The bullet shattered the kitchen window of Latasha Johnson’s apartment and lodged in the back wall. She was walking from the living room to the kitchen at the time, putting some cheesecake back in the refrigerator.
“I was frightened,†Johnson said. She called 911 and was put on hold. “I had to keep calling back.â€
It was just another Sunday night in the Clinton-Peabody public housing complex south of downtown ºüÀêÊÓƵ. Johnson has lived there about two years. She moved in shortly after the rat and mouse infestation that drew state and national attention from elected officials, and mostly got cleaned up. There were bullets flying back then, too. Some things never change. It’s not the best place to live, but the access to public transportation makes a huge difference for a single mother trying to get by on low-wage jobs.
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Johnson works these days as a temperature valet in Clayton, which means amid the coronavirus pandemic, to limit the transmission of COVID-19, she holds a device to people’s foreheads to check for a fever before they enter a building.
The reality for people living in poverty in ºüÀêÊÓƵ is that they don’t have very many good choices when it comes to where to live, and that’s one of the reasons why they end up in places where bullets are flying every night of the week. I first met Johnson about three years ago. She was working at the Denny’s on Hampton Avenue, and had been battling homelessness ever since she got evicted from her apartment in Fountain Park, just north of Delmar. That apartment’s landlord failed to provide a livable space. A bathroom ceiling had collapsed, and rampant mold was causing health problems for Johnson’s daughter, who has cystic fibrosis.
Johnson, with the help of attorney Lee Camp, had filed a lawsuit against the landlord, saying it was within her right to withhold rent until the apartment was brought up to various health codes. She lost. Missouri law leans toward landlords, even bad ones.
Johnson ended up at Clinton Peabody. Lately, in this year in which homicides in the city have already surpassed last year’s level, the bullets appear to be flying by more regularly, she says. It’s not just her neighborhood, south of Chouteau Avenue between the Lafayette Square and Lasalle Park neighborhoods. North of downtown, in another public housing complex called Cambridge Heights, the bullets have been flying, too.
The family of a nursing assistant who died from one of those flying bullets, Tamara Collier, settled with the management company of the complex in a wrongful death lawsuit earlier this year.
The company, McCormack Baron Management, also ran Clinton-Peabody until a recent change in management. The new manager is East Lake Management Group.
Amid the escalating violence, and Gov. Mike Parson calling a legislative session to address the issue, I asked Johnson what sort of things might help reduce violence in the city. She didn’t mention any of the things Parson and the Republican-controlled Legislature are trying to accomplish, like easing police residency rules, making it easy to put young people who have guns in prison, taking prosecutorial authority away from Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and investing it with Attorney General Eric Schmitt.
Instead, she talked about safe housing. About schools. About mental illness. About public transportation. About accountability, from police and landlords. She talked about poverty.
“North ºüÀêÊÓƵ is a 10-minute drive from Clayton, yet north ºüÀêÊÓƵ is two decades behind,†Johnson says. “Underlying mental health issues are a major cause of why we have so much crime in our city. … We must change how our school system works in order to change and build better families and homes.â€
These are all big problems that aren’t easy to solve. Each of them needs an investment from civic and political leaders to even make a dent in the trauma that is a daily occurrence for people like Johnson, who just wants to work, raise her daughter, and try to provide a better future. One thing that would help is a sense of more public accountability from leaders, Johnson says.
As I write this, it’s been four days since the bullet shattered Johnson’s window. It’s still broken. Same for a senior citizen who lives across the way who had a bullet through her window that night, too. “Nobody from Clinton-Peabody even called to ask if we were OK,†Johnson said.
She struggles to sleep. She’s afraid to walk down the street. She wants people in positions of power to know her story.