Development desires spur effort to tackle homelessness in Jackson under John Horhn
By Molly Minta | Originally published by Mississippi Today
“Newbie” got his nickname after joining an encampment in the woods off Highway 18 in southwest Jackson. Originally from the Midwest, he moved to Jackson after Googling “what is the cheapest place to live in the United States?”
He started panhandling for money, sometimes getting $50 a day. Eventually, he built a makeshift home out of campaign signs for President Donald Trump and Jackson Mayor John Horhn.
But as Jackson rethinks its approach to homelessness, Newbie could soon be forced to trade this unstable dwelling for a real home — one with first and last month’s rent covered under a public-private partnership that Horhn’s administration is working to bring to the city.
As long as his pitbull can come, Newbie, who asked Mississippi Today to withhold his real name out of concern for his safety, said he’d jump at the opportunity.
“You start feeling comfortable, like this is how it’s supposed to be,” he said. “It could be so much better.”
For years, that sentiment could also describe Jackson’s response to homelessness. Big ideas came and went. Little changed. While the city continued to have a smaller homeless population than many other cities, Jacksonians and suburban commuters took note of panhandlers in downtown and at major thoroughfares.
“Whether or not homelessness is a problem in Jackson, it is perceived as a problem in Jackson,” said Jill Buckley, the director of Stewpot Community Services, which provides shelter and hot meals.
Enter Clutch Consulting. The Houston-based firm gained national recognition in 2024 after its founder, Mandy Chapman Semple, was credited with reducing the Texas city’s homeless population by more than 60%. Since then, she’s gone on to work in a number of other cities across the country, using this general approach: A “housing first” model in which case managers prioritize placing people into long-term housing then work to shut down encampments.
“All the things we thought could keep us from solving the problem” Clutch has “proved can be solved,” said Liz Brister, the president of Downtown Jackson Partners, which manages the city’s business improvement district.
In March, Brister, a member of an unhoused taskforce that Horhn convened as part of the 2025 Jackson Rising initiative, brought Semple to town for an initial assessment using $20,000 in grant funds from the Community Foundation of Mississippi.
After analyzing data from the Central Mississippi Continuum of Care, Semple determined that the number of people sleeping outside in Jackson is smaller than many thought — about 150. More people, about 1,675, cycle in and out of homelessness each year, and this number is growing, up nearly 50% since 2022.
The upshot: While chronic homelessness exists in Jackson, it’s manageable. If Jackson can get it right, Semple said, it will support the mayor’s goal of bringing more development to the city, especially to downtown.
“When we can care for the most vulnerable among us and eliminate the public health crisis of homelessness that’s playing out on our streets, there are huge advantages for economic development, for attracting growth in neighborhoods, for attracting additional investment and movement back into the center city,” Semple told Mississippi Today.
This initiative follows other efforts that have targeted the homeless in Jackson. Last year, state lawmakers passed a bill prohibiting panhandling without a permit. In February, the Jackson City Council passed an ordinance banning the practice of people dropping off the homeless in Jackson – another idea that came out of the Jackson Rising unhoused task force.
“For the mayor, a priority is development,” said Angela Brown, the director of the city’s planning and development department. “We want to see new people, and old, returning to Jackson.”
Horhn has yet to sign a contract with Clutch. The city needs to raise nearly $8 million before Semple can come to town, but leaders are seeking donors and believe that will happen within the next couple months.
Much is at stake. At a recent town hall for Ward 5, which covers much of west Jackson, resident Larry White spoke on behalf of many when he charged Horhn with decreasing the number of “people that gather here in Jackson.”
“You’ve been on your honeymoon about eight months now,” White told Horhn. “You’ve got about four months left.”
What services already exist in Jackson?
There may be as many paths to homelessness in Jackson as there are unhoused people.
After leaving prison, Tim Sullivan became homeless when he was forced out of a transitional shelter.
Carla, who requested Mississippi Today not publish her full name out of safety concerns, said she followed her wayward daughter onto the streets in an effort to watch out for her.
But once someone seeks homeless services in Jackson, their name becomes associated with a number inside the Mississippi Continuum of Care’s federally mandated Homeless Management Information System.
From there, case managers rank their needs based on measures of vulnerability: How long they’ve been homeless, the state of their mental health and how rapidly they could be rehoused, said Melvin Stamps, planning director for the Central Mississippi Continuum of Care.
“We want to make sure this experience is number one, rare and number two, brief,” he said.
That doesn’t always happen. The breakdown can happen in the referral process. When the unhoused task force started meeting, Buckley from Stewpot said leaders discussed the strengths and weaknesses of this existing approach.
A strength: Jackson has effective street outreach workers who know where encampments are. A weakness: There’s not enough money to go around. Multiple organizations in Jackson split a pot of federal rapid rehousing funds. When those dollars run out, few people can be rehoused until the next calendar year unless a creative solution arises.
“That’s the whole gap as it relates to us being able to end homelessness,” Stamps said.
Clutch’s outside perspective proved useful. Semple knew how to use the HMIS system to create what’s known as a “flow analysis” that showed many of the 1,675 people experiencing homelessness in Jackson could stop cycling in and out of the system if they were offered a faster, more permanent resolution, such as a year-long lease.
“That does put Jackson in a very fortunate position because the vast majority of individuals need a light touch,” she said.
What does Clutch do differently?
Instead of offering a homeless person a shelter bed for the night, Clutch’s model pushes service providers to ask: What can we do to help you not stay here tonight?
Using a modified emergency management structure, the goal is to provide a person with housing as quickly as possible. Buckley said that might look like paying for a bus ticket back to their hometown, covering utilities, or helping them get a driver’s license or a copy of their birth certificate.
“The only piece that the homeless response system can respond to is the homelessness,” she said. “We don’t have the skill to respond to mental health and addiction issues.”
This could also look like offering a person a lease in a unit where Clutch has already worked with the landlord to pay first and last month’s rent and a security deposit.
But public dollars can come with red tape rather than flexibility, Semple said. One common barrier, for instance, is federal rehousing dollars must be spent on units priced at a fair market rent for Jackson, a figure calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that can range by several hundred dollars depending on the zip code.
To provide more housing options, Clutch also relies on private dollars. All told, Clutch estimates bringing its services to Jackson for two years will cost close to $10 million, according to a proposal obtained by Mississippi Today. About $2.5 million of that will come from the city’s pandemic relief funds.
If the contract is signed, Clutch will “permanently decommission” Jackson’s encampments, starting in downtown with the goal of moving 300 unsheltered people into housing by the end of its two-year run, according to a proposal Semple presented to the unhoused task force.
Many of those 300 people, Buckley said, have complex mental health needs. Convincing them to leave their encampments will require more case managers in Jackson who can build trust.
Sullivan, for instance, lives with his dog, Dutchez, in the wooded encampment with Newbie. He wants to get his own apartment, but he’s procrastinated finding a place, afraid “the pressures of life would send me back into addiction.”
“It’s the fear that keeps you stuck out here,” he said.
This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Source: Original Article
