she spent her final years.  I'll be there Friday when we say goodbye to Sarah.  I probably won't say much, but I'll be there.  

I never met the other woman, but I saw her every Saturday night.  Her name was Annette Stutzman, and every Saturday night when I was a kid, she drove to the WAPT studios between Jackson and Raymond, where she played the role of Scarticia on Horrible Movie.  In 2009 I wrote an article about her on my blog that, even now, is the most viewed page on the blog:  https://boydslife.blogspot.com/2009/01/jacksons-horrible-movie.html

I was a devoted Scarticia fan, even though she was something of a mystery in those days.  Through people who read my blog, I would learn that her name was Annette, and she was the secretary for the station manager at WAPT.  She was a few years younger than my mother and involved in what was then known as Hinds Junior College.  She loved music and participated in coral music most of her life.   Annette retained several friends from Jackson but made her way to California, where she made a living in television production and raised a family.   I never knew her, but she has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  

I commit these friends to the hearth of memory.  You made life much better for a frightened little boy, and you live in the hearts of my generation.