Jackson, MS

Housing, Built environment  | 2025

Documented vacancy and property conditions to prioritize code enforcement and home repair. 

Jackson, Mississippi, is tackling an urgent need to comprehensively address vacant property. The western part of the city has experienced decades of disinvestment, leading to hypervacancy and property deterioration. Residential long-term vacancy is at 20 percent in the neighborhood, but the extent and amount of deterioration—including tax-foreclosed properties owned by the State of Mississippi—are not well documented. West Jackson residents have proved a significant asset in shifting the approach to vacant property.  Yet, layers of state policy and local processes have complicated residents’ and the City’s ability to overcome vacancy and deterioration.

The Center for Community Progress and Revive and Restore Community Corporation—a West Jackson neighborhood organization—designed two surveys to capture property conditions and resident perceptions in West Jackson. Resident volunteers collected parcel-level data, and Revive and Restore gathered resident experiences. The project team trained 12 volunteers to conduct a property condition windshield survey of 7,600 parcels, documenting occupancy, property type, presence and volume of trash, condition of windows and roofs, and more than a dozen other exterior conditions. The project team analyzed the property condition data to find that 59 percent of properties are in good or very good condition, 29 percent of parcels are vacant lots, and 20 percent of structures appear unoccupied. To stabilize, clean up, and demolish the poor and very poor condition parcels, they also estimated that $33.3 million will be needed.

The team also launched an online survey about residents’ experiences living in West Jackson, how they and others perceive the neighborhood, and the challenges and opportunities they see. In the perception survey, two resounding factors led respondents to choose to live in West Jackson: “friends and family nearby” and “cost of living.” Still, nearly 90 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with “the type of housing available in their budget” in West Jackson.  

To share findings and begin implementing recommendations, Revive and Restore hosted a data briefing attended by more than 30 residents and other partners, including elected officials. Community Progress featured the project in their March webinar, attended by more than 200 people from across the country. The project team is sharing the data with other key partners, policymakers, and elected officials to build momentum for a comprehensive vacant property strategy. Most recently, the two organizations met with the City of Jackson’s Code Enforcement team, which Community Progress is also supporting, to discuss additional data analysis and how to partner on prioritizing properties for intervention. The team aims to build momentum for a citywide vacant property coalition that can tackle necessary state policy changes, improve local processes, build collaboration, and ultimately improve neighborhood conditions across Jackson.