Jackson, Miss. (WAPT) – A Jackson pastor is taking action to clean up the capital city.
Bishop Ronnie Crudup and New Horizon Ministries are reviving hundreds of abandoned properties and transforming neighborhoods.
“This is another one of those great historic neighborhoods, this is Alta Woods,” Crudup said.
It’s the latest project about to take shape. The four pieces of property are next door to one another in south Jackson.
“We just acquired this one behinds us, even though it looks like somebody’s still living here. Literally, we got that and then these two we picked up as well,” Crudup said.
The plan is to start construction soon on all four pieces of property at the same time, sell the homes and get the once-abandoned houses back on the tax rolls.
“And you’ll see, it will change the neighborhood,” Crudup said.
A formerly abandoned home on Sykes Road was recently renovated by Crudup and is now ready for a family.
“It was literally almost falling down,” Crudup said.
Next-door neighbor Keith Godson said the renovation increased the value of the neighborhood and his home.
“I appreciate them doing it,” Godson said. “It helped me out a lot, even though it’s not directly, but they helped the whole neighborhood.”
Crudup and New Horizon Ministries have bought about 250 tax-forfeited properties from the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office.
“It shouldn’t be New Horizon Ministries, it should be New Horizon Mission, because he’s on a mission,” Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said.
“For us, it takes a burden off of the state,” said Tyrone Hickman, with the Secretary of State’s Office Public Lands Division. “It’s not a piece of property that we’re getting a call about saying, ‘It’s overgrown. There’s a tree that fell on the house,’ and things of that nature.”
For Crudup and his church family, cleaning up Jackson is a calling.
“We believe that’s the kind of thing Jesus called us to do,” Crudup said.