Tiny homes project for Jackson’s homeless delayed due to funding ...Middle East

Tucked away in west Jackson right off Capers Avenue are the remains of what used to be housing for people transitioning out of the Mississippi State Hospital. Now, it’s fallen into disrepair, its brick building crumbling and overcome by plastic waste and graffiti. 

Putalamus “Tala” White, executive director of the Jackson Resource Center, has a vision for the space and what it could become for people who are experiencing homelessness. 

“Almost the entire street is 18 acres, and on this end is where the tiny homes are gonna be,” she said, pointing to an overgrown patch of weeds and debris. “Then on down, you got the rest of the campus.” 

This spot, supposedly the future home of The Junction, is the place where White intends to build a village of 80 tiny homes and a community hub. But the project has been delayed after White’s organization received less funding than it anticipated. 

In 2021, the city of Jackson accepted just over $3 million in HOME Investment Partnerships – American Rescue Plan (HOME-ARP) Program funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Those funds are dedicated toward reducing homelessness. 

In September of 2023, the city published a request for proposals for the Safe Space: Safe Place tiny home development, a 30 unit pallet shelter village. Jackson Resource Center was the only respondent, said Melissa Payne, Director of Constituent Services and Communications. 

On February 13, 2024, the city allocated an amount “not to exceed $2.87 million” of those HOME-ARP funds to the Jackson Resource Center. 

But last month, the Jackson Resource Center received a memorandum of understanding from the city of Jackson for just over $1 million.

“Since approval, the City and JRC have worked with HUD to draft a compliant Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). However, JRC repeatedly altered its plans — doubling costs, expanding to 80 units, purchasing modular homes from China at significantly larger sizes, and proposing rental use—changes far beyond the scope of the original RFP, and created additional HUD compliance issues,” Payne said. “In May, the City offered JRC an MOU with $1,086,440 in funding and access to additional grants if needed. Despite this, JRC is now demanding a $2.5 million guarantee to begin the project.”

Jackson Resource Center issued a statement in response to “correct the record for the sake of public trust, our partners, and—most importantly—the hundreds of unhoused individuals in Jackson still waiting on relief.”

“…While the modular homes are comparable in cost to earlier models, it is the site infrastructure—sewer, water, electrical, environmental remediation, and ADA compliance – that represents most of the budget increase,” the statement reads. “These are unavoidable costs that have continued to rise over the past year and a half we’ve been waiting.”

Jackson Resource Center secured an additional award of $2 million from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas for a project involving 80 homes, hence the expansion from the original proposal, the statement said.

“This was a net gain for the City, not a deviation,” the statement reads.

White said JRC can’t make any movement on The Junction because the lender won’t disperse its funds until the city of Jackson does. 

“When we wrote that grant to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas, it was as a subsidy to the original grant. So we can’t do everything that we proposed to do with the Federal Home Loan Bank until we have those funds as well.”

While the organization hasn’t received any of the city funding for the tiny home project so far, it has received over $350,000 from the city in the last two years for other programming, including workforce development and operation of its permanent supportive housing campus called Langley. 

Now, White said she’s waiting to meet with the city’s new administration and gain what she said are necessary funds to start work on the development.

“That’s where we are, hoping that after the new administration gets in office, we can sit down, have a conversation, and finally get this ball rolling,” she said.

The Junction, a multi-phase project, includes the tiny homes and the creation of a community complex complete with a pet kennel, a medical wing, a detox center, post office and a food court. White hopes that in creating The Junction, she’ll cultivate a safe space where people who are experiencing homelessness can have a place to thrive.

“Having all of those services right there in the community on the campus would assist in them changing their mindset,” she said. “We’ve got to come in and be able to give them the help they need to get back on the right track.”

The Junction project has many detractors in local government, some of whom said the creation of the tiny homes will lead to more homeless people in Jackson. Jackson’s city council was divided on the vote 4-3, with Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote, Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes and Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley voting against the project.

 ”We need to have a program in the city with a coordinator that can coordinate with nonprofits to help manage this issue, but just to create 60 homes? That’s one more thing for other municipalities to do with the shuffling them off on Jackson, because now it’s like we got another program,” Hartley said in an interview with Mississippi Today back in February. “Build it and they will come. Build it and municipalities will send them to Jackson.” 

White said that she’s tried to have conversations with city leaders about the project, and a few have understood her vision. She points to unaffordable housing as one of the leading factors in Jackson’s homelessness statistics. 

“You say you don’t want the homeless in the community. You say we’re gonna bring more homeless people into the community, but they are already here and if we don’t give them somewhere to go and something productive to do to help, then it’s not gonna change,” she said.

According to the annual Point in Time Count, a national census of homeless populations, Mississippi has one of the lowest rates of homelessness, though some advocates have said the local count is likely artificially low. White agreed that in the downtown area, there may be close to 1,000 homeless individuals. 

“My biggest hope is that this campus will be a light in Jackson and that it will assist individuals that feel like they’ve been forgotten, and that it will assist the city as a whole in being able to bring more revenue to the city, so that we can be a thriving city so that we can take care of the least of these. We have to take care of the least of these,” White said.

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