Global Ministries Foundation will sell several properties throughout the Southeast including Warren, Tulane, and Goodwill Village.
Those who seek to purchase these properties should be ethical landlords or, like Global Ministries, they will be held accountable.
#DryKatrina
Today we will honor mothers in our community whose loved ones have provided a tribute gift that honors their mother and continues the work of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center in our community.
Mother’s Day began as a call to action to improve the lives of families through health and peace. Ann Jarvis of Appalachia founded Mother’s Day in 1858 to promote sanitation in response to high infant mortality. After the Civil War, abolitionist Julia Ward Howe made a Mother’s Day call to women to protest the carnage of war.
Thank you to all the mothers out there!
For the past few months, we have been in communication with tenant leaders at the Warren Apartments Tenants Association about a growing cause of concern.
The utility subsidy that many residents use to pay their Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) bills was disrupted last month. Normally, checks arrive between the first and the 10th of the month. However, over the past two months there have been “hiccups” in the disbursement of these checks to tenants, with March’s subsidy arriving on April 8 and April’s subsidy arriving just two weeks ago.
As allies of these tenants, our chief concern is that these delays can and have resulted in tenants being late paying their MLGW bills. This could damage their credit scores and could create undue hardships during this already difficult process of securing alternative housing within the timeline given.
The Mid-South Peace and Justice Center has reached out to Congressman Cohen’s office as this matter relates to HUD, and we thank his staff for their quick response.
Today, we have been in contact with MLGW and have learned some good news. MLGW will waive any negative credit reports for residents in this program for the past two months.
We are working diligently to provide MLGW a complete list of affected tenants as soon as possible.
We would like to thank Paul Young with Memphis Housing and Community Development and Clint Richardson with MLGW for their prompt attention to this matter.
Our important work cannot continue without your help. Please support our Tenants Rights Project here.
Memphis United: Know Your Rights Theatre is offering FREE workshops to day camps and other youth programs throughout the summer.
These unique workshops use interactive theatre to educate young people about their rights and how to better communicate with law enforcement.
Participants become the actors playing out real-life scenarios without the real-life consequences of an encounter law enforcement.
We have hosted these workshops for over 250 youth at Soulsville Charter School, Bridges USA, and the 2015 Gandhi King Youth Conference, ranging from elementary to college students.
We are proud to announce that local activist and longtime supporter Happy Jones has made a generous matching donation of $10,000 to seed a bold new endeavor from our Memphis United-Juvenile Justice Project program. Please help us reach our goal by making a donation today!
We’ve all seen the media-filled vitriol about the issues related to youth crime and criminal justice, as well as the great racial disparities in our community’s approach to addressing these issues. We have seen a response of fear and condemnation. But we have also seen a lack of comprehensive intervention and holistic alternatives. We feel there is a better way.
One of MSPJC’s core principles is that no amount of education or empathy can equal the experiences of those who have lived under a problem – and that those who are most affected by the problem are the solutions to the problem. These people are the experts. So, in order to address the issue of youth violence and crime, we must engage with those most affected by the issue: our young people.
MSPJC has supported the efforts of Shelby County Juvenile Court to better engage the community with court-ordered community service. Further, we seek to build on these efforts with a two-pronged Juvenile Justice Project.
At any given point in time there are scores of young people who have up to 16 hours of court ordered community service who are unable to complete this in the allotted time, as a result of many issues. Part of the challenge is finding willing partners who want to create meaningful service projects and not simply free labor. One of the other chief barriers is that Juvenile court lacks adequate resources to perform outreach to recruit new partners and the practice of assigning community service by ZIP CODE as opposed to a more neighborhood based approach, means sometimes the available service opportunities are far away from where the young person lives. As a result the process is alienating, lacks parental and community buy in, creates hardships, and adds both needless court appearances and administrative costs.
Memphis youth with court-ordered community service, Winter 2015
Part of our process has been partnering with SCJC to pilot using GIS (Geographic Information System) software to locate and match up young people with court ordered community service opportunities as close to, if not within, their own neighborhoods as possible. We want to thank the office of Court Ordered Community Service for providing a snap shot of this information and you can see the map we made from such data above.
As we continue to work with the courts to analyze this data we will be looking to identify three neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of young people who have unserved court ordered community service. Then performing door-to-door outreach to inform and recruit local churches, neighborhood and civic organizations, and grassroots leaders within these communities into becoming partners to create service opportunities within these neighborhoods.
MSPJC would then work with these local leaders and shareholders in convening semi-regular meetings with representatives from each partnering organization that is moderated by the youth from within these communities to discuss and plan more community based solutions around the issue of juvenile offenders. Through engaging directly with the youth, we feel this program could go beyond simply increased compliance with ordered community service, but also remove transportation barriers, secure more community support, and become a vehicle for long-term engagement with a grassroots organizing capacity as well.
The ultimate result would be the development of a community led approach to addressing crime that is developed, enacted, and led by youth and adult leaders from the community and for that community.
Memphis United, part of the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center is providing free Community Arts programming over the Summer for area youth with interactive theatre workshops that, with the assistance of trained facilitators and experienced local attorneys or former police officers, educate young people about their rights and how to better communicate with law enforcement.
This unique presentation style has already allowed over 250 participants to become actors, role-playing in scenarios that engage our young people in meaningful dialogue to strengthen youth and police relationships. After a review of the information covered, and a time for Q&A, facilitators distribute “Know Your Rights Handbooks,” and participant surveys to help guide the development of this important work.
Just last weekend at LeMoyne Owen College, members of of the Memphis United team conducted a KNOW YOUR RIGHTS THEATRE workshop for the event BEING BLACK IN COLLEGE hosted by OUR GRASS, OUR ROOTS. You can watch video of this training here!
We have done these workshops at Soulsville Charter School, Bridges USA, and the 2015 Gandhi King Youth Conference, ranging from elementary to high school students. Additionally, here is a link to more information and a printable pdf of our “Know Your Rights Handbooks” that we’ll be providing.
We again want to thank Happy Jones for her generous donation and we hope that we can count on your support to help us reach our goal.
One of MSPJC core principles, is that no amount of education or empathy can equal the lived experiences of those who have lived under a problem and that those who are most affected by a problem have and are the solutions to said problem. They are the experts. In that to address the issue of youth violence and crime, we have to engage with those most affected by the issue…our young people.
Memphis Youth with court ordered community service-Winter 2015
MSPJC workshop at Woodale Middle School.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS TRAININGS AT THE GANDHI-KING CONFERENCE
For more check us out here, on facebook!
We have been advocating for the option to transfer the housing subsidy for quite some time now. We had been told that such an action was impossible, but we pressed on because we knew that HUD had the power to revoke funding from Global Ministries Foundation.
Today, in an interview with the Commercial Appeal, our Executive Director praised HUD’s decision.
Brad Watkins, executive director Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, said he was “ecstatic” about the decision. Watkins’ organization has been advocating for tenants at Warren and Tulane, but also had advocated to keep federally subsidized low-income housing.
“We were concerned about being able to keep the same level of affordable housing (in Memphis),” he said. “It’s great news for all of us.”
HUD’s decision to allow the funds to remain in Memphis will secure our current rate of supportive housing and avoids the re-concentration of poverty.
Now, it is incumbent on our entire community to ensure that the residents who will be relocated are provided the help and support they need.
As always, we will be there.
This bilingual booklet, produced by Memphis United in 2015, includes detailed information outlining individuals’ rights when interacting with law enforcement. The guide includes a section geared specifically at undocumented immigrants, explaining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies. In addition, the guide provides the public with an extensive list of legal contacts and resources. Over 10,000 copies were printed for distribution, free of charge, to the general public via Know Your Rights workshops offered across the city in English or in Spanish in 2015.
To download a printable copy of the guide, click HERE.
For more information on Memphis United, and our Know Your Rights work, contact Paul Garner: paul@midsouthpeace.org.
