SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn — The City of Memphis has addressed the growing problem of blight in a Whitehaven neighborhood after community members brought concerns to ABC24 at a Let’s Talk on June 20.
Our ABC24 Let’s Talk sessions are meant to allow people to bring specific issues that are impacting them in their community directly to us so we can get answers. That’s exactly what happened for Marian Tolliver, who came to our Whitehaven session with one clear issue in mind.
“The blight...It's just so messed up down here now. What can we do about this? Especially over on Wilson,” Tolliver said at the Let’s Talk.
The area on Wilson Rd. under I-55 has piles of trash and wild unkempt grass that made the area a major eyesore for months. That is, until ABC24 took the issue directly to the City of Memphis, and they got it cleaned up within days. Cleanup is still ongoing as of July 3.
“Thank you, ABC24, because you did a magnificent job of helping us to restore some respect to our neighborhood," Tolliver said. "It looks so much better; I was quite surprised when I drove by Saturday and I saw that it was cleaned up."
The City of Memphis confirmed that area is their responsibility, although some freeway underpasses throughout the city fall under the purview of the state while still others are the duty of the railroads to maintain.
Tolliver is hopeful her community can keep it as clean as can be.
“Change is possible...We’re gonna try and do our part to keep it clean," Tolliver said. "We’re going to have neighborhood drives that will come out and make sure the streets are clean...If everybody keeps their area clean, it's going to be clean anyway. That’s all we ask for is a clean area to live in. Let Memphis be beautiful again like it used to be.”
Our next Let’s Talk session is in Cordova on July 18.