The house across from Lindsey Pace’s 24th Avenue home in Meridian has a “For Sale” sign in its front yard and another house sits abandoned with weeds grown over.

Two other homeowners on her block failed to sell their homes and resorted to renting, Pace said. 

She wonders if she should do the same. 

“When I moved here in 2006, it was cool to live in the city,” Pace said, adding that her proximity to the high school means she can hear crowds at Meridian High School’s Ray Stadium whenever they play.

“Now it’s all empty houses for sale.”

But others have reasons to stay and invest in Meridian, seeing opportunities and continued growth throughout the city.

“We need to focus on the positive stuff. We have a lot of positive stuff going on in Meridian right now,” John Purdy, a local architect and small business owner, said. “The cost of living is a big plus if you’re moving from somewhere else. We’re in a great geographical location. The weather is nice for the most part. There’s a lot of things that are really nice that we don’t even notice.”

Low wages push residents away

Census estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau projected that Lauderdale County lost over 5,000 residents between 2010 and 2018, one of the biggest population decreases in the state.

With a median household income of $41,000, Meridian and Lauderdale County both have higher rates of poverty when compared to the state, according to Mississippi State University Extension Service.

MSU used the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Living Wage Calculator, which reports that in 2017, the living wage for a single adult in Lauderdale County would be $10.66 per hour, higher than the $7.25 minimum wage. For a family of four, with both parents working full time, the living wage would be $13.14 per hour and the “poverty wage,” or the poverty rate gross annual income as an hourly wage, would be $5 per hour. 

Pace, the woman living on 24th Avenue, just started working toward a master’s degree to earn a license as a nurse practitioner in psychiatry, a field she’s worked in for more than 14 years. Though Pace currently works in mental health, she said she doesn’t see opportunities for advancement or higher pay, even after she earns her degree. She wondered if moving closer to her brother, near Huntsville, Alabama, would have better opportunities.

“The pay in this area is nothing compared to other areas… You have a lot of nurses and it’s really saturated here,” Pace said. “I know a lot of nurses that are leaving and not even going far … just to Jackson or Hattiesburg. And you don’t get paid more for having an advanced degree – you pay for school but there’s no reward for it.”

According to the Living Wage Calculator, Healthcare Practitioners make $53,483 in Lauderdale County compared to $56,034 in the Huntsville area, but Huntsville had overall slightly lower expenses than Lauderdale County. 

“You have 14, 15 years of experience but you’re making less money per hour than someone in administration with four, five years of experience,” Pace said. 

Pay factored into the decisions of both Tina Sager-Riles and William Anderson to leave Meridian. Sager-Riles, who also earned a four-year degree and works in mental health as a therapist, said wages in the area couldn’t keep up.

“I got my degree and I was still stuck at $12 an hour. I got $14 at Alliance (Health Center, in Meridian)… you have to have a degree to get these jobs but there’s no money,” Sager-Riles said. “I have a daughter, she’s 33 and living in Nevada. Out of 10 of her friends who attended Southeast (Lauderdale High School), they’re all having to leave because most of them are raising kids and to make that money you’ve got to leave.”

Sager-Riles said she still owned land in Lauderdale County and visits often but said she couldn’t live off of the area’s salaries. She said her husband, working as a welder, makes four times more in Texas than he did in Meridian.

“A kid off of the street in Mississippi can get $10 an hour at McDonald’s,” Sager-Riles said. “And with all of my degrees, I can only get $14?”

William Anderson, raised in Lauderdale County and now living in Arizona, said he made nearly twice as much as a travel nurse than he did working at Anderson Regional Medical Center.

Anderson, who has worked in Washington, Idaho and New Hampshire, said wages, more than anything, pushed him to pursue opportunities outside of the state.

“Nurse’s pay in Mississippi is garbage. The cost of living in Mississippi is real cheap, which offsets that,” Anderson said. “If you want to save up for retirement, you can do that with travel nursing… it just seems like it would be so much harder in Mississippi where you make pennies in comparison.”

Working in other states made Anderson realize how much salaries varied around the country and, in the case of Washington, were tied with living costs because of a nursing union.

“I have no incentive to go back to Mississippi, especially with the pay and benefits,” Anderson said. “(Travel nurses) are definitely a different breed of nurses, but I thoroughly enjoy it. I feel like it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”

WalletHub, a personal finance company, released a report in April that named Mississippi and Alabama as the 45th and 46th worst states for nursing, with Oregon, Minnesota and Washington taking the first three places, respectively. 

Crime as a concern

Pace, who said she heard gunshots most nights, said she worries about crime and its impact on her 9-year-old son.

“I feel like I could offer him a better life,” Pace said. “I don’t feel safe going to Walmart – it’s just gotten dangerous. It’s just not the same.”

Crime also factored into Sager-Riles’ decision to leave Meridian for Texas, where she and her husband now live.

“The crime rate has just went crazy,” said Sager-Riles, who used to live close to Meridian Community College. “There was a ride-by shooting (nearby) and I was freaking out because I never expected something like that. We moved to the county but, even there, in the last ten years it has gotten out of control. The cops can’t keep up and that’s sad. I don’t blame the sheriff’s department, though. They really need more help.”

Still, someday, Sager-Riles said she hopes to come back.

“I would love to come back back but I’m getting older. It’s not all about making money but you’ve got to live,” Sager-Riles said. “I’m in my 50s and all my friends are in Meridian but all of their children are gone because they don’t want to raise their families in Meridian… it’s a dying breed if you can’t keep the young people there.”

Perception vs. reality

Amanda Cook, an assistant professor of criminology and sociology at Mississippi State University – Meridian, has studied broader trends of crime in Meridian since 2015. 

“If you ask people on the street, or even in a college classroom, how many people were murdered in Meridian last year, they always guess a number much higher than what occurred in reality. When you tell them the actual number, they quickly follow with, ‘That can’t be right,’ or ‘I don’t believe it,’ ” Cook said via email during the university’s finals week. “We are convinced that we are living and working in a dangerous place, and we gravitate to media releases that claim to offer “evidence” of that dangerousness.”

Cook warned against relying on articles that ranked cities by “safety,” saying that most relied solely on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report – something the FBI website explicitly warns against. 

“UCR data are sometimes used to compile rankings of individual jurisdictions and institutions of higher learning. These incomplete analyses have often created misleading perceptions which adversely affect geographic entities and their residents,” the website said. “For this reason, the FBI has a long-standing policy against ranking participating law enforcement agencies on the basis of crime data alone.”

Safewise, a review site for home security providers, released a survey in April about crime and its perception across the country based on 5,000 responses. According to their analysis, though 64 percent of Mississippians named violent crime as their biggest concern (compared to the national average of 56 percent) only six percent of Mississippians experienced crime in the last year, less than the 10 percent national average. 

“It is also important for residents to understand that most violent crimes are not random. In other words, murders and assaults are often perpetrated by offenders who know their victims,” Cook said in her email. “Also, crime is not evenly distributed throughout the city. I think it is important for residents and visitors to our city to know that most places where they go for shopping, dining, and entertainment have very little reported crime.”

U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst, who announced a project to combat crime in Meridian in February, said he would use Cook’s data when implementing crime prevention measures. Cook, at the February announcement, said she would work with departments to help them analyze their data and trends.

“I acknowledge that crime is an issue for the city of Meridian, but Meridian is small enough that by removing a few bad actors from our streets, and working together to improve educational outcomes, employment prospects, and neighborhood blight, we can improve the perception and reality of dangerousness of our city,” Cook said. “All of these things are interconnected, and an improvement in one of those areas will lead to improvements in the others. There is plenty of room for improvement, but the answer is not avoiding the city or moving away from it. We need more social investment from our leaders and residents to solve our problems.”

An unwelcoming culture

Low wages and crime had less to do with Kelly Brantley’s decision to leave Meridian. Brantley said her wife, Lt. Anna Switzer, joined the military, prompting the first move out of the state.

But since coming out as queer in high school, Brantley said Meridian became less welcoming, including a history teacher and employer, who she said made crude remarks about her sexual orientation.

“My whole family’s from Meridian. I went to West Lauderdale my whole life,” Brantley, who now lives in Virginia, said. “I came out in high school and it didn’t go over well. Adults were cruel. I mean, kids are cruel but, really, it was the adults.”

Brantley said she worked as a bartender at various Meridian restaurants and the treatment she received pushed her to leave the state.

“Men in particular would think they could treat me certain ways when they found out I was queer,” Brantley said. “It was those situations that made me think, ‘It’s time to go.’ “

Brantley said she had many great friends still living in Meridian but noticed a big difference in how people accepted everyday couple interactions between her and her wife.

“Ann and I grew up in this culture that you couldn’t hold hands in public. Here, when I say, ‘This is my wife,’ there’s not even an eye bat,” Brantley said. “Even Christian communities are different… it’s not a taboo subject; there’s nothing taboo about it. And that was mind blowing. I was just afraid and it’s because I was raised that way.”

Still, Brantley praised her friends who stayed in Meridian and worked to improve their hometown.

“I have friends who say, ‘I want to be here. I want to build something here and make it better so people like you can feel welcome,’ ” Brantley said. “But as much as I want to stay and make it better you have to decide if it’s at a detriment to yourself.”

Meridian as an opportunity

Other Meridian residents have returned after living in bigger cities and decided to invest and improve their hometown.

(Story continues after photo)

“(My wife and I) moved to Atlanta and vowed never to move back to Mississippi,” John Purdy, the local architect, said, adding that the couple decided to move back 11 years ago because of a job opportunity. “It wasn’t like I woke up one day and said, ‘I’m going to invest my time and money here.’ It was a process.” 

Purdy owns and operates Threefoot Brewing, a craft beer brewery he hopes will someday have a building downtown.

“It’s really unchartered territory here and across the state (for breweries). It’s grown nationally but we’re behind and there’s a lot of growth potential,” Purdy said. “And there’s a buzz in downtown. More than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime… unlike other cities, there’s a good depository of old buildings that are still here and that’s an opportunity.”

Purdy highlighted the growth of MSU-Meridian’s downtown campus, the MSU Riley Center and The Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience.

“I think that the recent trend of development in Meridian, and specifically in downtown, is foreshadowing things to come. I do believe we are on the verge of getting over the hump and growing,” Purdy said. “I don’t think people realize how fortunate we are to have a university with a presence downtown, the (MSU) Riley Center (and) The Max…. We had to beat out Jackson and the Gulf Coast for The Max. So there’s obviously something here and people outside of Meridian see it.”

Purdy encouraged residents to stop in-fighting and focus on the positives.

“Throughout the state we have a reputation of not working together – whether as a city and county or even the city council itself,” Purdy said. “We’ve got to quit focusing on the negative and we’ve got to focus on the positive.”

Purdy acknowledged concerns about crime but noted that all cities had crime. He said he wanted to invest in making the community welcoming to out-of-town residents and foster an environment of growth.

“It’s an opportunity for us to do something that might impact our community in a positive way,” Purdy said.

Bringing jobs to Meridian

Slow growth, like Mississippi, can hit community colleges the hardest, especially since Lauderdale County ranked as one of the top counties losing population.

“In my personal analysis, there are only two (other) areas that have greater population declines than Lauderdale County,” Tom Huebner, the president of Meridian Community College, said. “The truth is that community college enrollment is tied to the population it serves… So when the community is small, it affects the ability to service that community’s needs.”

Huebner said schools may need to make tough decisions about the investing in programs and opportunities for students, especially with fewer students to divvy up the burden.

“And when you have a healthier economy, there’s fewer people looking re-tool their education (or) choose the cost-effective option of sending their children to local community colleges,” Huebner said. 

Huebner said community colleges would have to be creative in their approach to student recruitment, appealing to students outside of the state or even the country.

“We can’t just be resolved to do the same things we’ve always been doing,” Huebner said. “We have to have something we’re uniquely qualified to provide.”

Huebner noted MCC’s nursing program and the college’s plans to expand automotive technology, two programs that could attract students from across the southeast. Hopefully, this investment in workforce development would pay off with more jobs and higher wages.

“One big employer with 500 jobs is great but equally great is 10 employers with 50 jobs, or 50 employers with 10 jobs. Or even existing companies looking to expand. That’s the same number of jobs,” Huebner said about attracting large manufacturers to the area. “And I think (our programs) can be attractive to others and hopefully to industries.”

Any changes would have to come with a different attitude, especially from residents living within the county.

“We have to stop defining success as being able to leave Lauderdale County or the state,” Huebner said. “We need to be in the business of promoting ourselves… we have to think about being in a position to take advantage of the whatever the future looks like and our mindset at MCC is adaptable to whatever that is.”