Joseph Shelton moved into the small, one-story house across from Columbus’ I.C. Cousins community center in 1996.
He inherited the 22nd Street North home — with his three sisters and one brother — when his mother died in 1991. Shelton has lived there, off and on, since 1996.
Kerosene lamps are peppered throughout the house. Shelton goes through about 5 gallons of kerosene a year and keeps jugs of water handy, to take baths and flush the toilet. He hasn’t had running water or electricity for the past 14 years.
He buys 10 to 20 gallons of water a month; at 89 cents per gallon, it’s cheaper than paying a water bill, he notes.
Shelton eats most of his meals straight from a can: mixed fruit for lunch, soup for dinner. Chicken noodle is his favorite. Occasionally, he goes over to his brother’s house to cook.
Last Friday, Shelton and Linerd Deloach, a neighbor, took time to paint the house’s exterior. Over the years, it’s gone through a metamorphosis of colors: baby blue, salmon and now yellow with brown trim.
A fresh coat of mustard-yellow paint can’t mask its graceless aging. The maroon front door is shaky in the frame, splintered where the dead bolt used to be. The yard is littered with steel pipes, old wiring, bottles, cans and used bicycle tires.
To at least one neighbor, who reported Shelton to the Columbus City Council, it’s an eyesore.
To Shelton, it’s home.
“This is my home,” Shelton mumbled before disappearing in his house to get a ladder.
Inside, knick-knacks cover the shelves on the walls of the front room. A blue stuffed dog is perched on a pile of papers. In the next room, two sheetless mattresses are stacked on the floor. Elsewhere, some posters, curtains, fishing poles and a couple of bikes are piled in the corner.
“I was born in it. Without my home what am I going to do?”
Jessie Koonce, Shelton’s next-door neighbor, complains the grounds smell, and she worries about animals she’s seen tied up in the front yard. She voiced her concerns to the city of Columbus.
On July 20, the City Council gave Shelton 30 days to turn his utilities back on. If he complies, he’ll have an extra 15 days to fix any structural issues with the house. Without running hot and cold water and a fully functioning lavatory, he is in violation of the International Property Maintenance Code of 2006, which mandates that habitable residences be equipped with basic requirements for sanitary living.
“The city’s position on any property is that we want you to keep the structure,” said Derek Nash, one of the city’s housing inspectors. “But on the other hand, the city cannot tolerate property that is not up to standards, and our codes do not allow us to rehabilitate or repair. If the owner does not comply, we have no other option but to demolish.”
Columbus has several dilapidated houses without running water or electricity, but most of them are abandoned. The city tears down about three or four of them a month.
Shelton feels victimized by Koonce’s complaints. Deloach sympathizes.
“He don’t bother nobody,” Deloach said, with a cigarette between his lips, continuing to help with painting. “If they take the house away, that’ll be the end of him. He ain’t got nowhere else to go. He’s about as low as he can go.”
Shelton’s siblings want to sell the lot and have the house torn down, but he won’t hear of it.
Koonce admits she would seriously consider buying the land if the city ends up demolishing the house, and she doesn’t think Shelton is actively trying to keep up the property.
“He’ll get up, and he’ll go over there, and he’ll paint or fix a window or pull some grass to give you perception that he’s doing something,” Koonce said.
Koonce, who owns the lots on either side of Shelton, acknowledges he would still have to sign off on any sale of the property.
“That property can’t even be sold until Joseph says so,” Koonce said. “Each heir has to agree.”
‘Not selling’
“They’ve got their hand on me now,” Shelton said, nodding toward the Koonces’ house. “They’ve got my back against the wall, but as long as I’m living, I’m not selling.”
“When I was a kid, neighbors would help each other,” Deloach said recalling a time when people would throw rent parties to help each other gather funds to pay bills.
“If he maintains it and stays there, I’d be just fine,” Koonce said. “He’s a decent neighbor. (The neighbors) hate to see him lose his house. So do I. But everybody knows, whether they say it or not, that he has had the same opportunities that we have had, and he has chosen not to take advantage of them.”
Still, Koonce hasn’t pressured city to evict Shelton.
“I have not been up there pushing the issue because I don’t want anyone thinking I’m trying to push him out of his house because I want the land,” she said. “I didn’t even known the issue was coming up in the City Council. When it came up, and he was saying something about needing a couple of months, I didn’t want him to deceive the council by saying he just became aware of it. Otherwise, I’d never have said anything about it.”
Through the cracks
The question remains: How was Joseph Shelton able to go so long without the city evicting him? Officials were shocked when Koonce told them it had been nearly 15 years since Shelton moved in, and they appeared to be unaware of the extent of Shelton’s living situation.
“I was flabbergasted,” said David Armstrong, Columbus’ chief operations officer. “It’s one of those that may have fallen through the cracks, and sometimes they do. Sometimes people fall through the cracks.”
However, the City Council meeting on July 20 wasn’t the first time officials heard about his case. Koonce has complained about the general disrepair and uncleanliness of Shelton’s property on a yearly basis, she said. Kenneth Wiegel, Columbus’ zoning officer, said the building department dealt with one of Shelton’s sisters before she died.
“We tried to work with her for a number of years to convince her to fix it or tear it down,” Wiegel said. “Maybe she was covering for him, but she specifically told us no one was living there.”
Questions of occupancy
It’s possible Shelton wasn’t there when inspectors knocked. Neighbors say they sometimes don’t see him for days, and he spent some time in prison in the early ’90s on for aggravated assault. After violating his probation, in 1995, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and drug and alcohol rehabilitation in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Shelton again was sentenced to jail time in 2003, for being a felon in possession of a weapon.
“We did try to determine on a number of occasions if someone was living there,” Wiegel said. “We didn’t get a warrant. Maybe we should have. I think this is probably a good lesson for us.”
Columbus Ward 2 City Councilman Joseph Mickens, a personal acquaintance of Shelton, thinks the situation should have been caught earlier.
“We can always second guess after situation,” Mickens said. “Truthfully, I’d have to say yes, something should have been done.”
Shelton’s criminal record makes it nearly impossible to find work, Mickens noted.
What now?
The city is “trying to come up with some alternatives” for Shelton, Mickens said, but he was unaware of what options are being considered.
Ward 4 Councilman Fred Stewart, whose district contains Shelton’s home, said Shelton has “to meet the guidelines just like anybody else.”
“I don’t have any responsibility to him,” he said.
Travis Jones, director of the Office of Federal Programs, noted there is supposed to be an Emergency Repair Program to help people with situations similar to Shelton’s. However, Shelton hasn’t requested access to those funds, and the city hasn’t told him about the option.
What happens to Shelton if and when he is evicted is a question to which no one, not even his family, seems to have an answer.
“I really don’t know what can be done,” said Abe Shelton, Joseph’s brother. Abe Shelton is retired and liv
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