Jackson City Councilman Vernon Hartley says he’s drafting new homelessness-related ordinances that will prioritize the needs of business owners and homeowners in Mississippi’s capital city.
In an interview with the Mississippi Free Press on Nov. 29, the Ward 5 councilman said he does not want to ban homelessness, but that the ordinances he’s drafting would “give local government more control” to handle issues related to the city’s population. Without going into detail, he said the ordinances will be related to panhandling, homeless people settling on vacant property and feeding homeless people. He also said he wants to require businesses to install surveillance cameras connected to the Jackson Police Department’s rapid response center.
“The reality is that in my neighborhood, those are the folks keeping the lights on. And if they’re saying, ‘Hey, we got these squatters burning down houses,’ I have to pay attention to that,” he said on Nov. 29. “One of the problems is (the City doesn’t) have a roadmap of what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it.”
“What we have been doing is relegating the responsibility of homelessness and other things to nonprofits without any city oversight,” Hartley added. “The City has to have some type of structure there to guide this.”
The Jackson City Council unanimously voted to repeal the City’s former panhandling ordinance in October 2020 after the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi and the National Homelessness Law Center campaigned against panhandling bans in the state, arguing that the activity was covered under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Ward Six Councilman Vernon Hartely joined Ward Three Councilman Kenneth Stokes to host a community meeting on Nov. 6, 2023, to address homelessness in Jackson, Miss. Photo by Shaunicy Muhammad
ACLU of Mississippi Staff Attorney Landon Thames said at the time that such ordinances criminalize the homeless. “Being homeless and asking for help are not crimes, but anti-panhandling ordinances essentially punish both,” Thames said in 2019.
Councilman Hartley shared his plans with the Mississippi Free Press days after The Bezos Day One Fund awarded Stewpot Community Services in Jackson