Tag: MICAH

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Grants Boost Community Organizations in Housing and Justice Reform

Photo: Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Grants totaling $475,000 will allow three community-focused organizations to expand their work in justice reform, landlord accountability, and structural barriers in housing, while also dispelling myths about who these issues affect.

The funding is a result of an initiative of Community Foundation of Greater Memphis (CFGM) to tackle housing reform and inequities, and marks a “radical reimagining” of its grant making process.

The grantees are The Greater Memphis Housing Justice Project ($165,000), Just City ($100,000), and Memphis Interfaith Coalition For Action and Hope (MICAH) ($210,000).

Aerial Ozuzu, director of community impact for CFGM, said the organization went through a rigorous consulting and strategic planning process from January to April of 2023. As a result, the organization’s consultants touched on themes of funding equity, exploring collective impact, and property usage of community data to name a few, Ozuzu said.

“The committee decided early on that they didn’t want to take a Band-Aid approach and offer short-term relief,” Ozuzu said. “While meeting the immediate needs of our community will always be essential, it tends to be a safe and conventional method that only leads to incremental change at best.” 

CFGM decided to tackle these issues, which resulted in its Reforming the Housing and Justice Systems grant initiative. The committee reviewed applications in late 2023, and considered solutions that would lead to “a more fair, thriving, and resilient region for all.” Out of 66 applicants, the grantees were narrowed down to the three organizations.

“These are organizations that are uniquely addressing root cause issues of housing injustice,” Ozuzu said. “They are taking an unconventional approach to making change in our community. They are also organizations that hold community trust.”

Ozuzu said since this is a new approach for CFGM, they are on a learning journey with their grantees. However, she added that they are investing in these organizations to do the work they’ve been doing for a majority of their existence.

Gisela Guerrero, lead organizer of MICAH; Josh Spickler, executive director of Just City; Jamie Johnson, Memphis Public Interest Law Center; and Shirley Bondon of the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis met to discuss their work and how they plan to tackle their respective issues during the Community Foundation Annual Meeting and Grant Panel in May.

Ozuzu mentioned that while certain systems are important, they can sometimes pose “inequities and problems” due to the way they have operated for years. Part of the work that these agencies are doing to tackle these inequities are by specializing in specific sectors such as court and policy.

Bondon added that the government systems are failing both the city and county and Spickler emphasized the failures of the justice system. Guerrero emphasized MICAH’s focus on tackling justice and equity regarding education, economics, and race and class. 

“It feels like there are so many things that are happening,” Guerrero said. “There are so many systems that could be better, that could be improved and are creating so much harm, but we believe is if we can narrow it down, or focus on a few, we can make some better progress that way.

The participants also discussed certain misconceptions about their approach to their work such as the idea that Just City “refuses to acknowledge that some people should be taken out of society,” and that MICAH and The Greater Memphis Housing Project “are against property owners and anti-development … they all just aim to agitate without providing solutions.”

“I have a lot of confidence that years from now, we’re going to find out these were the right decisions,” Spickler said regarding Just City’s work. “We’ve got to be very careful in these days ahead that we don’t undercut some really important rights, and that’s what we’ll be working on over the next few years.”

Bondon said the misconceptions they hear the most is that “renters are all bad” and “landlords are all bad.” While she said this isn’t true, she acknowledged that there is an imbalance of power. 

“There is this perception that ‘good enough’ is fine for the poor,” Bondon said. “It’s not … You have to understand the imbalance, and we hope to balance those scales. We want renters and landlords to balance — want equity.”

Ozuzu said the organizations have received their first year’s funding. She added that while this is a new way of doing things, it provides a different way of looking at how to implement change in Memphis.

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Groups Advocate for Big Changes in Youth Justice System

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

A consortium of organizations want systemic changes in the youth justice system and have formally requested a meeting with Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner to address them.

The Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis (BCCM) announced on Wednesday that they, along with nine other organizations, delivered to Bonner seeking his help to develop a new plan to address issues they see in the system. The consortium includes Stand for Children – Tennessee, Gifts of Life Ministries, Whole Child Strategies, Just City, Shelby Countywide Juvenile Justice Consortium, The Equity Alliance, Memphis for All, Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH), and Youth Justice Action Council (YJAC).

The biggest concern for the group is that the Shelby County Youth Justice and Education Center has not allowed in-person visitation for several years. they also said youth are not receiving an education that parallels mainstream public school; they are not allowed time outdoors; and research and advocacy organizations are not allowed time with detained youth.

The groups say the youth justice system should “balance accountability with rehabilitation,” and that those who are detained should “ receive appropriate care, education, and support during their involvement with the legal process.”

The wellbeing of detained youth is dependent on community collaboration, they said, and they are “eager” to develop a plan focused on “youth adolescent development and their strengths.”That plan should include data, research, and evidence-based practices, they said, something missing now.

“Unfortunately, some organizations gathering data and performing research have been denied access to youth in detention who have lived experiences that can inform the plan that will help youth avoid interaction with the justice system and prevent them from returning if they have already been involved,” the groups said.

A report from the Disability Rights TN and Youth Law Center says “logistical and cost barriers” often stop families from visiting their children while they’re detained. The advocacy consortium listed a variety of other reasons like transportation burdens and phone restrictions that also have proved to be hurdles to visitation.

“Parents literally cannot parent their children, not because they don’t want to, but because the juvenile justice system erects barriers that make it virtually impossible to do so,” the report said.

The report from the law center also says detained youth “ are not receiving an education that parallels mainstream public schools and holds them to the same academic standards.”

“Receiving appropriate education ensures that youth eligible to return to school after release will be prepared to succeed in mainstream public schools and will not be further marginalized,” the groups said. “Youth who do not return to public education should have the tools to pursue a productive life after detention. “

The organizations requested that Bonner respond with his availability by this week. It was unclear if the meeting has been scheduled.

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The Suspense Holds

Willie Herenton (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Now that Memphis city candidates have begun pulling petitions for various races on the 2023 city ballot, what have we learned? Not so much, not yet. And old questions remain.

When hopefuls began posting their financial disclosures for the first quarter of the year, Brian Harris was first up in Super District 8, Position 3. He declared receipts of $30,166 for the quarter, and the same amount as the figure for his cash on hand. He also listed the selfsame sum of $30,166 as having been raised entirely from contributions of $100 or less.

Only problem was — and still is — that if indeed all those facts are true, Harris is required to list and identify all contributions, no matter the size, over the total amount of $2,000, since unidentified contributions are capped at that figure. Any receipts over that amount have to be itemized. In Harris’ case, that means a minimum of $28,166 needs to be accounted for.

Attempts to reach Harris and unravel the mystery of his funding sources have so far proved unavailing — though in the long run the Election Commission, and through it the voters, is sure to find out what there is to know.

One declared adversary of Harris in Super District 8, Position 3, is Jerred Price. The local activist and entertainer of Almost Elton John fame declared receipts for that first quarter of $20,465, with cash on hand of $13,998.87. All contributions and payouts are duly listed, as required, including — almost quaintly — a disbursement of $10.50 as a bank service charge.

Several other candidates have pulled petitions so far for Super District 8, Position 3 — Davin D. Clemons, Yolanda Cooper-Sutton, Roderic Sydney Ford, Damon Curry Morris, Paul Randolph Jr., and Robert White Jr. — but none of them have yet released any numbers.

So far, there remains no indication that former Councilman Berlin Boyd has picked up a petition for 8-3 or for any other position, though he has long been rumored to favor a Super District race as his way back to the council. (As the incumbent for District 7 in 2019, Boyd was defeated in a runoff by Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas.)

The big race on the city council calendar this year will almost certainly be the contest for District 5. One contender for this seat, which bridges Midtown and East Memphis, is Meggan Wurzburg Kiel, a longtime mainstay for MICAH (Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope). As of that first-quarter disclosure, Kiel was already reporting cash on hand of $104,084.39, and she has continued to raise money since.

Kiel’s principal adversary will be yet another former council member seeking to return: former Super District 9, Position 2 Councilman Philip Spinosa, who, as of the year’s first disclosure, was reporting cash on hand of $14,721.60. Though that figure isn’t comparable to what Kiel reported at the time, Spinosa, like Kiel, has important connections and will ultimately raise a war chest commensurate with that fact.

Money will be an important indicator of candidate viability this year, but not the only one. One conclusion drawn by almost all observers of this year’s mayoral field is that one candidate sure to draw beaucoup votes will do so sans benefit of significant fundraising.

That would be former five-time Mayor Willie Herenton, mentioned in this space last week. Herenton finished second to incumbent Mayor Jim Strickland in 2019 without raising any money to speak of, and, especially with his new hard anti-crime platform, he remains an elephant in the room for this election season.

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Answering the Bell

Meggan Wurzburg Kiel (Photo: instagram @megganformemphis)

Election fever is beginning to show not only at the level of mayoral hopefuls but among city council aspirants as well.

A key race will take place in council District 5, focused on Midtown and East Memphis, where former Councilman Philip Spinosa will be seeking a return to office. It won’t be easy for Spinosa, who’ll be opposed by newcomer Meggan Wurzburg Kiel, whose fundraiser Monday evening at the East Memphis home of Frank and Jeanne Jemison turned out well over a hundred supporters. The attendees ran the gamut from the well-to-do, many of them prominent in business and civic circles, to familiar activists of the political center and center-left.

Kiel ran through her extensive résumé, which includes service in a variety of educational missions among inner-city youth and a prominent role in the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH).

She noted that the council was “kicking the can down the road” in setting exact district boundaries, but urged those present to be ready on May 22nd, when candidate petitions can first be drawn, and “we will sign the petition together and have a really good time picking up officially the campaign.”

• On Saturday, some 100 or so cadres of the Shelby County Republican Party had a dissent-free reorganizing convention in which chairman Cary Vaughn, who was re-elected by acclamation, called for “turning the page” and distancing the party from the monolithic influence of former President Donald J. Trump.

As Vaughn commented to the crowd, “We need boots on the ground. We need new people. … We can’t get there with the same core group. … We have to truly look at how we market the Shelby County GOP. … We have to work on the depth chart, right?”

The chairman cited a recent conversation of his with an African-American acquaintance, who told him, “We as African Americans want to be a part of the Republican Party in Shelby County.” Vaughn quoted the man as saying many Blacks were “pro-life, pro-God, pro-business, pro-traditional marriage, [and] believe in core values. But we’re not coming over under the Trump brand.”

Said Vaughn: “We have to find a way to say, look, there is room for everybody at the table with the Shelby County GOP. Now maybe we tear down the silos just a little bit so that we can come together [and] move this party forward.”

That didn’t sit well with Terry Roland, an absentee Saturday and Trump’s local election chair in both 2016 and 2020. Roland reacted with fury. “There are more Trump [voters] than not” among the county’s Republicans, he said, “and we aren’t taking a back seat to anyone. … Most of us won’t support anyone else, so I’m done with the Shelby County party after 36 years.”

• It is remarkable that Congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis’ 9th District was the only Tennessean now serving in Congress that MSNBC could find to say something both sensible and sensitive in the wake of Monday’s fatal school shooting in Nashville.

In a lengthy interview, Cohen empathized with the victims and their families, expressed the need for significant gun-safety legislation (while despairing of finding enough Republicans on Capitol Hill to support it), and even doubted the safety of himself and others in the House, given the inclination of some GOP members to try to smuggle weapons onto the floor.

Nashville is a majority-Democratic city, in some ways more so than Memphis, but gerrymandering by the legislature’s Republican supermajority has contrived to split the state’s congressional districts in such a way that Republicans — like Andy Ogles, who sends out family Christmas cards showing everyone toting a firearm — are guaranteed to represent all the larger districts containing fragments of Nashville.

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MICAH Pushes for Conviction Review in Shelby County

Sunny Eaton, the director of Nashville’s CRU (Courtesy: MICAH)

On March 10th, the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH) hosted a virtual town hall meeting to discuss the need for a conviction review unit (CRU) in Shelby County. A CRU “is charged with identifying and investigating past convictions for credible claims of actual innocence” according to the Nashville District Attorney’s Office, which currently houses the only CRU in Tennessee. 

The event featured keynote speakers Sunny Eaton, the director of Nashville’s CRU, and William Arnold Jr., a Black man wrongfully convicted in 2013 who now uses his platform to advocate for criminal justice reform. Arnold spent nearly seven years incarcerated before the Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction in 2020. The Nashville District Attorney’s office subsequently informed the judge presiding over Arnold’s case that it would be dismissed.

Janiece Lee, Vice President at MICAH, discussed how the implementation of a CRU in Shelby County would assist in holding the justice system accountable in terms of both previous rulings and future cases. 

“In almost every field, there’s some kind of checks and balances,” Lee said. “Not only does [a CRU] help to ensure justice by looking backwards, but, by determining the things that happened to result in a wrongful conviction, [a CRU] can help prosecutors correct themselves in the future.”

William Arnold Jr. was a keynote speaker at the event. (Courtesy: MICAH)

Lee spoke on the role of the prosecutor as a professional who advocates for truth. 

“I think we often forget that the prosecutor’s job is to seek justice and to seek truth,” Lee said. “A guilty verdict or a guilty plea does not mean we are done. If justice and truth means overturning a wrongful conviction or dismissing charges, then that is the responsibility of the prosecutor’s office.” 

Lee mentioned that Shelby County incarcerates at a higher rate than any other county in Tennessee; she argues that this fact renders a Shelby County CRU a necessary resource. 

“We incarcerate at a higher rate than any other county,” Lee said. “We should be a county that believes this is necessary. When your [District Attorney’s] office touches so many cases, mistakes are going to happen.”

MICAH has additional committees devoted to social justice. Ernie Hillard, Chair of the Race & Class Equity in the Justice System Task Force at MICAH, works, in part, to improve the lives of recently incarcerated citizens and was involved with the organization of the event. 

“With the help of our legislators we have been able to put forward some legislation to pursue expungement of felony records,” Hillard said. “The current system often keeps them from getting employment; we would like to make [expungement] automatic when they complete their sentencing.” 

During the town hall, Eaton emphasized that conviction review units are not important but critical to the ethical functioning of the judicial system, as they serve as essential mechanisms for self-accountability. Furthermore, Eaton noted that CRUs should be stationed with a District Attorney’s office for the facilitation of internal review.  

Arnold, who was wrongfully incarcerated for nearly seven years of his life, described the CRU as a way to balance out the judicial system and to prevent the unlawful incarceration of both people of color and people of lower economic status. 

After both keynote speakers presented, a Q&A followed in which Eaton and Arnold fielded questions posed by attendees. The event concluded with a call to action, which outlined how citizens can work toward making the vision of a Shelby County CRU a reality. 

Among the avenues suggested was raising awareness by discussing the need for a CRU within their respective circles and communities. More importantly, citizens are encouraged to vote and support local politicians who are in favor of establishing a Shelby County CRU. Current Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich has expressed opposition to the creation of a CRU within her office. 

Lee described the ultimate goal of any CRU as one aimed to restore the dignity of wrongfully convicted persons. 

“We cannot make it right in a wrongful conviction,” Lee said. “But we can do everything we can to give [a wrongfully incarcerated person] their name back, their dignity back, their reputation back. And we cannot delay it.”

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Kresge Foundation Grants $1.9 Million to Local Social Justice Organizations

CREDIT: PHOTO BY MELVIN SMITH

PHOTO BY MELVIN SMITH

The Rev. Stacy Spencer and Janiece Lee post MICAH’s Justice and Equity Charter at City Hall in June 2020.


The Kresge Foundation has announced a $30 million suite of grants for grassroots racial and economic justice organizations in Memphis, as well as in Detroit, New Orleans, and Fresno, California.

The $1.9 million designated for local recipients will go to Latino Memphis, the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis (Power of Place Fund), FSG (supporting the formation of a community collaborative to accelerate economic inclusion and mobility in conjunction with the Power of Place Fund), Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH), My Sistah’s House, Refugee Empowerment Program, and River City Capital.

Chantel Rush, managing director of Kresge’s American Cities Program, says the investment is intended to “send a message to grassroots organizers and philanthropic institutions that racial and economic equity is essential to the health and growth of urban regions and should be adequately funded. With these place-based grants, we aim to enable community organizations with unrestricted resources to meet their community’s specific needs while achieving economic racial justice and inclusive growth in cities.”

The grants primarily provide general operating support over the next three years to ensure the organizations will have significant and predictable resources. Additional information on the recipients and what they are doing is here.

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Group Supports $20 Transit Fee to Fund MATA, Promote Equity

CREDIT: Maya Smith

Maya Smith

MICAH members gather to support $20 transit fee

Members of the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH) gathered near city hall on Tuesday to show support for a Shelby County Commission resolution that would create a county transit fee to generate funds for the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA).

The resolution, sponsored by Shelby County Commissioners Willie Brooks Jr., Tami Sawyer, and Van Turner Jr., is an alternative to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris’ plan to implement an annual fee of $145 for a households’ third vehicle. That plan, which would generate $10 million in funding for MATA each year, was first introduced by the mayor in September.

The proposed resolution seeks instead to increase the countywide motor vehicle tax, also known as the wheel tax, by $20 for every vehicle owner. The wheel tax was first established in 1987 and was dedicated to repaying the county’s bonded indebtedness. Then, in 2016, the county adopted a resolution mandating that 100 percent of wheel tax revenue be allocated to school operations.

Now, the commissioners seek to increase the wheel tax by $20 for every registered vehicle in the county and use the additional revenue — limited to $9 million annually — to fund MATA. Currently, the tax for a private vehicle is $50. It’s $20 for motorcycles, scooters, and ATVs, $80 for commercial vehicles, and $25 for nonprofit vehicles.

Brittany Thornton, co-chair of MICAH’s economic task force, said this resolution is a reasonable compromise between the mayor’s proposal and MICAH’s suggestion of a $20 to $50 fee on all vehicles. Based on a survey of 225 Memphians, Thornton said MICAH leaders believe that a fee of $20 to $50 is more favorable to citizens than Harris’ proposed $145 on third vehicles. Still, Thornton said MICAH applauds Harris “for even taking on transit.”

“This conversation on transit has been around for a long time and under other administrations, we haven’t even gotten this far,” Thornton said. “So to have a mayor that’s willing to keep the conversation at the forefront of what we’re focused on, we applaud that. We appreciate that. But we want to get the figures that are actually going to set MATA up to do what it needs to do.”

Improving transit plays a huge role in MICAH’s commitment to economic equity, Thornton said, which requires “we work to dismantle the systemic barriers that keep our neighbors from thriving.

“Whether it is being able to get to education and training, arriving on time for a job or an appointment, filling the many third shift job opening that currently MATA hours does not allow, exposing tourists to more of Memphis and all of Shelby County, or reducing the amount of pollution and road wear and tear, Memphis and the metropolitan area’s potential to thrive must include a high-performing transit system.”

Ultimately, Thornton said “sufficiently funding MATA” must be one of the top priorities of local government in order for “any kind of equity to be achieved” in Shelby County.

The resolution stipulates that the allocation of the funds to MATA are contingent on four factors. First, the commission is asking that two members appointed by the Shelby County mayor and approved by the county commission are added to the MATA Board of Commissioners.

Another factor is that MATA creates bus routes that connect to the county’s largest employers. The resolution’s sponsors are specifically seeking a new bus route to the FedEx World Hub.

Additionally, the resolution calls for MATA to reduce the scheduled commute time to the Raleigh and Frayser communities by 50 percent, because economic and job development are underway in the area. Finally, the commissioners are asking that these terms be formally agreed upon in a memorandum of understanding between MATA and Shelby County.

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If approved, the $20 wheel tax increase would go into effect on July 1, 2020. The commission is slated to discuss the resolution Wednesday at 9 a.m. during its General Government committee meeting ahead of its vote on Monday.

Ahead of this discussion, Harris will make a presentation to the committee in support of his plan, explaining the potential economic benefits of investing an additional $10 million in transit each year. There are 16,000 unfilled jobs in Shelby County, according to state data, and Harris contends that improving transit would help fill these jobs.

The mayor also said that an investment of $10 million would have an economic impact of more than $40 million because of expanded job access.

“We currently have over 16,000 jobs available in Memphis, most of which do not require any type of specialized skill,” Harris said in a Tuesday press release. “A large reason for so many open jobs is that too many individuals in our community do not have transportation that they can rely on to get to a job and keep a job. Our residents should be able to get to a job, keep a job, and able to get home from that job in time to have dinner with their family.”

The economy is just one of the “Three E’s” Harris has assured that the $10 million investment would address. In November the mayor told the commission about the environmental benefits the $10 million would lend, such as reducing emissions by the thousands of metric tons. In December, Harris, joined by University of Memphis associate professor Elena Delavega, made the case for public transportation’s role in addressing poverty and equity.

Harris’ administration hopes that the commission will vote on the plan by the end of next month.