Tag: Paul Young

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Part One: Memphis Mayoral Candidate Update

Paul Young, with wife Jamila Smith-Young at LeMoyne-Owen meet-and-greet

Amid legal developments that could make it a potentially pivotal week in the Memphis mayoral race, it might be useful to hazard a brief synopsis of how the various campaigns are stacking up.

Floyd Bonner: The Shelby County Sheriff launched his candidacy last fall with good prospects of putting potential rivals in the dust.
Bonner had handily won two successive county races, leading all candidates in vote totals both times. The fact that crime loomed as the likely major issue to be faced by city voters undoubtedly boosted his profile.

Almost immediately, Bonner attracted the same kind of influential bipartisan support that he enjoyed in his races for sheriff. His campaign team actually envisioned amassing enough cash reserves early enough to dissuade potential rivals from running. And indeed, with first-quarter receipts of some $300,000 this year, and with good numbers anticipated in the soon-t-be second quarter disclosures, he has delivered. But Bonner’s then anticipated opponents didn’t scare.

Paul Young: The Downtown Memphis Commission CEO matched Bonner dollar for dollar and even exceeded the sheriff somewhat. This was the result of months and even years of advance preparation and of a robust standing with the city’s business and civic elite. Young is thought to be the preferred candidate of the current city administration, though incumbent Mayor Jim Strickland is himself conspicuously neutral so far. He is also thought to be ahead in fundraising at this point, whether marginally or to larger degree.

Young’s major problem is that, however well he rates with insiders, he still lacks much name recognition with the public at large. In the long term, his campaign money will have to buy that.

In the short term, Young stands to benefit hugely if the Election Commission’s provisional ruling requiring a five-year prior residency in Memphis — one that would disqualify candidates Bonner, Van Turner, and Willie Herenton — is upheld. A ruling is expected shortly in Chancery Court. “Either way is fine with me,” Young said at an event Saturday. Sure.

Van Turner: The mayoral ambitions of the former Shelby County Commission chairman and current NAACP head have been known for years, and he is generally respected across the political spectrum, though his most significant following  is among Democratic Party regulars — a fact not to be discounted, given the demographic edge demonstrated by the party in recent local elections.

Turner has struggled to keep up with the fundraising totals of Bonner and Young, though he was in the ballpark on the first quarterly report, with some $150,000 raised. Since then, he has figured prominently, in national as well as local media, in public reckonings of the tragic death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police. This kind of free media is also not to be discounted, though its shelf life is unknown.

Turner’s suit challenging the Election Commission ruling on residency is one of two  (the other is Bonner’s). The outcome is, of course, crucial.

Willie Herenton: The former longtime mayor is also vulnerable on the residency score on account of a brief sojourn in Collierville — an ironic fact, given that 30 years ago he personally created the sprawling (and enduring) Banneker Estates development in south Memphis.

There is in any case no questioning the historical cachet of the first elected Black mayor in Memphis history, one who served 17 years and claimed several achievements — notably his leadership of a defiant 1997 effort that successfully ended in a legal reprieve for Memphis vis–a-vis “toy town” legislation that would have blocked the city’s legitimate avenues for expansion.

Herenton remains a controversial figure, as much because of his strong and sometimes disputatious personality as for any lingering racial animus among the city’s Old Guard. But he can claim a substantially sized loyalist base in the inner city and has to be reckoned with in a crowded, winner-take-all field.

(Next: Part Two: J.W. Gibson heads a second tier with potential for rising.)

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Young, Bonner Lead Mayoral Candidates in Cash on Hand

Photo by cottonbro studio / Pixels.

The first financial disclosures from the 2023 candidates for Memphis Mayor are now available.

As of January 15, the two leaders in the vital “Cash on Hand” category are Downtown Memphis president/CEO Paul Young, with a reported $312,699.12, followed closely by Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, with $310,482.88:

Businessman J.W. Gibson reports the $300,000 he has loaned to himself as a campaign starter. NAACP president and former County Commissioner Van Turner reports cash on hand in the amount of $121,747.29.

State House Democratic Leader Karen Camper reports $33,862. (She has the disadvantage of not being able to raise money during the ongoing legislative session).

School Board chair Michelle McKissick has so far not filed a disclosure statement.

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State of Downtown: People Return Post-Pandemic, Population Increases

Credit: Downtown Memphis Commission

Downtown Memphis bounced back and expanded last year, according to the Downtown Memphis Commission’s (DMC) 2022 State of Downtown report. 

Restaurants and nightlife returned. The Grizzlies had a hot run. Live music played every day of the year. With all of this, “Downtown Memphis saw tourism rebound and pedestrian counts return to pre-pandemic levels.”

Credit: Majestic Grille

Downtown’s population got a boost, too. The DMC said those living Downtown rose by 6 percent in 2022, up to 26,086 residents. 

Credit: DMC

One of the DMC’s jobs is to attract and retain development Downtown. This is largely done through tax abatements. 

Last year, the DMC gave tax breaks to 38 projects that it says will bring 1,165 apartment units, 310 hotel rooms, 85,000 square feet of retail space, 5,500 square feet of office space, and 1,000 parking spaces. 

”Our stewardship of Downtown is critical to our entire community,” said DMC president and CEO Paul Young. “Downtown is the Memphis the world recognizes: We are Beale Street, the Grizzlies, Sun Studio, and the National Civil Rights Museum.

Wiseacre’s Downtown taproom. (Photo: DCA)

“We are also the neighborhood of choice for Autozone, St. Jude, and FedExLogistics, as well as six breweries, one world-class distillery, and countless innovators in the arts, music-tech, med-tech, and ag-tech space.”

Credit: DMC

The DMC also expanded the reach of its Groove On Demand ride service from and eight-mile area to 12. About 50,000 Grove On Demand rides were taken last year, the DMC said. 

Groove On-Demand

The DMC also won an award from the International Downtown Association for its work on diversity, equity, and inclusion. On that front, the DMC took over the region’s Emerging Developer curriculum, which encourages a developer community that looks more like the Memphis community.

The DMC is also focusing on safety. It recently won a county grant  to work with the University of Memphis to develop new safety strategies. It also plans to expand the Blue Suede Brigade to include overnight shifts.

“’Downtown for everyone’ is more than a slogan,” Young said. “It is the fight song for our entire community. We take it seriously. We are Downtown Memphis.”

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The Bonner Bubble

Floyd Bonner (Photo: Jackson Baker)

We were all reminded this past week of how freakishly and without warning the weather can change, but unless there are unexpected changes in the political weather, this week is due to see the advent of the second consecutive three-way contest in a Memphis mayoral race. And a hot one it could be.

Already out there getting campaigns in gear were local NAACP head and former County Commissioner Van Turner and Memphis Downtown Commission CEO/president Paul Young. Barring an unlikely last-minute change of mind, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner is about to challenge these two previously declared worthies.

Bonner’s entry, scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon press announcement, could change the race from a conflict of credentialed challengers to one in which the city’s priorities are in for the same kind of seismic policy shifts Shelby County experienced just months ago.

This time, like last time, will see a contest between rival views of government — call it progressive versus traditional — but will see the direction of attack reversed and progressivism, triumphant in August but not yet firmly entrenched locally, faces the prospect of a new and powerful coalition, conventional in attitude but encompassing constituencies overlapping the usual boundaries.

It is Bonner’s persona, coupled with his breadth of appeal and success in electoral politics, that makes this possible. Clearly, he has political gifts.The sheriff polled more votes than all contenders in all other countywide races, both in 2018 and in his 2022 re-election race. The last time around, while running as a Democrat, he ended up on the endorsement list of the Shelby County Republicans as well. To the population at large, he seems to inspire confidence. Yet he is not menacing. On the stump and in person, he comes across as something of a Teddy Bear.

Many a candidate tries to run on the bromide that “my friends have urged me to run.” In most cases, this is a semi-fiction at best, a cloak for the candidate’s personal ambition. But, uniquely, Bonner seems to have been the subject of a genuine draft. His aforementioned appeal across party lines is replicated in the racial sphere as well, and going into the mayor’s race, addressing an electorate that is considerably less conservative politically than that of the county population as a whole and is made freshly apprehensive by an outbreak of violent crime, that is no mean advantage.

Bonner will remind the African-American community early and often that he is a native of Orange Mound, the son of one of the first waves of Blacks to be allowed to join the Memphis Police Department. Some have noted the sheriff’s current residence in unincorporated Shelby County. He has explained that he moved there from Whitehaven at a time when he was doing undercover work in that area’s drug trade, to reduce his family’s potential vulnerability. Bonner is reportedly seeking a new residence in the city.

There are no Ds and no Rs on the city’s political ballot, a fact that makes Bonner’s attempt at being a unity candidate considerably easier than was that of, say, former District Attorney Amy Weirich, who tried to run as “our DA” in a demographically divided community but was weighed down, among other factors, by her Republican label.

Can Bonner compete in such policy areas as that of economic development? He vows to pay special attention to that matter and says he will appoint a ranking city official to attend to it.

All that having been said, neither of Bonner’s declared mayoral rivals is exactly a slouch. Turner is a skilled political veteran with ties to various factions. He will have the particular support of those members of the political left who rallied in August to the support of current DA Steve Mulroy (who has endowed Turner) and who formed a hard core also for Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon and County Mayor Lee Harris.

Young, who scheduled a fundraiser the same day as Bonner’s announcement, can count on powerful support from members of the city’s commercial and industrial elite.

Money counts in political races and Bonner will have an early chance to demonstrate his own strength. He begins the race with a leftover political kitty amounting to a hundred thousand dollars, and his backers proclaim an optimism that this sum will grow to several hundred thousand by January 15th when the candidates’ first financial disclosures will be made known.

In the meantime, Bonner’s entry will, at the very least, be a strong dissuader to other potential candidates who have considered running.

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Turning the Corner

Van Turner with wife Tammie at Health Sciences Park (Photo: Jackson Baker)

It was Labor Day weekend, the seam between the dog days of a pit-bull summer and the open road of a hopefully cooler fall, the beginning of a new cycle of county government with the swearing-in of officials and of a pending city election season with early announcements from mayoral candidates.

Still, it felt like a lull, and then suddenly the vacuum was filled with a sinister event, the kidnapping and apparent foul play wreaked on teacher and young mother Eliza Fletcher while she was jogging on a city street, and, wherever you went, that was all anybody was talking about.

It was the subject of discussion Saturday night at The Magnolia Room in the Overton Square district, where newly inaugurated District Attorney General Steve Mulroy had invited a few guests to share in an “Almost Newlyweds” gathering, the reenactment of the nuptials of his daughter Molly and her Moroccan husband, Abdellah.

Mulroy, the perfect host, lost himself in the revelry and line dancing and in a joyous chorus, along with the rest of his Brooklyn-bred family, of “New York, New York.” But some corner of his brain had to be occupied by this ominous new development, joining there such preoccupations as he has about a forthcoming hearing on the fate of two young carjacking suspects accused recently of killing Dr. Autura Eason-Williams, a revered local Methodist cleric.

Amy Weirich, Mulroy’s predecessor, whom he defeated in the recent county election, had called for one juvenile suspect, whom she had previously put into a restorative-justice program, to be transferred to adult Criminal Court to be tried for the carjacking murder. The matter broke very late in the election campaign, and Mulroy, as the new DA, in tandem with new Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon, will have to make the ultimate recommendation about the transfer, to Criminal Court of one or both juvenile suspects on or after a hearing on the psychological circumstances of the two, which is scheduled for September 12th in Juvenile Court. A third accomplice in the crime, who has already reached adulthood, is also part of the equation.

And now, on top of that conundrum, the Fletcher affair, which has gripped the nation as well as the city, has further dramatized the issue of crime in Memphis. No rest for the weary.

• Candidates for Memphis mayor in 2022 aren’t getting much rest, either. Two of them made formal entries into the race last week — local NAACP head Van Turner at an organized announcement at Health Sciences Park and Downtown Memphis Commission president/CEO Paul Young via an online post.

Turner, who recently left the Shelby County Commission after serving two terms, had his coming-out on a platform erected on the former long-term site of the grave and statue of Confederate Civil War general Nathan Bedford Forrest. Turner is the president of the nonprofit which, in cooperation with city government, took over the park grounds and authorized the removal and relocation of the statue and the remains of Forrest and his wife.

• The aforementioned Weirich is already at work as special counsel on the staff of DA Mark Davidson in the 25th judicial district, which serves the several rural West Tennessee counties immediately adjoining Shelby. She began her duties last Thursday at a salary, conforming with state guidelines, of $139,908, only 18 percent less than she made as Shelby DA.

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Mayor Floyd Bonner?

Floyd Bonner electioneering this year (Photo: Jackson Baker)

There is, it would seem, a different Name of the Week in generalized speculation about the 2023 Memphis mayor’s race. Confessedly, there have certainly been different figures to talk about in successive weeks of this column.

Previously mentioned as likely mayoral candidates next year have been: NAACP head Van Turner, who is finishing up his second and final term of the County Commission this week; Paul Young, the president/CEO of the Downtown Memphis Commission; Karen Camper, caucus leader of the state House of Representatives Democrats; and Joe Brown, the onetime Criminal Court judge and former TV celebrity judge.

Brown’s intentions, though he has certainly promoted a possible race, may be more fanciful than real. The others are, one way or another, making tangible plans to run. Turner has basically already announced, Young is reportedly lining up some serious financing for a campaign, and Camper is expected to make an announcement any week now.

Other names that are getting some mention are those of the Rev. Keith Norman of First Baptist Church-Broad, a chief lobbyist for Baptist Memorial Hospital and a former Democratic Party chair; Beverly Robertson, president/CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber; Patrice Robinson, City Council member and former Council chair; and Worth Morgan, City Council member and defeated Republican candidate for county mayor this year.

This week’s most mentioned mayoral prospect? Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who in two successive county elections has led all other candidates for office and has a decent-sized campaign account left over to start a mayoral campaign with.

Bonner’s popularity with the voters as a Democratic candidate has been such that Shelby County Republicans did not even bother to nominate an opponent for him this year and themselves endorsed him.

His interest in running for the nonpartisan office of mayor is a very real thing, and he has definitely had preliminary discussions about mounting a campaign next year. Bonner’s status on the eve of the Memphis city election has been likened by more than one observer to that of AC Wharton in the first decade of this century, when Wharton was considered an inevitable candidate for, successively, Shelby County mayor and Memphis mayor, both of which offices he would win.

Jason Martin (Photo: Jackson Baker)

• Jason Martin, the Nashville critical-care physician who emerged as the winner of the Democrats’ three-way gubernatorial primary, was the speaker at last week’s Germantown Democratic Club meeting.

Addressing an audience of 70-odd attendees at the Coletta’s restaurant in East Shelby County, Martin deplored GOP Governor Bill Lee’s policies on several counts, including Lee’s restrictive posture toward abortion rights, his refusal to countenance Medicaid expansion and the annual federal outlays of $1 billion that would come with it, his striking away of gun regulations, and his moves toward privatizing public education.

Said Martin: “The other side is so radical on these issues that most people are like, ‘That’s not me.’ And that’s why we’re getting traction.”

• As first reported last week on memphisflyer.com, outgoing District Attorney General Amy Weirich will be taking a position as assistant DA with the office of Mark Davidson, district attorney for the adjoining 25th Judicial District, which serves the counties of Tipton, Fayette, Lauderdale, McNairy, and Hardeman.

A press release from Davidson’s office on Monday confirmed that Weirich will be sworn in as special counsel to his office on September 1st, a day after the swearing-in of Steve Mulroy, who defeated Weirich in the August 4th county election, to replace her as Shelby DA.

• The ever-worsening situation of Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert, under fire for mishandling license-plate distribution and her office affairs in general, almost got even bleaker Monday when the Shelby County Commission, in its final meeting as currently composed, failed by one vote to appoint a special counsel to begin ouster proceedings.

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Naming Names

Photo: Frederick Tappan with Cary Vaughn

District Attorney-elect Steve Mulroy took the opportunity last week to name the members of his newly created transition team, to be chaired by outgoing County Commissioner and local NAACP head Van Turner.

Turner, who recently acknowledged that he would be a candidate for mayor in next year’s Memphis city election, promised “a thorough, top-to-bottom review of the operations, priorities, and staffing of the District Attorney’s Office.”

Other members of the transition team are: District 29 state Senator Raumesh Akbari (D); District 83 state Representative Mark White (R); Demetria Frank, associate dean for diversity and inclusion at the University of Memphis Law School; Richard Hall, chief of police, city of Germantown; Muriel Malone, executive director of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission and former Shelby County assistant DA; Kevin Rardin, retired member of the Public Defender’s Office and former Shelby County assistant DA; Mike Carpenter, director of marketing and development for My Cup of Tea; Yonée Gibson and Josh Spickler of Just City; and attorneys Jake Brown, Kamilah Turner, Brice Timmons, and Mike Working.

Paul Young (Photo: Jackson Baker)

• Paul Young, the director of the Downtown Memphis Commission, gave members of the Kiwanis Club a comprehensive review of current and future projects for Downtown development on Wednesday of last week. One matter of public curiosity did not go unspoken to in the subsequent Q&A. Would he, someone asked, be a candidate for Memphis mayor next year as has been rumored?

Young’s reply: “Obviously, we’ve had a lot of conversations. And you know, it’s not time for any type of announcements or anything like that. I’m gonna continue to do the job at DMC to the best of my ability, regardless of when the season comes for the mayor’s race, but we definitely have had discussions.”

• Meanwhile, the Shelby County Republican Party, having been defeated for all countywide positions in the recent August 4th election, is doing its best to retain optimism. Looking ahead to the next go-round, the federal-state general election of November 8th, the local GOP held a fundraiser Friday at the South Memphis headquarters of the Rev. Frederick Tappan, who will oppose Democratic nominee (and recently appointed incumbent) London Lamar for the District 33 state Senate seat.

Imported for the occasion was state Senator Ken Yager of Kingston, the GOP’s Senate caucus chair, who assured local Republicans, for what it was worth, that “the Republican leadership are 100 percent committed to the election of Frederick Tappan.”

Tappan, pastor of Eureka TrueVine Baptist Church and founder of L.I.F.E. Changing Ministries, sounded his own note of commitment: “We can do this if we come together. We need one mind, have one mission, to become one Memphis. We don’t lean to the left, we don’t lean to the right.”

GOP chair Cary Vaughn, who would probably admit leaning somewhat to the right, said, “We took it on the chin a few weeks ago. But that was not the finish line. That was the starting line for November 8th, we’ve got a chance to redeem ourselves.” Vaughn mentioned several of the party’s legislative candidates, including state Senator Kevin Vaughan, state representatives Mark White and John Gillespie, and state Senate candidate Brent Taylor. “We have a chance to rectify the situation. And we have an opportunity, not just to finish, but to finish well.”

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More to Come

Back in 2009, Joe Brown (right), then the star of a syndicated TV show and now a self-declared mayoral candidate, hobnobbed on a visit home with newly installed Memphis Mayor A C Wharton, state Representative G.A. Hardaway, and the late state Senator Reginald Tate. (Photo: Jackson Baker)

With outgoing County Commissioner Van Turner’s announcement last week of a pending run for Memphis mayor in 2023, another political season is on its way.

Actually, Turner did not announce as such; he told the Flyer, and subsequently the world, that he would be making his formal announcement at month’s end, about the time he leaves his present office.

If advance gossip can be trusted, Turner, whom many observers reckon as the favorite, can expect to be joined in the contest by Downtown Memphis Commission President Paul Young, who has a key speech to the Kiwanis Club scheduled this week, and Karen Camper, minority leader in the state House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, local NAACP head Turner is actually the second declared candidate for the office, which is likely to be the object of spirited competition now that the voters have taken incumbent Mayor Jim Strickland out of the running by voting in the August 4th election not to allow a third term for mayor and council members.

The first declared candidate? None other than Joe Brown — not the General Sessions Court clerk and former councilman but the other Joe Brown, who played a judge on TV for some years after being one for real in Shelby County back in the ’90s. You might have missed it, but Brown’s announcement was made via YouTube last fall, and if he follows through, it will be his second major non-judicial run for office in these parts.

Brown’s last electoral effort, a race for district attorney in 2014, began with abundant ballyhoo and a sense among some local Democrats that his celebrity and presumed healthy bank account would allow the party to achieve a generalized success at the polls. Instead he belly-flopped, badly. Coincidentally or not, so did the party.

Among other things, the bankroll — for whatever reason — didn’t exist, nor did Brown’s actions and public positions during the campaign exactly square with many people’s ideas of political leadership.

As part of his rollout, Brown had been the keynote speaker at an official Democratic Party tribute to former Mayor Willie Herenton. He used the occasion to denounce “promiscuous” women and make homophobic remarks.

One of his next acts was to get himself arrested on a contempt of court charge for insulting a Juvenile Court magistrate in the process of a pro bono child support case Brown was handling. (Brown thereupon posted a Facebook entry in which he likened his ordeal to that of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic confinement in the Birmingham jail.)

All this was just a lead-in to Brown’s culminating campaign act, a speech in which — sans any evidence or pretense of same, or any relevance to anything, for that matter — he accused his opponent, incumbent DA Amy Weirich, of having a lesbian affair with her next-door neighbor. Weirich won with 65 percent of the vote.

• Weirich’s luck ran out this year in another reelection campaign, this time against an opponent, Steve Mulroy, not pre-ordained to fantasize or self-destruct.

The two of them took turns last week in the well of the Shelby County auditorium, arguing this time for the same goal — the creation of a new bail hearing courtroom. A resolution to that end, requiring that bail issues for new county prisoners be hashed out in a hearing before a judge and with representation from both arrestee and victim of an alleged crime, was passed unanimously by the 13 members of the commission. As Mulroy noted, this was the one thing the two erstwhile adversaries had been able to agree on during this campaign year.

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Paul Young Named New DMC President

Paul Young

Paul Young will lead the Downtown Memphis Commission (DMC) after a board vote Tuesday morning.

Young has been the director of the city of Memphis Division of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for many years. He takes the post as DMC president and CEO after Jennifer Oswalt left in November.

The DMC hired Adams Keegan to search for Oswalt’s replacement. The local and national search found 30 applicants. The firm, ultimately, recommended Young.

DMC board member Joanne Massey, director of the city’s Office of Business Diversity and Compliance, said she’s worked with Young over the years and said he is a “model of effective leadership” and that he “drives outcomes with data to back up decisions.” 

 “We are thrilled to have you on board to lead the DMC into the future,” said DMC chairwoman Deni Reilly.

Young said he takes the post at a difficult time for Downtown in the wake of the effects of COVID-19.

“We have to help Downtown recover from a very, very tough period of time,” Young said. “Everyone has had a tough time but especially Downtown Memphis with a loss of visitors, and businesses have lost a lot of revenue. There’s a lot of work to do to recover and this will be an all-hands-on-deck effort.”

Young said he’ll work to ensure Downtown Memphis will reflect the character of the city of Memphis. He said he hopes to see increases in minority businesses Downtown and spending with minority businesses on Downtown projects.

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Memphis Faces ‘Very Real Housing Challenges’

Memphis is red hot and nobody probably knows that better than Paul Young, director of the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development.

From his office, he has a view of nearly every development underway here and of those that haven’t yet officially entered the development pipeline.

From that view, he said he sees opportunity here not seen in decades.

“We’re seeing an increased interest in Downtown and Midtown like we haven’t seen in 40 years,” Young said Tuesday during the inaugural Memphis Housing Summit. “It feels like every week there’s a new investor or developer that calls our office or reaches out to the mayor’s office to express development opportunities.”

Toby Sells

HCD director Paul Young answers questions during a news conference last year.

From that view, he also sees “some very real housing challenges” — new and old — vexing those trying to navigate it, especially low-income families and people.

During the Housing Summit, Young listed six of the major problems facing housing in the city. Here’s that list with some insight from Young.

1. The low cost of housing in our community

“In some sub-markets in the city, the average home value can be less than $50,000. The banks have limited products to fund homebuyer loans below this.
[pullquote-1] “Even if it’s a rental unit and if the unit needs considerable work, it makes it very difficult to cash flow when the average rents in the area are so low.”

2. Low wages

Young said housing finances are tough for those in federally identified low-income bracket (for a family of four that’s roughly $24,000; for a single person, that is $12,000). For them Section 8 housing vouchers are “a must.”

He said 8,000 in Memphis now use such vouchers. Another 8,000 are on the waiting list to get one. This all creates a supply-and-demand gap.

“We looked at the affordable rental supply gap from 2016, we had 38,000 households that met the definition of extremely low income,” Young said. “But we only had 13,000 units that were available for them at a price point.

”So, what happens to the other families that are missing those units? That’s what leads to overcrowding in housing and some of the issues that you see there.”

Low wages also means less income to support higher rents in Memphis. Low wages won’t cut it if Memphis home prices go up, Young said.

3. The high predominance of single-family homes that are being used as rental units

Frayser has led the city in home sale transactions, Young said. But an expert told him that 85 percent of those sales were from one investor to another.

“This means that homeowners and the nonprofit developers in our community are competing with investor capital, mostly from out of state,” Young said. “So, our single-family homes are becoming long-term rental units, which changes the character of neighborhoods that are developed for homeownership.”

4. Poor-quality, aging housing stock

Many houses here are in disrepair. Many of their owners or landlords are either unable to afford the repairs or are unwilling to do them.
[pullquote-2]
“The end result is that occupants in the units are impacted with poor indoor air quality — asthma, lead poisoning from paint chips, and other health-related issues,” Young said. “Given these quality issues in the units, the families become more transient, which has an impact on educational outcomes, job opportunities, and transportation.

5. The city’s large geography

The city of Memphis is currently 325 square miles. Boston is 91 square miles with 670,000 people, Young said.
Google Maps

City leaders annexed communities in decades past in an effort to increase tax coffers. City leaders now are trying to shrink that footprint with efforts to de-annex some of those areas to the tune of 15 or 20 square miles.

But the city’s large size puts a strain on transportation, which puts a strain on employment — getting to and from work.

The size also makes it hard, Young said, for developments in one part of town to spillover and pour developments in another.

6 Lack of quality middle-income housing alternatives in core, city neighborhoods

“Sometimes when people buy a house in some of the areas outside of the city, it’s not because they don’t want to be in the city is because they can’t find that product in a neighborhood that they would like to be in.

“Neighborhoods should be able to provide diverse housing types and options for families in all income brackets. They should enhance opportunities and access to jobs and services in close proximity to our homes.” 

The Citizen at McLean and Union