Month: August 2020

Categories
Politics Politics Beat Blog

New Order to State: Make Eligibility for Mail-in Voting Clear

Chancellor Lyle

As the time to actually cast votes grows ever nearer, the battle continues between exponents of pandemic-related mail-in voting and resisting forces in state government.

Petitioners for the mail-in process gained at least a temporary victory this week in the form of a new order from Nashville Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle to state and local election authorities to include clear and explicit language on any public advisories regarding eligibility for mail-in voting permission to apply on the basis of “underlying
medical or health conditions which in their determination render them more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 or at greater risk should they contract it” [italics ours].

The order also requires an explicit acknowledgement of eligibility for caretakers of “persons who have underlying medical or health conditions which in their determination render them more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 or at greater risk should they contract it.” It also requires the State to ensure that county election officials use the same language in their instructions to voters.

Chancellor Lyle’s order requires that state Election Coordinator Mark Goins file “a Declaration with this Court by noon, September 1, 2020” that the order has been complied with.

The order was in response to a petition from plaintiffs Up the Vote 901, a group of Memphians (as well as the ACLU), that states election officials had not followed through on instructions from the state Supreme Court, which, in dismissing a temporary injunction
by Chancellor Lyle requiring universal mail-in eligibility, directed election authorities to make public the fact of eligibility in language like that quoted above in their public advisories.

The judge noted, as the plaintiffs had, that a spokesperson for the state had made a last-minute concession in the hearing before the High Court that anyone with such an underlying condition or their caretakers could vote absentee, and that individual voters were entitled to determine for themselves their susceptibility to contracting COVID-19.

It now remains to be seen if the state, which has consistently procrastinated in dealing with such directives as Lyle’s or actively resisted them, will avail itself of yet another appeal in relation to the current order.

Categories
News News Blog

Active Case Count Falls Below 3,000

COVID-19 Memphis
Infogram

Active Case Count Falls Below 3,000

Shelby County added 128 new cases of COVID-19 on test results reported since Tuesday morning.

The number is not the number of new cases on tests given yesterday. Tests results are not always returned within 24 hours. The new case count comes from numerous tests over numerous days from numerous laboratories.

The latest weekly data available shows 11.5 percent of all tests were positive for the week of August 9th. The figure is down from the 13.2 percent  percent rate recorded for the week of August 2nd. It marked the fourth straight decline in the weekly positivity rate since mid-July.

The county’s overall average positive rate for COVID-19 was 10.8 percent on Tuesday. The number is the average of all positive tests from all test results reported since the virus arrived here in March.

The total number of COVID-19 cases here stands at 26,656. One new death was reported since Tuesday morning. The death toll in Shelby County now stands at 367.

The total of known COVID-19 cases diagnosed in Shelby County was 2,988. This marks the first time the figure has been below 3,000 in weeks. The number is 11.2 percent of all virus cases recorded in Shelby county since March. There were 10,357 contacts in quarantine as of Tuesday, the same number as Monday.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Winter is Coming, Grasshopper

CREDIT: Bruce VanWyngarden

I have a one-legged grasshopper. Well, I don’t actually have him, but he lives in our yard and he’s quite a specimen — a good three inches long, with a lime-green torso and a bright yellow stripe running down his back. I first spotted him munching on a canna lily blossom about three weeks ago. He didn’t move, even as I got within a few inches to take some photos.

It was then I noticed he was missing his right rear leg — you know, one of the two big ones grasshoppers use to jump. It didn’t seem to bother him much, though, and after posing for a few more shots, he launched himself and flew away.

Bruce VanWyngarden

I figured a one-legged grasshopper probably didn’t have much of a future, but he kept hanging around. A week later, I saw him in the black-eyed Susans, and a few days after that, climbing around on the butterfly bush. Yesterday, as I began to water the tomatoes, he popped out and flew right at my head. Cheeky monkey.

I’ve grown a little attached to this guy. Or girl. Something nipped off his leg, but he hasn’t let it mess up his summer. Which, let’s be honest here, is basically all the time on the planet he’s going to get.

We’re all living a bit like that grasshopper, aren’t we? We’re all missing something. Big chunks of our lives have disappeared, and we keep having to adapt — to change the way we travel, eat, go to school, go to the store, go to work, and vote.

That last item is about to become the most important one on the list. In the last presidential election, 33 million Americans voted by mail. You didn’t hear much about it because it was no big deal. It’s been happening for many election cycles. Residents of 35 states are able to vote by mail as a matter of course. As are military personnel or anyone (by absentee ballot) who will be away from their voting precinct on Election Day. Now, with the COVID crisis, nine more states are allowing vote-by-mail for citizens who fear going to the polls in person, though in many states, a mail-in ballot needs to be requested.

It’s fair to say that millions more Americans will vote by mail in 2020 than did in 2016. It’s also fair to say that the Trump administration is doing its best to make it more difficult to vote by mail by knee-capping the U.S. Postal Service — removing sorting machines and eliminating employee overtime in the midst of a pandemic, and two months before a critical election. Meanwhile, the president is openly working to delegitimize the election results in advance.

Here’s a nightmare scenario: On election night, millions of mail-in ballots are not counted by the end of the day, meaning final results for many states aren’t known immediately, though we will know who’s leading. But it’s quite possible there could be a few days where we don’t know the absolute final results of the election in several states. We might have a pretty good idea who won, but not with total certainty.

Those days will likely be a horror show. If he’s losing, Trump will declare the election a hoax; hell, he’s already doing that. He will summon his attorney general to instigate legal challenges to the results in as many states as possible. He will not concede. He will rally his base; he will stoke unrest; he will give a wink and a nod to white supremacists and QAnon wackos. He will incite chaos. Count on it. It’s what he does; it’s who he is.

Early voting in Tennessee runs from October 14th through October 29th. If there is any way you can get yourself to a polling place during those two weeks, I implore you to do it. The primary in-person voting process was extremely safe. Everyone was masked, distancing was enforced, wooden sticks were issued so that your finger didn’t have to touch a voting machine. Pens were given away so you could sign in without contacting something touched by another person. I would extend this advice to those living in other states, as well. Mask up, show up at a polling place, vote as if your life depends on it.

We are less than 70 days from what will be a very bumpy ride for democracy and justice and the American system of governance. It’s our moment to show courage, to speak truth to bullies and crooks, to make certain our votes are counted. There’s no room for complacency or apathy. We stop this now or it all falls apart.

The time for patience is past, Grasshopper. Winter is coming.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

High Point Grocery: The Same, But Better

CREDIT: Richard Murff

It was my friend P.C. Magness, the brain behind The Runaway Spoon, who said she hoped that someone would buy the old High Point Grocery and “keep it the same, only better.” True, that’s a tall, tricky order, but this is a lady who wrote a cookbook that actually makes you look forward to funeral food. So, anything is possible. As it happens, she got her wish.

For anyone who has actually lived in the neighborhood, the small, ’50s-era grocery store is almost always known as “the Little Store.” It was quaint, timeless, friendly, and convenient. It looked a little tired, sure, but it was such a fixture, the regulars ignored it. Even embraced it. Then COVID happened, and in April the Little Store closed with nearly everything else. With the lease coming up, and longtime owner C.D. Shirley eyeballing retirement, he made the decision not to reopen.

Richard Murff

Like losing naptime when you graduate to first grade, you just don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it. Then Mrs. M announced that the fella from Cash Saver had stepped in to buy it and wasn’t changing the name. The fella’s name is Rick James, by the way, and whether he knew it or not, he did exactly what P.C. had hoped for: kept it the same, but better. I’ll admit some selfishness here because I was hoping that he’d recreate that great whacking hall of beer they’ve got in Midtown. Did that, too, up to a point.

Obviously, the Little Store is still pretty, well, little. You may not find some random Czech pilsner there, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a Memphis beer that isn’t on the shelf or in the cooler. And Memphis beer-can art is something to behold. To be sure, there are some solid non-local crafts to choose from, as well as Budweiser and other summer cooler-stuffing brands. It is still the Little Store, but Memphis beer is the star of the show. And there is a lot to choose from.

Since this foul year of our Lord went sideways, it’s been hard to keep up with the local craft scene because so much of it involved hanging around the taprooms, which have largely been closed. I’ve made a few attempts to turn my patio into a Murffhaus taproom, but it was just missing something — like other people (including that one guy who takes it a little too seriously) and that kid-in-a-candy-shop selection on tap.

I was pleasantly surprised at the simple variety being put out locally: standbys like Memphis Made’s Junt and Wiseacre’s Ananda, to newcomers like Beale Street Brewing’s 528hz of Love & Hoppiness. High Cotton has come out with its Oktoberfest, which, because this is Memphis, has a swine in lederhosen on the can. If memory serves, back in the spring October became our backup May before being re-canceled altogether.

To recreate a rescheduled and re-canceled May, you can always grab a can of something local and go get barbecue takeout for every single meal for a long weekend and get roughly the same effect as Barbecue Fest. To recreate Music Fest, go to Rachel’s and buy enough garden statuary so that your backyard seems crowded, drink enough so that you think taking your shirt off is a good idea, and then listen to music you thought you liked but really don’t. It’s not a perfect fit, but it’ll do.

For everything else that has gone away this year — crowded festivals and bars, schools, common sense, and an even remotely professional concern for personal appearance — the Little Store survived, the same just better. The local beer scene has managed to float along as well. That’s not by luck or government policy (or lack of). That’s just people sticking together through a really bad year.

And if that’s not worthy of a toast, I don’t know what is.

Categories
Book Features Books

The Revenant: Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians

CREDIT: Courtesy Stephen Graham Jones

In two mesmerizing marathon sessions, I read Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians (Saga Press) over the July 4th weekend. There could have been no better atmosphere for Jones’ literary horror novel of revenge, cultural identity, and tradition on a Blackfoot reservation. Amid nationwide calls to address racial inequities, President Donald Trump gathered a crowd of mostly white Americans at a once-sacred site to the Lakota Sioux, one that was promised to them in perpetuity, to deliver a pro-nationalist, jingoistic tirade against cancel culture.

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children,” the president claimed, seemingly without realizing the irony of making that statement on that land. Erasure and indoctrination were exactly the fates of Native Americans. So perhaps I was primed to be rattled by Jones’ heartbreakingly powerful novel. Or maybe The Only Good Indians is just that damn good.

Courtesy Stephen Graham Jones

Stephen Graham Jones

The novel takes its name from what folklorist Wolfgang Mieder calls “particularly hateful invective” directed at the United States’ indigenous population, and that wry, dark humor informs the perspectives of the novel’s protagonists — four young members of the Blackfoot tribe. The men are irrefutably aware of the terrifying statistics that characterize the lives of so many like them. Their inner monologues are rife with remembered and imagined arrests, friends’ suicides, car crashes, and addiction. They know what society expects from them.

Still, for all the social commentary and supernatural fright deftly woven into The Only Good Indians, it’s in the honest portrayal of his characters that Jones truly shines. Ten years ago, Ricky Bibs, Lewis A. Clarke, Gabriel Cross Guns, and Cassidy Thinks Twice went on an illegal elk hunt in the elders’ lands, what the quartet called the “Thanksgiving Classic.” Now they find they must pay the price for their casually unleashed carnage.

The young men feel real enough to reach out from the page and shake the reader. Jones’ horror is rooted in humanity, in the author’s surfeit of heart. His characters are flawed and unerringly human, defined by or in denial of their guilt, which is why it hurts so much to read their stories.

“We’re from where we’re from,” Shaney, one of Lewis’ coworkers, tells him early in the novel. “Scars are part of the deal, aren’t they?” The line serves as a warning to the reader as well. Keep reading, if you dare, but be warned — in these pages, even the triumphs are tinged with tragedy.

Denorah Cross Guns, Gabe’s driven, basketball ace of a daughter, gives the reader someone to root for — and some serious stakes. For the monsters in The Only Good Indians play by the old rules, and punishments are heaped upon innocent children as much as on their parents, the transgressors.

Of late, Jones has been labeled the “Jordan Peele of horror literature,” and the moniker is earned as much for the overall strength of the work as for the social commentary within. If Peele’s Get Out was a masterwork — funny, frightening in ways both immediately visceral and creeping and intellectual, brilliantly composed — so is Jones’ most recent novel. His characters are natural. The book’s plot is a furious page-turner; its message, timely and potent. And The Only Good Indians works as well as a work of environmental horror, warning that to harm our home is to invite its revenge.

Jones’ The Only Good Indians is heartbreaking, exciting, and terrifying in equal measure. It’s the clear frontrunner for my favorite book of the year — for its masterful execution, for its humanity and honesty, and because it has haunted me since I turned the last page.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

A Tour at Home: City Tasting Box Features Local Products

When her City Tasting Tours stopped because of the pandemic, Cristina McCarter decided to fight back.

She began boxing.

But not in the pugilism sense. She and Lisa Brown started City Tasting Box, featuring products ranging from barbecue sauce to popcorn — from “local restaurants and local food artisans,” McCarter says.

Cristina McCarter and Lisa Brown

City Tasting Box will begin shipping boxes to the public on 901 Day — September 1st.

McCarter created City Tasting Tours four years ago. “It’s a food tour company where I will take people — visitors and locals alike — to different restaurants in Downtown Memphis,” she says. “They get to meet the chefs. I also share with them historical facts and landmarks of the city.”

When COVID-19 hit, McCarter decided to “expand the City Tasting brand” a little farther. “I couldn’t do tours anymore.”

City Tasting Box seemed like the perfect direction. “We can ship them nationwide and really put Memphis and its culinary scene on the map — and give people something they physically can taste.”

She told her idea to Brown, who is with the Memphis Transformed nonprofit. “She really liked it. And she comes from more of a corporate background.” She could see the potential of one day making the business even bigger, “instead of just a local thing.”

Brown appreciated McCarter wanting to help local restaurants. “I love the 901 push behind it all,” Brown says. “And it’s a smart way to create new business.”

McCarter started with “those who already packaged their things, were already selling them in grocery stores.”

Makeda’s Cookies butter cookies were first. “Then I thought about the farmers market and the other chefs I wanted to work with.”

Other products found in City Tasting Boxes include Rendezvous barbecue sauce, Fry Me Up seasoning from Tamra “Chef Tam” Patterson of Chef Tam’s Underground Cafe, Grecian Gourmet Greek vinaigrette, The Commissary barbecue seasoning, Jacko’s Pepper Jelly mango pepper jelly, Pops Kernel Gourmet Popcorn sweet caramel popcorn, New Wing Order buffalo sauce, B Chill Lemonade, Nine Oat One granola, Cane and Herb rosemary-infused simple syrup, Thistle and Bee honey, My Cup of Tea tea bags, and chef Justin Hughes’ Wooden Toothpick spicy peppercorn blend.

“They were all very supportive of this,” McCarter says. “They saw this as another way to help with their revenues and get the word out. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

“It’s a way to project their brand,” Brown adds.

They now offer three boxes: the Official Memphis Travel Box ($74.99 for seven items), Support Local Box ($64.99, six items), and the Ultimate Support Local Box ($119.99, 12 items).

Customers sometimes will get “little pieces of artwork” with their order, McCarter says. This month, the first 100 people who order the Memphis Travel Box and the first 50 who purchase the Ultimate Box will receive a Get ARCHd Memphis retro skyline wooden block.

McCarter began promoting the boxes in July. “I reached out to my City Tasting Tours audience and shared it with them. Then we started making local media posts: ‘Hey, we have this cool box coming. Stay tuned.'”

They launched the idea August 14th.

Though City Tasting Box is “exclusive to Memphis-made products — Shelby County, at least,” McCarter says, “We are thinking in the near future of expanding to other cities.”

But, she says, “The market is going to always be growing here in Memphis. There are a bunch of food artisans out there that we haven’t approached.”

Response has been great, Brown says: “Everyone is thrilled. The support has been amazing. People think this is such a great idea. It’s all about Memphis. You know how Memphians are. We love to tout. We want the whole world to know who we are.”

For more information on City Tasting Box, go to citytastingbox.com.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Higher Ed Post-Covid-19

CREDIT: Dave Ben Roberts | Wikipedia

The American education system essentially collapsed five months ago. With zero leadership from Betsy “Privatize It” DeVos and student debt hovering at $1.5 trillion, we’re not returning to business as usual in any form of education in the nation, including higher education.

In 1847, City College (New York) was founded as a free public college designed to educate the sons of the proletariat, and later the sons of immigrants. It was free, and pushed forward the nation’s foundational story of social advancement based on merit and study. Though women were not admitted until 1930, City College provided opportunity for bright, ambitious folks including Jonas Salk, Colin Powell, and too many others to mention here.

Now, students, their parents, and society are questioning the efficaciousness of carrying $1.5 trillion of collective student debt. The following presents suggestions for ways forward as we reenvision an educational system that does not tie students down in debt but frees them to pursue their future.

First, we have to make sure public education is excellent and affordable. Higher education cannot be the domain of the wealthy — all kids who aspire to college should have the opportunity to attend. College is really not so complex. It consists, essentially, of two parts: students and faculty. But we’ve made it enormously complicated by turning some colleges into luxury, all-inclusive cruise ships with astounding administrative overhead — administrative costs that have to be paid by the students and their families. Colleges need to return to focusing on education and not a competition to produce the most bougie dorm rooms.

Second, state and local governments must make funding post-secondary education a priority. The shift to building “amenities” is logical, as private (and public) schools compete for the dollars of those who can afford to pay full tuition. Why the drive to compete for these dollars? Because funding for public schools by local and state governments over the past 30 years per enrolled student has dropped by 25 percent. In Tennessee, for example, state government funding of higher education has fallen by nearly 14 percent on a per-student basis since 2008. To ensure the best quality affordable education for our students, state governments must fund at a rate that keeps pace with enrollment.

Third, Hispanics (Latinx students) represent about 28 percent of all K-12 students, nearly twice the number from 25 years ago. Hispanics make up about 19 percent of the United States population, on their way to a projected 30 percent in 30 or 40 years. Millions of these kids are going to need to go to college, but Hispanic median income (using figures from 2016) is about 20 percent less than the national average. Thus, we need to figure out a way to fund education for kids who represent the future of this country, since excellent, affordable higher education is critical to our future as a strong, competitive, and socially at-peace nation.

Dave Ben Roberts | Wikipedia

Florida International University

Florida International University in Miami offers a model for all of us. It’s a majority minority public campus of 58,000 students. The annual in-state tuition is $6,500! FIU is a strong university with an excellent faculty and a deep connection to the local community. It feels a little like a modern, tropical City College; it’s not free, but $3,200 per semester is manageable for most, and with loans and grants, it’s an accessible higher education option.

Closer to home, our friends at Christian Brothers University here in Memphis have prioritized education of the working class, a tradition since the order’s foundation in 17th century France. While tuition there is not cheap, specific targeted funds are provided to support DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) students at the college, and they recently posted an ad to hire an advising and retention coordinator to focus on the unique needs of students studying as DACA recipients. CBU’s focus on enrolling those most in need should be the norm among colleges.

While the current pandemic has exposed the tenuous financial footing of many colleges and universities, the good news is the crisis could allow for dramatic change in an arena where so much room for growth and change exists. Much of that change must involve our willingness to rethink how higher education is funded, who gets access to higher education, and how we as a society take actual ownership of educating the next generations. We might have to pay more taxes. We might have to be more welcoming to immigrants. We might have to go back to some education basics.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and the board chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Ass-Flavored Incense, Census Game, and The Mountain Goats

Unauthorized

“Are you in Downtown Memphis and need to buy some shit? Come to A. Schwab’s. We have literally everything you could possibly need for literally fucking pennies.”

Posted to YouTube by Ryan’s Shorts, “Memphis Marketing – Unauthorized A. Schwab’s Commercial” has instant-classic potential. In it, we find a young man (presumably Ryan) in a paper facemask and Young Avenue Deli T-shirt extolling the virtues of the landmark Beale Street store and its pickles, Elvis gear, barbecue sauce, hats, ass-flavored incense sticks, and much more.

Censotería!

La Prensa Latina Media, the city of Memphis, and the U.S. Census Bureau introduced a new game to help boost Latinx cooperation in this year’s census.

Censotería, a modern twist on the traditional Mexican game of Lotería, will be played on Facebook Live every Sunday at 6 p.m. Get rules, materials, and more at laprensalatina.com/censoteria.

The Mountain Goats

A tweet from the band last week read, “Maximum respect to the citizens of Memphis who saw me out and about on the town when we were recording, said hi, and then kept the news hush-hush.”

Categories
Cover Feature News

“We Buy Houses.” What’s Behind All Those Phone Calls?

The calls come at all times of the day. “Hi, this is Dana. Hope you’re having a great day. I was reaching out to see if you had any interest in maybe getting an offer on your property. My wife and I are buying homes in the area, so we thought we would shoot you a call real quick to see if you have any interest. We can pay cash. …”

“Hi, it’s Ashley again. I gave you a call a couple of weeks ago, and I wasn’t able to reach you. I wanted to reach back out and see if you’re interested in getting an offer on your property. My husband and I have been buying homes in the area, and just wanted to see if it’s anything you were interested in. …”

The callers know your name, your address, and seemingly how much your property is worth. When it’s not calls, it’s text messages: “Hi, Christopher. My name is Angela. I was reaching out to see if you were interested in getting an offer. …”

Jesse Davis

Printed and hand-made signs pop up at intersections.

People all over the Mid-South have been getting these calls for years, but in recent months, the volume has seemingly accelerated. A Facebook query yielded 115 comments from people saying they have been receiving unwanted calls, texts, letters, and postcards from sketchy strangers wanting to buy their homes. “I get them about once a week,” says Katie Mars.

“They call me for my mom’s house,” Cristina McCarter says.

“Yes, many robocall voicemails faking as if they are individual calls from a local couple just happening by my property and want to know if I want a cash offer. I don’t know how they got my cell, but I often admire their creativity,” says Paul Morris.

“I get calls, and I don’t even own a home,” Mac Edwards says. “I think they work with the auto warranty people.”

“I got one recently where they said, ‘Hey, neighbor. I just moved into your neighborhood! Thought I’d say hi! By the way, would you like to sell your house?'” Alex Greene adds.

“I asked how they got my number, and they didn’t reply,” says Dana Gabrion.

“I had a guy call multiple times. He gave me attitude in messages because I wouldn’t call him back. Another one got upset with me when I asked him how he got my number when he called to ask about the house,” says Gabriel DeCarlo.

“Every day for our house, and multiple times a day for our rental property,” Josh Campbell says.

“Every few weeks I get about 20 calls and texts telling ‘Vernon’ they’d like to buy his house,” Cecelia Dean Ralston says. “This has been going on for five or six years. No idea who Vernon is, and I’ve had the same number for 15 years. I’ve told dozens of people it’s not me, but they don’t care.”

Meriwether Nichols is a Memphian who now lives in Sante Fe, New Mexico. She uses her former home in Midtown as a rental property. She gets calls and texts about it “nearly every day. They are from somebody who is a real person, at least from what I can tell, and they use a first name. They do not identify a company.”

Inevitably, the callers deny being realtors and claim to be mom-and-pop real estate investors. “They make it sound pretty folksy. And sometimes, if I’m of a mind to, I will call them back or I will text them back and say, ‘What is your purpose? What’s your intention for this property? Are you an investor? Are you a flipper? What company are you with?'”

Nichols says answers are rarely forthcoming, but once she got a person calling from a number in the 901 area code to admit he was actually in Bozeman, Montana. “You skiptraced my number through property tax records and called me on my personal cell phone in the middle of a pandemic,” Nichols told the caller. “This feels awfully predatory.”

Cold calls and unsolicited text messages are among the tools used by buyers relying on data-mining.

Who is making these cold calls, sending unsolicited texts, and flooding neighborhoods with postcards filled with identifying personal information?

“I don’t think this is realtors who are doing this,” says Kathryn Garland, president of the Memphis Area Association of Realtors. “My suggestion to any homeowner who gets a call like this is to consult their realtor, because we’re the ones who are the experts in our field. We can tell you what the value is of your home and make sure you’re not leaving money on the table.”

Anyone can call themselves a real estate investor, Garland says. “But a realtor is a licensed real estate professional who is part of the National Association of Realtors and abides by a code of ethics.”

Realtors have a fiduciary duty to protect the interest of their clients. “So it’s a standard of care,” Garland says. “A ‘real estate investor’ might, with their own money, buy and sell real estate, but they can’t broker it for a consumer, necessarily.”

Finding leads is always problem No. 1 in real estate, as in any job related to sales. Cold calls are a tactic to create leads. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing this, other than it annoys people,” Garland says. “It raises the question of, ‘Why are you calling me?’ There’s gotta be a scam here, you know? I don’t necessarily think that that’s always the case.”

Traditionally, a property owner wanting to sell will contact a realtor to put their home on the market. Cold callers are looking to short-circuit that process and cut out the realtors. Garland says the current flood of solicitations is a reflection of the state of the Mid-South market: “I will say, this is about inventory being low. That’s basic supply and demand. And so, when supply is short and demand is high, it drives prices higher. That’s why we’ve had such great return, year over year — especially this year. I think we’re like 19 percent over last year on average wholesale price. And we’re in the middle of the pandemic. My point is that investors — they may be paying cash or whatever — but they don’t always pay top dollar for things.”

Garland was one of the few real estate professionals willing to talk on the record about this issue. No licensed realtors I spoke with admitted to cold calling or texting. “I think it’s tacky” was a common response.

“That’s not the first contact I want to have with a client,” says one realtor.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one veteran real estate professional, whom we will call “B,” was more blunt. “Look, it’s hard to make money in real estate. It’s like going to grad school.”

There are two groups making these calls, B says. One group “doesn’t know what they’re doing.” The other group is “massive corporations gobbling up single-family homes.”

Both groups are driven by a common incentive: massive amounts of money pouring into the speculative real estate market from national and international investors. Take a worldwide pandemic, a borderline depression, soaring unemployment, and a political situation that is, to put it euphemistically, fluid, and that adds up to unprecedented uncertainty. The stock market, a traditional place for speculative capital, is being propped up by trillion-dollar influxes from central banks. “Everyone is terrified,” says B. “They’re trying to find something to believe in.”

That “something” is real estate, traditionally the safest of investments. Newbies looking to get rich quick in the hot market are flocking to classes taught by real estate “gurus,” B says. Some of these gurus are telling their students that, while traditional methods of generating leads can have only a one to three percent return rate, data mining companies claim their lists of property owners can deliver up to 40 percent returns. While it is true that a realtor will get you the best deal for your home, there are situations a realtor won’t touch. Maybe an inherited property has too much deferred maintenance, and the owner cannot afford to bring it up to code. The cold callers may be vultures, B says, but “vultures clean stuff up.”

Chris McCoy

Engaging with cold callers can be a risky business. Grant Whittle has been inundated with inquiries about his rental property, a Midtown duplex. “Whenever I get a text message, I write them back and I say, ‘I want $190,000, as-is, no questions asked. You pay all the closing costs.’ I think that’s sort of fair value for the house. They normally never write me back because they want to pay like half that.”

One day last December, someone did respond. “This guy texted me back and said, ‘Well, let me check.’ And I was like, ‘Whatever.'”

The real estate investor unexpectedly said yes to Whittle’s price and conditions, drew up a contract, and put down earnest money. “I still, even at that point, was thinking, ‘I bet this isn’t going to work out.'”

Then the investor asked to inspect the house. “And I’m thinking, have you not even driven by it? Cause I think, in general, they don’t,” says Whittle.

The day after the inspection, the investor called to say he couldn’t go through with the deal at $190,000. “And I was thinking to myself, I wouldn’t have ever thought you could either, except that you were all insistent on it. Maybe he’s just really green and stupid.”

Despite their contract, the investor offered $110,000. Whittle refused. “And then he actually called me again about it about a week later and said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to sell it for $110,000?’ I was like, ‘No!’ There are obviously people out there who have on their hands a house that is a burden for them. They don’t want it anymore, and it’s not in very good condition. It would be hard to sell, and they just want to get rid of it. Okay, fine. But I’m not that person.”

Many of these real estate “wholesalers” do not actually have the capital on hand to buy a house in cash. When they get a hit, as in Whittle’s case, they will try to get the target home under contract for a certain amount. Then they will use the contract’s 30-day duration to shop the property around to their list of investment contacts to sell it for more than the contracted price. If they can’t make the upsell (30 percent or more), they will simply let the contract expire, having effectively taken the property off the market for a month.

Steve Lockwood will soon be retiring after 18 years as the head of the Frayser Community Development Corporation (CDC). Lockwood has been in the housing game in Memphis since the 1970s, when he helped take Cooper-Young from a decaying wreck to one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Memphis.

“Homeownership on the macro scale is simply good for neighborhoods,” he says. “Because people are not so much financially invested, which they are, but they’re also personally invested. No one is against rental properties — we’re landlords, too. But there’s pretty strong data that shows that if you’ve got a reasonable percentage of homeowners, the neighborhood is simply healthier, the communication between people is better, neighborhood responsibility works better, and yards get cut.”

Lockwood says during the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, “This neighborhood was the absolute ground-zero laboratory for predatory lending.” After the crash, a wave of foreclosures ripped through the neighborhood. “Frayser led the state in foreclosures for about 10 years straight.”

Black families, which make up about 85 percent of Frayser, suffered foreclosures at approximately seven times the rate of white families. “Homeownership has not always been the great benefit for Black families that it’s supposed to have been.”

Many of those foreclosed homes never resold and were simply abandoned. Under Lockwood’s leadership, it’s been the mission of the nonprofit Frayser CDC to purchase and rehab blighted properties, rent them to low-income Frayserites, and help as many of them as possible to become homeowners. The market conditions in Frayser make it irresistible to wholesalers and cold-callers. “Our home prices right now are 37 percent of the Memphis area median, and our prices are rising faster in general than any other neighborhood in the city.”

The Frayser CDC owns about 130 properties, which means they are inundated with unsolicited offers. As I spoke to him on the phone, Lockwood pulled 15 postcards out of his trash can — about one day’s haul. “Some of the postcards are real sophisticated,” he says. “They’ve got a picture of your house on it and it says, ‘Is this your house? I’m interested in buying it. Call me up.’ They’re trying to give the impression that they paid some individualized attention to you, in a sense. But obviously they’re just data mining. That allows them to plug in thousands of addresses, get photos off of Google Earth, and punch out these slick-looking postcards. There’s an industry of people who do this for a fee. It’s pretty specialized.”

Lockwood says the wholesalers have made it more difficult for his organization to find houses. “We’re steadily trying to buy blighted houses, fix them, and put them back into service. These days we mostly sell to homeowners. But it’s gotten very hard to find houses because these big boys are playing this game and keeping all the good ones for themselves. The real real estate phenomenon going on in Frayser right now is that there are people snatching up all the houses, fixing them up, and then reselling them to investors in California. Then they keep the rental contract. And that’s really where they make their money, on the management side, moving forward.

“These people are not all monsters — which is to say, some of them do good work on the house, put families in, and are good managers of the houses. What they have done is contributing to lowering the amount of blight in the neighborhood. I’m not completely cussing these guys. But they are not contributing to homeownership. And in fact, they’re locking these homes, long-term, into non-local ownership. So I’m not completely applauding them, either. And some of them are predators and really bad people.”

In order to compete with the data-driven, investment-financed, rental business, Lockwood says the Frayser CDC is looking into adopting the direct-mail model. “We’re very businesslike, but we’re mission-based do-gooders in this neighborhood. And we mean that. So we’re trying to learn to play this game on behalf of homeownership, and the good of the neighborhood, rather than how it’s working out now.”

I attempted to trace several calls from numbers given to me by respondents to my Facebook post. One call to Memphian Cameron Mann claimed to come from a company called Middle Tennessee Home Buyers. I reached a person at the company in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, who identified himself as Jeremy. He denied his company was behind the call. “We made a decision that we’re not going to do that.”

Returning one call from the 901 area code got me a person named Andy who said he was in Scottsdale, Arizona. When I returned calls from voicemails received earlier this year, the numbers had all been disconnected.

Last Thursday, as I was at my desk working on this story, I got a voicemail. “Hey, this is Mark, giving you a call. I was driving in the neighborhood and I noticed your house. I was looking to see if you might ever consider an offer for the property, I pay cash and all closing costs, and I’m close right now.”

I returned the call within five minutes and was connected to Eric from the National Home Buying Company. He was in Nashville and said his company bought properties all over Tennessee. He claimed his company did about 20 deals a week. When I asked for an offer on my home, he asked me about the condition of the roof and the HVAC system. He quoted me a price that was 30 percent below the current estimate on zillow.com. When I revealed I was a reporter, he became flustered. Was Mark — his colleague who claimed in the voicemail to be driving by my house 10 minutes ago — real? Of course he was, Eric said. When I asked to arrange a meeting with Mark, Eric said he would pass along the message. Mark never called.

Eric, it turned out, was unusually polite. I returned a voicemail from “Ashley,” who claimed she was buying houses with her husband. I got a person who identified himself as Jake Taylor, who said Ashley was currently out of the office “to pick up the baby.”

“Typically, we bring the most value to homeowners who are looking to sell their home, but not necessarily wanting to invest any more money into it, and then have to go through a realtor and show it a bunch of times, and then pay commissions and fees. We’ll just come in and buy it as-is,” Taylor said.

When I told him my address, Taylor said, “I love that little area.” Then he asked me where I was planning to move to.

“I’d rather not tell you,” I said.

“Okay, well, fuck you too, then,” he replied.

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Ostrander Theatre Awards Go Virtual

CREDIT: Courtesy of Playhouse on the Square

Here we are at the usual time, all dressed up and ready to celebrate theater with the coveted Ostrander Awards. Yet this year, we’ll be celebrating at home — together.

Elizabeth Perkins, Memphis Ostrander Theatre Awards program director, says that she hopes theater enthusiasts and nominees will get dressed up with her to celebrate the winners. Though, she says, a few things will change with the switch to a virtual format.

“We won’t be selling tickets but asking for donations to cover expenses,” says Perkins. “Any funds raised over expenses will be donated back to the participating theaters as they sit out the rest of this intermission.”

Courtesy of Playhouse on the Square

Playhouse on the Square’s Book of Will among nominees

While the shortened theater season offered a little more than half the usual performances for the judges to consider, the show must go on. No one understands that more than Ann Marie Hall, who will be awarded the Eugart Yerian award for lifetime achievement honoring her many years of artistic contribution to the Memphis theater community.

All nominees in every category were announced on YouTube in July. Book of Will (Playhouse on the Square), Detroit 67 (Hattiloo Theatre), Eclipsed (Hattiloo Theatre), and Indecent (Circuit Playhouse) made the cut for Best Production of a Drama.

The nominees for Best Production in the collegiate division are A Raisin in the Sun (Southwest Tennessee Community College), Hissifit (McCoy Theatre at Rhodes College), and Inherit the Wind (University of Memphis).

Did your favorites get nominated? Join in virtually on Sunday to find out and celebrate excellence in collegiate, community, and professional theater in the Memphis area.

Sunday, August 30, 7 p.m., memphisostranders.com, join the award ceremony on the Ostrander Awards Facebook page and YouTube channel, donation-based.