Tommie Brown grew up in Florence and attended Hinds Community College. In 1985, Brown went to the Police Training Academy and joined the Jackson Police Department where he served for about 20 years. He then attended the Ministry School of Oklahoma and began to work in ministry. In 2020, he became the Outreach Coordinator for Stewpot Community Services in Jackson, and he remains in this role today.
What led you to work with Stewpot Community Services?
Back when I joined the police department, I was assigned to Precinct 2, which is in the same area where Stewpot has served and operated for years. As a patrol officer, I was in regular contact with some of the guys who were in the Pearl Street and Capitol Street area. I just always had a heart for them and a desire to help in some way. I didn’t know what that looked like at the time short of when I responded to calls doing my best to help resolve whatever situation was going on at that time and praying for opportunities for them.
When Executive Director Jill Buckley offered me the position at Stewpot, I accepted without hardly any thought because it has always been my calling. I came on board, and it was explained to me that the role was geared toward connecting the homeless community to services they need. However, because they had never had an outreach program until that point, it was kind of up to me to develop what that would look like.
What is the goal of the Outreach Program?
Our objective was to get to know the guys on the street. You can’t serve people or work on their behalf if you don’t know them. I started going to various places in Jackson that are called “hot spots,” which is where they hang out on a regular basis. My purpose of doing that was to really get to know the guys and ladies and to make myself available to them to become a familiar part of their community. By doing this, they would know I was and am there to help them, and they could trust me. I am always looking for opportunities to connect them with services – primarily housing and, of course, mental health services and drug and rehab centers. We are not imposing any of these services on them, but we are being in their community to be available when they express an interest or indication that they are ready for any of these services.
The overarching goal is to connect our homeless friends with housing. We are learning things that look different from one individual to another. We want to see people who are living on the streets who desire to come off the streets to be able to do so. That is the number one goal. For some of our people, coming off the streets is not something they want or are ready to do. Walking alongside them and listening and paying up close and personal attention to what their needs are at the moment – we are purposeful about doing that so, when they are ready or if there are steps they need to take to get ready, we are diligent about connecting them to those services.
How have you seen the pandemic affect those struggling with homelessness?
Homelessness has been on the rise in Jackson over the last two years as the pandemic intensified many of the struggles people have. This was the reason for the start of the Outreach Program as grant money became available for these types of services. For those who we will call chronically homeless who have been there awhile, there was not a lot of change from the pandemic. Initially because of covid, some of the shelters had to lower their capacity and some feeding programs closed for a short period of time, but others picked up the torch and made sure they were fed. What I did notice is that very few people in our community actually had any major issues with covid itself, which is pretty amazing. As a matter of fact, because of the CARES Act Fund and the stimulus checks and things like that, some of the people benefit because they were able to receive monies they normally would not have gotten to get housing during that time period.
What are some of the challenges you face?
One of the challenges of connecting people with housing is the limited number of places that people can go. There are not a lot of places that are renting and renting at rates that our people are able to afford. Even when people can afford them, sometimes there are things like criminal histories and some of them are unable to live in close proximity to schools. There are a lot of things that need to be worked out in order to put people in housing. However, we also have people who are just struggling with homelessness outside of the chronically homeless, such as families, who cannot find apartments that will rent to them with vouchers.
Some of these people are dealing with apartment management requiring two months rent and a deposit to get in, and some people don’t have that kind of money. They are on the street because something happened and don’t have that money to go directly into that apartment. We also see seniors recently becoming homeless because either their rent is going up or the landlords are not taking care of the properties, which is causing them to leave their homes and not have the resources to go into another renting situation. Our homeless population is starting to look differently with families and seniors becoming homeless as of recently.
Another issue we face is many of the people we are seeking housing for struggle with mental health issues. Mental health services that address these issues are just priceless, and we need so much more of that. We need more services geared towards walking alongside people to get them in a place where they can go into housing and be successful to stay there. It is a long drawn out list of challenges that we have with getting people in housing, but our overarching goal is to do that.
Have you seen success come from getting people placed in housing?
I have seen some success. We have seen people go into housing. We had a guy who was living in a graveyard during the major ice storm in 2021. For six or eight months, we just couldn’t get him to consider going into permanent housing. Well, six months later, he is in a very nice apartment, and he is doing well. I talked to him yesterday, and it looks like he is actually working to make money. After having lost all of his toes during the ice storm, that is a success story. We had a guy who spent three years on the street and, after three years, things just changed for him, and we helped him get back connected to his family out of town. He is back with them and literally thriving. I have a woman who has five children that range from eight to 18. They are in school but living in their car in a park, and we were able to get them into temporary housing until they can get into permanent housing. We see successes.
What does it take for the program to run?
During the last two years, there was lots of funding and money that was designated for housing. Funding is our challenge going forward with the covid funds being cut off. The greater need would be for there to be more housing availability. We need the physical structures to put people in. Currently, Stewpot is looking to raise an amount of $50,000 to match the gifts they have already received to keep the program running. To give, visit http://stewpot.org/give.
We need more than funding. We need more services, case workers, and outreach workers. There are four outreach workers that are working in the Jackson area, including myself. That is four people for a city of what is now around 200,000 people. In a community of possibly 1,000 people without a permanent living situation, you can see where we would need more outreach workers and definitely more case workers, as well as services geared towards directly addressing these issues, such as drug and alcohol programs with long term residency and follow ups.
How can people get involved and help with this mission?
They can contact Stewpot Community Services. They can contact the organizations, such as The Bridge, Salvation Army, and Galloway Church for their feeding and clothing program. The best way to get involved is to reach out to the local organizations that have been in the neighborhood and have been serving the community and just plug in. Help them do what they do.
One of the problems that we run into is that all decent people feel the need to reach out to the homeless people, and there is a way to help but there is also a way to hurt. What I mean by hurt is there are people I deal with on a regular basis who I love with all my heart but I know, if I walk up to them and give them a $5 bill, they are going to go get drugs and do something that will harm them. Most of the people, especially in the downtown areas, have access to food and clothing. No one should starve because there is food everywhere. We and others have clothing closets. When people come to parks and drop off garbage bags full of clothes, they aren’t helping at all. They mean well, but it creates the opportunity for the city to have to clean up litter because the clothes are just going on the ground. When people leave pans of food at parks or at the bus station, which is a regular feeding place, it creates the challenge of keeping the city clean. If somebody really wants to help, then reaching out to the organizations that are already doing this work is the way to do it and the way to help in a way that doesn’t hurt. In an effort to help, there is a lot of hurt that happens because it enables people to stay where they are and not get help.
