News

WMC Action News 5 posted “Memphis Bus Riders Union continues push for transit equity, MATA funding” featuring the Memphis Bus Riders Union, a program sponsored by the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center.

The story includes commentary by Justin Davis, Secretary for the Memphis Bus Riders Union, and discussion of Transit Equity Day to push for equal access to transit options as well as honoring Rosa Parks.

A fight for equal access to transportation continues on what would have been Rosa Parks’ 107th birthday. A group in Memphis is using the day to encourage Shelby County Commissioners to find a plan for more funding for MATA.

“We are in the midst of continuing the legacy of fighting for transit equity here in Memphis and Shelby County,” Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said.

Nearly 65 years after Rosa Parks’ brave protest on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, leaders in Memphis said the fight continues to provide reliable public transit for all. For months Mayor Harris has been trying to get a deal passed that would generate around $10 million in additional funding for MATA.

“All over our city people are using MATA as a lifeline,” Memphis Bus Riders Union Secretary Justin Davis said. “Right now, we have a system that does not serve them right.”

Mayor Harris joined several stakeholders including different transit coalitions like the Memphis Bus Riders Union on a day called Transit Equity Day.

“Working for Civil Rights is not just about working for equality under the law,” Davis said. “It’s about working for equality of access.”

Mayor Harris said there are 16,000 open jobs in Shelby County. He said when he asks citizens what’s keeping them from getting one of the jobs the answer is transportation.

The latest proposal to go in front of the County Commission to generate more MATA funding is an increase in the wheel tax. Harris said whether it’s that proposal or something else he’s ready to seal the deal in time for the fiscal year 2021.

Read the full article here.

 

 

During the last legislative session, the TN state legislature passed a draconian bill instating work requirements for recipients of benefits like Families First and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This is cruel legislation passed by cruel people with the intention of setting people up to fail in an effort to wipe them off of their benefits.

Last year, MSPJC began providing flexible opportunities for young mothers who must now work up to 30 hours of community service a week in order to maintain their benefits and provide for their children. This is especially burdensome for those who rely on our broken transit system.

For the past several months have been working with at least 20 women, completing close to300 hours every week, but this is just scratching the surface here in Memphis, where 62.3k or 24.8% of our total population receive food stamps (SNAP). This problem is only going to get worse now that TN has expanded work requirements for Tenncare recipients. According to a recent study by Georgetown University, once these changes go into effect, 68,000 TN residents could lose Tenncare entirely. Until Tennesseans can roll back this harmful legislation, MSPJC will continue to work to be an ally to those most affected.

We invite you to be a part of this important work by making a donation of anything you can, or become a Sustaining Member of Mid-South Peace & Justice Center!

Serenity Towers Apartments at Highland is a HUD subsidized senior living facility for individuals 55 and up, owned by Global Ministries Foundation and now managed by Millennia Housing Management. For the past several years, MSPJC staff has worked to assist residents who have dealt with everything from bed bug infestations to illegal evictions and intimidation from management.

On December 21st, 2018 MSPJC received a call from a Serenity Towers resident, who had received a FED (Forcible Entry and Detainer) summons to appear in court for eviction from her unit at Serenity Towers, where she has lived for over a decade. She was never given an eviction notice before she was served (as required by TN state law), nor has she received an itemized statement of her alleged debt. She was verbally told by staff that her debt was from unpaid rent last February.

Mid-South Peace & Justice Center then reached out to other residents and began receiving a high volume of calls and visits to our office from residents who found themselves in similar situations. This has been an extremely traumatic experience for these residents, all of whom are advanced in age and in some cases, have a disability and/or mobility issues. One tenant was afraid she would be arrested after receiving an FED summons to appear in court. As it turned out, she had receipts for every month management claimed she hadn’t paid.

On January 3rd, we worked with our board member and local attorney, Lani Lester at Burch, Porter & Johnson, PLLC to accompany tenants to their court date and get as many we could a continuance until January 17th, in order to buy residents enough time to try and find old receipts that prove these alleged debts are baseless. From the original reports of 40-50 people being served summons, by the January 3rd court date, the docket was down to 27 individual, as as many had already produced their documentation to management to show that the alleged debts were not valid. Many others were still on the docket, but had their cases dismissed.

On the evening of January 8th, a reported 50+ 10-day eviction notices were slid under residents’ doors by management, instructing them to vacate their units by January 17th. This included many residents, who already had their cases dismissed, because they were able to show receipts proving they had no outstanding debt at all. Others received these notices despite the fact that they aren’t even scheduled to go to court until the 17th, and have no judgement against them as of yet. These are not legal notices of eviction, but are meant to frighten and intimidate residents, and it’s been effective.

Here is just a sampling of recent news coverage around the evictions:

WREG-Serenity Residents Threatened By Evictions, Advocate Calls Them Unfair

WMCTV-Serenity Highland Tenants Take Their Rent Complaints To Court

The Commercial Appeal-Results Mixed For Residents Facing Evictions From Serenity Highland Senior Apartments

The Mid-South Peace & Justice Center has deep concerns over what we see as chaotic, sloppy bookkeeping (at best) and a flurry of eviction actions, when in many cases these debts turn out to be illegitimate. We also have concerns about those residents who still have not received itemized statements of their debt, which effectively prevents them from being able to make an effective defense. We find it particularly troubling how old some of these debts are, with many dating as far back as last winter. In some cases, residents have even signed new leases since the time of their alleged unpaid rent.

THDA and HUD’s full oversight and monitoring are urgently needed as many of these remaining residents are at serious risk to eviction—and for many going to court or securing legal assistance is not only a hardship, but next to impossible. MSPJC has reached out to and been in touch with HUD, THDA, the FBI, Memphis Area Legal Services, Congressman Steve Cohen’s Office, and a number of other agencies in an effort to support these tenants. This week, MSPJC assisted Serenity Towers residents in forming the Serenity Towers Tenants Rights Committee, a tenant association that will assist residents in understanding their rights and seeking legal representation to fight these unjust evictions. We return to court with residents facing eviction on Thursday, January 17th, and may eventually need funds to cover the cost of legal expenses. Like so much of our work at MSPJC, our tenant organizing efforts do not receive dedicated grant funding, and relies largely on public support. You can support the work of our Renter’ Rights Project today by signing up to become a sustaining member of MSPJC, or make a one-time donation of any amount.

Mid-South Peace & Justice Center then reached out to other residents and began receiving a high volume of calls and visits to our office from residents who found themselves in similar situations. This has been an extremely traumatic experience for these residents, all of whom are advanced in age and in some cases, have a disability and/or mobility issues. One tenant was afraid she would be arrested after receiving an FED summons to appear in court. As it turned out, she had receipts for every month management claimed she hadn’t paid.

This week, MSPJC has assisted Serenity Towers residents in forming the Serenity Towers Renters Rights Committee, a tenant association that will assist residents in understanding their rights and seeking legal representation against these unjust evictions.

Thank you for standing with us

Brad Watkins

Dear Friends,

Happy New Year on behalf of all our staff, board and volunteers here at the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center!

For 37 years, this organization—your organization—has been a consistent force for good in Memphis & Shelby County, working in the spirit of King, Chavez, Day, and Gbowee to achieve tangible results for our community. MSPJC is the only issue-based organization in the region, devoted to program areas that no other grassroots establishments are focused on, and we need you to sustain that work.

In case you missed it in the holiday e-mail clutter, here’s our 2018 annual report, outlining the highlights of all our work over the past year.

[click the image to view the report]

We hope you will continue to be a part of this work by starting the year off with a generous donation will ensure a strong start to 2019 as we recommit to the fight for tangible solutions to our city’s most challenging issues.

Click HERE to make an end of year gift now!

We deeply thank you for all of your support, past and present.

We send you frequent updates on the progress of our Juvenile Justice Project’s efforts to better prepare young people across our community to protect their constitutional rights as they navigate and deescalate encounters with law enforcement, through our unique Know Your Rights Theatre workshops.

So, you may already know that we created these workshops to accompany our comprehensive Know Your Rights Guide that we published and began distributing in 2015, amidst Mid-South Peace & Justice Center’s campaign to strengthen Memphis’ Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) and a national climate of outrage over frequent officer involved deaths of people of color.

After a torrent of requests for our staff to come and talk with young people about their rights, we developed a curriculum that uses interactive theatre to draw upon and center the experiences of participants as a basis for learning. Over the past three years, we’ve facilitated these workshops with over 3000 young people at schools, churches, community centers, libraries, and youth conferences across the City of Memphis. Early on in the project, we began conducting surveys with participants following the workshops to gather feedback and input and gauge the workshops’ effectiveness.

We’ve been crunching those numbers, and they look good!

Out of 2,938 Total Survey Respondents:

• 98.5% or respondents said they had a better understanding of their rights
• 2,229 or 75.8% Identified as Black/African American
• 66 or 2.25% Identified as White/Caucasian
• 140 or 4.8% identified as Latino or Hispanic
• 105 or 3.7% Identified as Multiracial, Mixed, or Other
• 1,234 or 42% Identified as Male
• 1,333 or 45.4% identified as Female
• 86% Said they enjoyed the workshop

[Map shows locations of KYR Workshops Across Memphis]

Our staff believes that youth are the solution, not the problem, and when we dare to challenge popular misconceptions spread by fear mongering for news ratings, and instead validate and uplift the experiences and voices of our young people, they will be self empowered to lead the conversation on solutions to youth crime and contact with the criminal justice system. Part of that work is continuing to arm and prepare Memphis youth with the knowledge to more safely navigate police encounters while protecting their rights. We know it’s working, and we need your help to continue this effective mission. Make an end of year gift today or become a sustaining member of MSPJC.

For more information on the Juvenile Justice Project or to schedule a Know Your Rights Theatre workshop, contact MSPJC Organizing Director, Paul Garner, paul@midsouthpeace.org or (901) 725.4990.

Last year, Coach Clay, World History teacher at Kingsbury High School, reached out to MSPJC staff about working with his students throughout the 2018-19 school year. In June, we began conducting ongoing workshops with his fourth period Freshman class. Every Wednesday morning, members of our organizing and training department visit the class to facilitate exercises that explore topics like privilege and oppression, labor and liberation history, know your rights education, the roles of social change, and more—connecting these topics to the class’ world history curriculum.

Recently, we have also begun introducing the students to guest speakers comprised of local leaders, organizers, and activists to inform their understanding of current events and local issues. This month, we had our friend Sydney from Memphis Feminist Collective visit to discuss MFC’s work, in particular, their role in the Mariposa Collective, working to provide relief to undocumented immigrants being released en masse from detention centers with little to no food or clothing. Just this past week, we welcomed, District 7 County Commissioner, Tami Sawyer, who spoke on a number of topics including #TakeEmDown901’s successful efforts to remove Confederate statues from our public parks, police accountability, and what led her into activism, and ultimately electoral politics. Commissioner Sawyer encouraged youth to work toward improving their school and neighborhoods, and MSPJC intends to be there to provide whatever resources necessesary to support them.

When it comes to our work at MSPJC, one thing often leads to another. Our work around homelessness with H.O.P.E. (Homeless Organizing for Power & Equality), and our members’ experiences with police harassment led us to filing complaints with internal affairs and documenting that process (read our guide to filing a police complaint). This eventually led to our campaign to restore and strengthen Memphis’ Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB). During this three year campaign, calls began to pour in from people who felt that their rights had violated during an encounter with law enforcement. Though from talking with many of them, it became clear that their grasp on those rights were often shaky.

With the collaboration of local attorneys, law students, and community volunteers, we began compiling information into a printed, bilingual Know Your Rights Handbook that we distributed far and wide across the City. The calls didn’t stop though; instead, the inquiries were now seeking someone to come talk to youth about their rights when dealing with police.

To better engage with young people, we developed a Know Your Rights curriculum using improvisational theatre so youth can practice exercising their rights and de-escalate conflict without the real life consequences of an interaction with law enforcement. We began facilitating these workshops for free at churches, schools, and community centers, and in the past 3 years, we have conducted Know Your Rights Theatre with over 3,000 participants, helping them be better prepared, and hopefully avoid contact with the criminal justice system altogether. It was also around this time that MSPJC began hosting High School Interns during the summer through the City of Memphis Youth Employment progeam, training them to facilitate the workshops with their peers.

What about youth that have already come in contact with the criminal justice system? This question led us to broaden our work with youth through MSPJC’s Juvenile Justice Project, working to reduce recidivism and help young people get in compliance with court ordered community service hours by helping Juvenile Court identify and recruit Community Service Site Partners to provide meaningful and restorative, neighborhood based opportunities for young people to get their hours completed, thereby breaking down barriers to compliance like lack of accessible public transportation. We have also hosted several youth conferences that have provided young people the opportunity to complete

Realising that there are many young people who still slip through the cracks, and do end up in the system, in August, our staff began developing and implementing a series of ongoing workshops with youth incarcerated as adults at Jail East. Each session centers around building skills to deal with the emotional trauma and stress that comes with being locked up as a juvenile offender.

With all we are doing, there is still so much to be done, not only to ensure a better world for our young people, but to make sure they are prepared to inherit a world where there will no doubt be struggles to come. We call on you a lot, but that’s because we can’t do this on our own. We rely on the community’s support in order to sustain and grow our work to validate the experiences and struggles of our youth, and support them with the tools they need to find their own voices and and build a future worthy of their dreams.

We invite you to be a part of this work by making a donation of anything you can, or by becoming a Sustaining Member of Mid-South Peace & Justice Center.

Your support means everything to us.

We REALLY need your help.
From Pendleton to Serenity Towers, to Goodwill Villages, to Madison Towers, and in many other apartment complexes across Memphis, the state of our HUD subsidized apartment complexes is an outrage and a shame to our community.

We need your help today to push for part of a broader solution.

Please call Mayor Strickland’s office at (901)636-6000 and tell his office that we….

1. Need more Code Officers for Memphis. Currently the 20th largest city in America has only 30-35 total number of officers. We need at least 15-20 more, to work on weekends or add a night shift to meet the need and we need them this year.

2. As a City Councilman Mayor Strickland passed a RESERVE CODE OFFICER ordinance, which would allow city residents to be trained and deputized as Code Officers. This program, despite being created by the Mayor is not currently active. We are asking that the training be restarted so that we can recruit tenants in our worst complexes to work with code to quickly and easily identify problems on the premises. We stand ready to work with the City on this matter.

3. Call Congressman Cohen’s office at (901)544-4131 and please tell him that the conditions at PENDLETON PLACE APARTMENTS at 1780 Pendleton St, Memphis, TN 38114 are beyond negligence and please ask him to call on HUD for an 100% inspection of the property.

4. Call Senator Lamar Alexander office at Please call Congressman Cohen’s office at (901)544-4224 and please tell him that the conditions at PENDLETON PLACE APARTMENTS at 1780 Pendleton St, Memphis, TN 38114 are beyond negligence and please ask him to call on HUD for an 100% inspection of the property.
                                                                         Every single call will make a difference.

For more information about how you can help donate or support HOPE or those who do the work to combat homelessness, or would like to put on a HOPE shirt and volunteer,  contact Tamara Hendrix, (901)725.4990 or  tamara@midsouthpeace.org.

Now more than ever, we need the support of those who are fortunate enough to have secure housing to stand with our human family who don’t and make sure homelessness to be a priority to our lawmakers!