Indigent Encampments Jackson Ms
One of the biggest issues facing Jackson today is its indigent population. I tend not to use the word "homeless" because they have a home. For many of them, it's Jackson, for many more of them, it's somewhere other than Jackson, but they were dumped off in Jackson because their actual home would rather not deal with this.
Knowing this doesn't really help things. The exact same thing was true when I was fourteen and first got involved with Stewpot, and the police started telling us how the police in Memphis were putting their indigent population on the train and sending them to Jackson.
They're here, and even if they're here because nobody else wanted them, they're still here.
The other thing we know about these people is that most of them suffer from what can only be described as "disorganized thinking." Whether that disorganized thinking comes from drugs or from mental illness or from mental illness exacerbated by drugs, it's often difficult to tell. I had a close family member who suffered nearly life-long disorganized thinking due to mental illness, exacerbated by drugs. Even when he quit the drugs, what once was a brilliant person full of more promise than most could never live without his mother's guidance again. I've never witnessed anyone saying these people should just "get it together" to help anything.
We used to have the state hospital for the mentally ill that could help get some of these people off the street, but through the years, laws have changed about how and when and how long you can commit people, and, as often happens in Mississippi, the funding dried up, even though it was never much to begin with.
Indigency increases as economic imbalance increases. There are several theories as to why, but no workable models for it yet. What we do know is that, through history, it's been true in our history and many others. One of the worst indigent communities in the world was Soweto, during the time when nearly all the Wealth of South Africa was held by fewer than a thousand people.
The Mississippi legislature just passed an anti-shantytown bill that was written specifically for Jackson. “Homeless Encampments” or “Shantytowns” have become a problem now, specifically in Jackson. You’d be surprised how many people know precisely where they are, but don’t have any idea what to do. Like most vagrancy laws, you end up just sweeping indigent people from one part of the street to another part of the street without actually solving the issue.
This issue has been part of my life for most of my life, but I don’t have any answers. What we’ve done is about the best we can do. Decent people in Jackson feed them, provide basic medical care. Some provide showers and laundry service. Some try to connect them with social services, but often social services don’t cover their situation, and often people who suffer from disorganized thinking don’t want or don’t trust social services, or they just can’t figure it out because the voices in their head distract them.
Jesus said, “The poor will always be with you.” While this is a larger step beyond just poor, he might be right. They will always be with us, and even Jesus doesn’t seem to know a solution.
