Idea born in Victorian Village spreads throughout city

By Jane Roberts, Daily Memphian

Clarence Johnson lives at the Union Mission at 170 Tillman St. with a full-time job and heart of gratitude. Five days a week, he disinfects what started as 10 facilities that serve the homeless and downtrodden in Memphis. “We are doing something that can help the homeless,” said Johnson, 59. “They need help, I enjoy it, I really do. I want to keep doing it.” The work has now expanded to 26 agencies, including MIFA, Memphis Child Advocacy and the Dorothy Day House, thanks to a $110,000 grant from the city’s Division of Housing and Community Development. “The Union Mission has three buildings; Hospitality Hub has two; Door of Hope has three,” said Scott Blake, longtime executive director of Victorian Village Community Development Corp. “It’s a lot of square footage we cover.” Johnson found his lifeline at the Memphis Union Mission, 383 Poplar. His job is another level of collaboration that started over home-cooked dinners between Blake and Kevin Lewis in the heat of the pandemic last summer in Victorian Village. “We’d get around the dinner table and talk about what we could do to help out this population,” Blake said. “We are home to so many homeless facilities and homeless support facilities. They were unable to quarantine. They didn’t have the room to quarantine.”