Sunday, August 20, 2006
Stepping In: A Report to the Allies of the Steps Coalition
It’s noon, August 17th, 2006, and I’ve just returned from the Mississippi Regional Housing Authority (MRHA) Board meeting. On the surface, this meeting offered a glimpse into the critical story of public housing as it is being told in South Mississippi these days. For that story, I invite you to turn to WLOX, MPR, and the Sun Herald, all of which were there. In addition to the story on public housing, however, another story was unfolding in that boardroom, slightly below the surface and below the awareness of most of those present. The Steps Coalition was taking its “first steps” (so to speak) into the public arena. And to the delight of the few of us who knew what we were seeing, it was doing exactly what we imagined it would and could do.
Every moment in history is backed up by numerous stories-behind-the-story. The Steps story that backs up this particular moment began late Friday afternoon, August 4th, when Sister Martha Milner, long-time public housing advocate with Mercy Housing and Human Development, raised the alarm. At that time, the Coalition was in a very fuzzy part of its formation. It didn’t even have a slate of nominees for its soon-to-be-elected Board of Directors, so Sister. Martha didn’t know that she would be on it. I was on my way north for a funeral, and there was a crisis: a letter from the MRHA to the tenants of three public housing properties. The letter seemed to suggest that the eviction or displacement of 400 families was imminent. This news was particularly disturbing since Katrina had alleviated the entire MS Gulf Coast of any alternative housing for years to come for just about anyone at just about any price.
In haste, Sister Martha contacted our friends and Steps allies at the Interfaith Disaster Task Force (IDTF) who helped her alert the local media and contact Reilly Morse, also a Steps ally, at the Mississippi Center for Justice. Reilly kicked into action. He contacted Steps allies in Washington, DC at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and began the process of finding tenants and other knowledgeable persons to interview. Reilly’s request for help with identifying the people he needed to contact was broadcast via the Steps distribution list.
Upon returning to the area, I invited concerned Steps allies to a meeting on Thursday morning, August 10th. If Steps had been farther along in the process of establishing our formal structure, I would have called this group the Steps Affordable Housing Work Group. In attendance at this meeting were representatives from Back Bay Mission, Mercy Housing and Human Development, the Interfaith Disaster Task Force, the Gulfport Branch of the NAACP, Oxfam America, the Gulf Coast Latin-American Association, AMOS Network, the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center, Turkey Creek Community Initiatives, and Unitarian Universalist Congregations of Mississippi. This group brainstormed their way through the creation of a list of questions that we needed to answer in order to understand this puzzle of an issue.
Knowing that time was of the essence, we met again on Monday, August 14th. This meeting assembled representatives from the Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center, ECD/Hope, the American Red Cross, the Gulf Coast Community Service Center (IRD), Back Bay Mission, the Mississippi Center for Justice, and Unitarian Universalist Congregations of Mississippi. By then, many pieces had indeed begun falling onto our table, if not into place. We learned that the MRHA Board would meet on Thursday, so we agreed to meet yet again the next day, Tuesday, August 15th. Our task was clear: to discern a legible whole from the confusing bits and pieces of information that we were encountering.
On Tuesday, representatives from the Gulf Coast Community Service Center (IRD), Gulf Coast Fair Housing Center, Back Bay Mission, ECD/Hope, the Mississippi Center for Justice, and Unitarian Universalist Congregations of Mississippi showed up to apply their brain power and perspective to the deliberations. Councilwoman Ella Holmes Hines arrived later with information and conclusions that seemed to corroborate our own. By then we could see that, not only did Steps allies need to attend the up-coming MRHA Board meeting, but in the interest of encouraging more effective communication between the MRHA, the public, and public housing tenants, we needed to invite the press and the tenants as well.
Today’s Board meeting was host to a standing-room-only crowd of tenants, Steps allies, and public officials. In attendance from the Steps Coalition were representatives from the MS Center for Justice, AMOS Network, the IDTF, Back Bay Mission, Oxfam America, and Unitarian Universalist Congregations of Mississippi. Reilly Morse (MCJ), Natalie Presley (BBM), and Rev. Anthony Thompson (AMOS) delivered impressive challenges to the Board. In addition, Ella Holmes Hines (Councilwoman, Ward 3), Barbara Nalley (President of the Gulfport City Council, Ward 7), and Supervisor William Martin spoke eloquently on behalf of the tenants.
Our presence seemed to contribute to the decision-making process in two ways. For one, several MRHA Board members began to question the wisdom of the course the Board was pursuing and to wonder out loud if the MRHA wasn’t, at the very least, acting in too much haste. Their questions prompted more discussion and more extensive explanation from the Executive Director and Board members committed to the course than would perhaps have occurred otherwise. The motions in question passed, but not unanimously.
Secondly, tenants, who at first seemed satisfied with MRHA assurances that “we have always taken care of you and we’ll take care of you now,” became increasingly thoughtful. The ability to be thoughtful will be very important during the next week when the MRHA will be hosting tenant meetings in the various complexes. With only thirty minutes of MRHA time allocated at each location, it would seem that the MRHA is not expecting much from the residents. Today, however, although the give-and-take was respectful, it was also thought-provoking—and potentially eye-opening. Hopefully, it was just what was needed to inspire tenants to ask informed and challenging questions and to take a more active role in these deliberations that are so critical to their future.
As we close this chapter on public housing and prepare to begin another (for I am sure another is to come) I would like to thank all the Steps allies and others who gave so generously of their time and creative energy over the past two weeks to help unravel this knot. I watched the energy rise as allies gathered to combine knowledge and perception, then drew apart to research or process, and gathered in again to share and compare, and dispersed outward to work—like a great lung breathing life into a process that has gone too far underground. New life: that is the promise of Steps. That is its potential. That is our promise to a community that needs us. I am so very proud of us. I hope you are too.
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