Building people power to
do justice in the Midlands
Do justice. Love mercy.
Walk humbly with God.
MORE Justice is a growing network of faith-based congregations which are culturally, economically, racially, geographically and religiously diverse – coming together to fulfill our scriptural mandate to “do justice” and make the Central Midlands area a more just place to live for all people.
Member congregations work together to empower marginalized people and act powerfully to address serious community wide problems through direct action.
We seek to transform the systems that cause suffering by holding our local officials accountable for resolving these inequities and injustices.
Our Issue Campaigns
Gun Violence
In 2021, gun violence incidents (where someone is hit by a bullet) were up by 29% in Columbia.
We want to see Columbia implement an evidence-based solution that will address gun violence at the root and before shots are fired. We have identified the Group Violence Intervention (GVI) strategy as a solution to this problem. GVI is a strategy from the National Network for Safe Communities (NNSC) out of John Jay College in New York that has been proven to reduce gun violence by over half even during the pandemic.
Although Columbia has some programs that have similarities to GVI, key components are missing including the focus on dynamics within and between the groups that are committing most of the violence.
Affordable Housing
There are over 16,000 families in need of safe and affordable housing in Richland County. We are advocating for Richland County Council to pass an ordinance to establish an Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) and dedicate $10 million in ARPA funding as seed money. HTFs do not create public/Section 8 housing, instead they create housing that is safe and affordable for working people such as teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc.
Mental Health
We advocate for all law enforcement officers from Columbia Police Department (CPD) and from Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) to be trained in 40-hour Crisis Intervention Training.
Through our research on Mental Health problems in Columbia, we learned that oftentimes people in a mental health crisis were hauled to jail: the worst place for someone in a mental health crisis. We learned that law enforcement officers are not always trained in how to identify and de-escalate mental health crisis situations.
Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) is a solution that has worked in communities across the country. CIT involves knowing how to identify and de-escalate a mental health crisis, and knowing where to bring someone for help. This is a training offered from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Because of our people power at our Nehemiah Action in 2018, the departments now have 189 officers trained in CIT!
“I was very angry when I heard their protest and these complaints. After thinking it over, I brought charges against the officials and the officers… [and] called for a large assembly in order to deal with them.”
— Nehemiah 5:6-7, Common English Bible
In 5th chapter of the Old Testament book of Nehemiah, the Prophet Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to find his people being exploited. During a terrible drought and famine, a group of moneylenders began capitalizing off of the Israelites desperation by enticing them to buy loans with high interest rates. When the Israelites defaulted on their loans, they were forced to sell their children into slavery (Nehemiah 5:1-5).
Instead of practicing mercy ministry by providing direct service in order to alleviate his people's immediate needs, Nehemiah understood the problem stemmed from a unjust system and the root cause had to be addressed with systemic change. In doing this, Nehemiah was practicing justice ministry.
Nehemiah used his influence to coordinate a "great assembly" where a large Israelites called out the moneylenders for their foul practices. Upon seeing the great numbers gathered to hold them accountable, the moneylenders publicly promised to abandon their practices of usury and to return to the people all that they had taken unjustly.
Every year, MORE Justice recreates the "Great Assembly" Nehemiah led by holding our own Action Assembly.
Like in Nehemiah 5, the assembly addresses public officials and powerful decision makers and asks them to publicly commit to use their positions of authority to address our community’s problems.
Want to join?
Contact
Feel free to contact us with any questions or media inquiries.
Email
morejusticecolumbia@gmail.com
Phone
803-708-9097