Madeline Estes

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!

Greetings, transit warriors! Our next neighborhood town hall is THIS week! We’ll be at the Orange Mound Community Center (2572 Park) on Thursday, October 18th from 5-7 PM. We wanna talk with residents of Orange Mound, Bethel Grove, and surrounding neighborhoods about how to make MATA service work better for you. Hop on the #57 Park bus and join us!

Also, MBRU is going to bat for more transit funding and more neighborhood bus service! Last week, our Executive Committee met with Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris to talk about how to make MATA stronger. We want to thank Mayor Harris and his team for supporting public transit in Memphis, and we look forward to working with them on solutions that bus riders can get behind. We’re also getting ready for MATA’s next Board meeting, where they will be voting on a revised list of service changes. We want to be sure that MATA is listening to the community’s needs, so we encourage you to attend on Thursday, October 25th at 3:30 PM. This meeting will be at the Hollywood Community Center (1560 N. Hollywood), and riders can get there on the #32 or #8 bus!

 

Otha Thurmond, 93 year-old man, Brutally Slammed & Arrested By MPD

MSPJC fought long and hard to re-establish Memphis’ Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) in 2015, to review cases when complainants aren’t satisfied with the investigation handled by MPD’s Internal Affairs. Prior to this, the only chance a person had at holding an officer accountable for misconduct was to file a complaint with MPD’s Internal Affairs, a process that amounts to police policing the police.

Even with the stronger ordinance, CLERB’s power is limited to making recommendations to the Police Director for policy and disciplinary action, but to date, Mayor Jim Strickland’s appointed police director, Michael Rallings, has shrugged off any recommendations from CLERB, refusing to even take a second look at the cases. This is frustrating to be sure, and has left many asking the question: “If MPD doesn’t have to follow CLERB’s recommendations, what’s it all for?”

This is a valid question, and there is much more work to be done to demand more from a Mayor that ran for office, in part, on police accountability and included CLERB in his campaign platform. However, it doesn’t mean that CLERB isn’t important.

Take October’s case for instance, that of 93 year-old (91 at the time of the incident), Otha Thurmond, a pillar in his South Memphis Neighborhood, was was brutally manhandled by officers and arrested. The incident occured while officers were responding to an unrelated call. Mr. Thurmond was out walking the block, as he was known to do on a daily basis, checking on things going on in the neighborhood, talking to residents, road crews, etc, and approached the officers to ask what was going on. The footage speaks for itself. The officers told him it was none of his business, told him they didn’t like him walking around with the walking stick that he used to ward off stray dogs and clear debris from sidewalks. Then as Mr. Thurmond appears to say, “you can have…[inaudible]” while holding the stick, one of the officers slammed Mr. Thurmond onto the hood of his squad car, twisted his arms behind his back, cuffed him, and placed him under arrest. Until that point, Mr. Thurmond had never even received a traffic ticket. The charges were dropped against Mr. Thurmond, and the officers involved received one day suspension, and were required to participate in some sort of sensitivity training.

Click photo to view the news story.

The footage of what happened to Mr. Thurmond is hard to watch, but we never would have seen it without CLERB. In our experience MPD charges upwards of $300 to get a copy of such footage. Since the re-establishment of CLERB, Memphians have had the opportunity to observe dozens of cases, and view body camera footage of police misconduct incidents that would have never seen the light of day without the forum provided by CLERB. In this case, CLERB ruled in favor of Mr. Thurmond, and plan to issue a letter of apology to him for the pain and suffering he’s had to endure.

That may seem small, but over time, as more and more cases are heard, patterns will emerge that provide the data needed to push for larger reforms around police accountability and transparency. In the meantime we can all do a few things to help us get there.

1. Attend CLERB meetings and bear witness to the process.

2. Call your Mayor (901.636.6000) and City Council (901.636.6786), and demand that they take steps to support CLERB, and greater accountability and transparency for law enforcement.

3. Don’t be discouraged. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.