How Can We Build Hope in Midtown?

Note: Perhaps this isn’t 100% factual, but it IS a very true story. And I think it speaks to the work we are trying to do at Neighborhood Economics. Sharing this story feels risky because it is told from the vantage point of a single person (me!), and the way all the dots connect it sounds almost contrived. Please know that I do not think that what is offered here is a solution. At best, I hope it will be a tiny drop of hope in a very deep well. 

The bigger dream is that the Catalytic Capital fund that we are launching in Jackson will be the beginning of a series of CataCap funds that we would like to see launched across the country as the work of Neighborhood Economics spreads. And it is gratifying to me that we are launching the first one in Jackson, a city close to my heart, and a city that needs every drop of hope it can squeeze. 

Most of my adult life, until I was in my mid-40s, was centered around Jackson, Mississippi. It’s a town I know well and a town that I love. I was a member of one of the first classes of Leadership Jackson and Leadership Mississippi. I was deeply engaged in the city as the publisher of the Mississippi Business Journal and also as a member of the Rotary Club. Kevin and I lived in Belhaven, the neighborhood across a main thoroughfare from Midtown. We worked in Midtown. We went to church at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Fondren. Our kids went to what was then Davis Elementary (now Obama Elementary), Bailey and Chastain Middle Schools, and Murrah High School–all downtown Jackson schools. Our lives completely centered around the Fondren/Midtown area of Jackson. Everywhere I went was in this general area of Jackson. 

I was also deeply involved in the Jackson affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, and, in the mid-90s, we decided to spend a few seasons centering our building efforts in Midtown. Between that engagement and the fact that the Business Journal office was actually located in Midtown, I was in the Midtown neighborhood practically every day.

So it was a delight to be able to center our May 2023 event, Neighborhood Economics Jackson, in the Fondren area immediately adjacent to Midtown. And we got to work with the Else School of Management at Millsaps College–the college adjacent to the Midtown neighborhood, its ElseWorks student crew of business analysis that works with Midtown businesses, and Midtown Partners, along with Working Together Jackson, St. Luke’s Methodist Church, Duling Hall, and St. James’ Episcopal Church. All of these familiar groups came together to be a part in some way or another, greater or smaller, to have this national event called Neighborhood Economics.

We spent several days at a hotel in the Fondren area prior to the conference, setting up shop for the event at Duling Hall and at St. Luke’s Methodist Church. We were talking to folks at Millsaps, talking a lot about the neighborhood of Midtown, having dinner down the street at a friend’s house who teaches at Midtown Charter School, speaking with Millsaps’ Else School of Management folks who have a project focused on Midtown, looking at Midtown’s potential to become a vibrant economic ecosystem.

It was truly amazing to see national partners like the United Christ of Church Building & Loan Fund with Patrick Duggan, the Oikos Institute with Sidney Williams, Trinity Church Wall Street, and the Irvine and Kellogg Foundations all coming to Jackson to talk about how to build a better economy in a neighborhood, in a town I consider my hometown.

During the Jackson event, we had a panel on the theology of money, thinking about how all of this works together. My dear friend, Mark Samson of Rooted Good, said something that has stuck with me and I hope will stick with me for the rest of my life: “We probably will never change the economics of the nation, but we can change the economics of a neighborhood.”

The event was over on Wednesday night, and of course we all went to dinner for the best food within a 200 mile radius at Walker’s Drive-in, right there across the street from the hotel. Little did we know that at the same time that we were eating at Walker’s and having a delightful evening, my car was being stolen from the back parking lot of the hotel. 

That was three months ago, and just last week the police called to say a young man who attended Midtown Charter School was arrested for stealing my car. 

Within a five block radius of that hotel, there are people living in extreme wealth, people living in extreme poverty, Habitat houses being built, people driving in from the suburbs to go to church, an excellent graduate business school, and one of the finest medical centers in the country, all centered right there.

Rebecca Garrison, who runs the Fondren Association and who, as this circle goes, was a dear friend and colleague when she ran the Mississippi Press Association, was my first call after I called the police to tell them my car was stolen. She explained the complicated nature of the Jackson City Police, the Capitol Police, and the Midtown Security Force all trying to police this area. The messiness of all of this became apparent, but, just a few hours later, Becky called me back. Nevermind, we found the car. Capitol Police had found it. Nothing much had happened to the car. But then a few days later, from the security video from the hotel and the security service in Fondren, they were able to recognize at least one person involved in stealing my car. It was the young kid who just got arrested.

Rebecca called about a week later to tell me that they had seen this young man wandering in Fondren. She and one of the Fondren security folks had talked to him. He had told them that his mom has a job, but she doesn’t make very much money. He’s just trying to help his mom out. However, he can’t really find a job at 13, and his friends who have money make their money by selling drugs and stealing cars.

That’s the future this kid saw. That’s the way this kid believed was the best way to help his mom have some money. This is a kid in Jackson, Mississippi, a town I think of, at least in part, as my hometown.

And the only thing that HIS home seemed to offer him as a way out, a way up, was to emulate those around him who make their money from drugs and stealing cars.

Neighborhood Economics believes that there are many other opportunities, many other models, many other ways to bring HOPE into a neighborhood. 

I was fortunate enough 30+ years ago to be a part of the group that chartered the first Jackson, Mississippi, Habitat for Humanity affiliate. At first we only built houses on vacant lots  scattered around the city. But then when I was president of Habitat, because of a random gift of land at Blair and Bell streets, we decided to focus our efforts, at least for a few years, just building in Midtown. We focused on ONE neighborhood. It was amazing to see the change. Even more so today. After Habitat came the Midtown Partners who were inspired to keep going, building more affordable housing, and now you can see the stuttering steps toward transformation coming into place. 

Now Midtown Partners is also working to support entrepreneurial businesses in Midtown – trying to bring together all of the pieces of the neighborhood and find the financial support to keep it growing. This is amazing stuff as they focus their efforts to build not just houses, but an entire economic model in which the systems all fit together to build a neighborhood for the kid in this story so that he has stories of hope for him and his friends. 

One small thing that we are working to leave behind in Jackson provides at least one way forward, more pictures of hope that there are more ways for wealth generation than stealing cars and selling drugs. We’ve currently raised just over $20,000 to launch a Catalytic Capital revolving philanthropic loan fund for entrepreneurs in Midtown, entrepreneurs who have ideas and who are already working at amazing projects but just need a little bit more capital to hire another employee or buy a new piece of equipment or expand their working space so they can bring the business to scale. They need this capital so that there are more pictures of home and hope in Midtown.

Our goal for this fund is to be able to finish raising enough money by the end of the year to fund this CataCap Fund at $50,000 and to work with Midtown Partners to find a defined home to manage the revolving philanthropic investment program it needs. If we can meet this goal, the fund might even be able to get the first loans out the door by the first of the year. 

We’ll be keeping you informed on the progress on that fundraising, and, as soon as it gets going, we’ll also let you know about the entrepreneurs who have received a loan or equity investment and what they are up to. 

We are working with Midtown Partners and Millsaps’ ElseWorks to create the process through which entrepreneurs can apply for loans. This process will include members of the Midtown community so that they can weigh in on the kinds of businesses they want and need in their neighborhood. We are also talking with local fiscal representatives to find the right partner to manage the loan process. Our goal is to create a process so that the money in this fund goes out at very low interest loans that, once repaid, will be available to be loaned out again to yet another entrepreneur whose business can grow with added capital.

It’s exciting to be a part of this in this particular way. Interestingly, 27 years ago when I was President of the Jackson Habitat affiliate, Nina Redding and I had this crazy idea of micro loans. How could we make an even greater difference in the homeowner’s lives? A house makes a big difference, but improving a work situation changes a trajectory. Nina and I didn’t know what we were even talking about. But since then, as Kevin and I built  SOCAP and started learning about more creative types of financing, we have seen solid ideas about how to do this work emerge.

It’s beyond fulfilling to see today that Nina and I were actually onto something and that this work around economic enrichment can be tied to healing the racial wealth gap in this country.