Mississippi has a real problem with fake blight. What to know

Cynthia Fisher and her relatives take good care of their ancestral home in Ocean Springs. Municipal planners call the property “well-maintained,” and the mayor reports no blight in the district or anywhere else in the Gulf Coast city.

As far as Fisher knew, nobody had a problem with her home, which her family has owned for more than 100 years. So she was shocked in summer 2023 when she learned that, months earlier, the city had labeled her property and entire neighborhood as “blighted” and a “slum.”

That designation put dozens of homes, shops and churches at risk of eminent domain, a process that allows the government to take land by force. Using federal money, the city’s plan was to replace aging properties in a predominantly Black neighborhood with commercial development for tourists attracted to the hotels and casinos across the bay in Biloxi.

Municipal planners did not care that Fisher’s district is not remotely blighted or a slum. Mississippi law allows cities to make the declaration anyway, and then wait to inform the affected property owners, ensuring they never have a chance to challenge the label in court.

“If they get what they want, it would destroy us,” Fisher says. “They would give us pennies, and they would make millions off it.”

Fisher and her neighbors fought back by filing a constitutional due-process claim in federal court. Weeks later, facing public pressure, the city rescinded the blight and slum designations — though it maintains that its actions and this scheme are constitutional.

Fisher and her neighbors now seek an order that would prevent this from ever occurring again in Mississippi. Our public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, represents them.

The case highlights a nationwide problem. The Supreme Court declared open season on homeowners in 2005, when it sided with developers in Kelo v. New London. The case, which some scholars rank among the worst decisions in U.S. history, greenlights eminent domain for private economic development.

Public outrage followed, prompting 47 states to strengthen their eminent domain laws — providing various degrees of protection against the Kelo standard. A dozen states went even further, amending their state constitutions to stop eminent domain for private gain. Arkansas, Massachusetts and New York remain the only holdouts.

Undeterred, municipal leaders from coast to coast started using “blight” and “slum” designations as a loophole to get around the eminent domain reforms — even when no blight exists. This weaponization of blight laws puts all property owners at risk.

Family-owned businesses in Brentwood, Missouri, are feeling the pressure. The city is threatening to use eminent domain to force these shops to close, so a private developer can move in. A Missouri law, passed in 2006 in response to Kelo, prohibits schemes like this.

Brentwood is now using the “blight” excuse as a workaround. Never mind that the properties on the chopping block are well-maintained and provide valuable services to their customers.

Elsewhere, municipal leaders have attempted to use bogus blight designations to take land for private development in many states, including California, Georgia, New Jersey, Ohio and Utah.

Susie Crabtree keeps her home and lawn tidy in East Ridge, Tennessee. So she was shocked when the city sent her a “blight” letter in 2018. Similar letters went to more than 2,500 families at the same time. Katie Balazs, who owns a 1950s-era home in the city, cried when she received her notice.

“There is nothing wrong with my house,” she says.

In all of these cases, cities attempted to wield power in lower-income communities — targeting people least able to defend themselves — often on behalf of land developers with political pull. This is not how government is supposed to work.

Fisher and her neighbors pulled together. Dozens of properties in the district now display lawn signs with the rallying cry: “We shall not be moved.” Fae Payton, a client in the lawsuit, says the show of solidarity has put Ocean Springs on notice.

“Some of these homes are 80-plus years old, and they have been passed down from generation to generation,” Payton says. “For someone to come in and just take — no. We are going to fight until our last breath.”

Battles like this should not be necessary. Cities should save blight designations for situations where blight actually exists. People should feel secure that the government will not take their homes on a pretext.

— Suranjan Sen is an attorney and Daryl James in a writer at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Va.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi has a real problem with fake blight