The city repaid about $234,000 in federal grants to the U.S. Her attorney at the time maintained there was no evidence she had profited, and no criminal charges were filed. She had been placed on paid administrative leave a month earlier after an external audit found her department had awarded grants to charities where she and her family volunteered. Jackson Johnson retired from her role with the city in February 2020. Whatever good I accomplished in this regard, the credit goes entirely to JJJ."
"In the 10 years during which I was privileged to work with Joan on behalf of Lansing residents, she never once asked for anything for herself or a family member," Bernero wrote. "But her desires, demands and declarations regarding the hungry, the homeless, and the seemingly hopeless were relentless. "I like to be a part of the solution rather than the problem itself."īernero wrote on Facebook Saturday that Jackson Johnson was always working for those who needed her most. "I saw quite a few people who couldn’t afford to pay, but I saw people who could and had a decent life."īernero gave Jackson Johnson his trust, allowing her to do what she felt called to do "and ask for forgiveness later," she said in 2017. "God spared my life of cancer, and I just felt that I was called to do something more than a cushy private practice," she said in 2017. In 2006, former Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, with whom Jackson Johnson had served on the area's Community Mental Health board, asked her to take a job with the city.ĭespite the lesser pay, she accepted, seeing an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of her neighbors. While running that practice, she survived a battle with ovarian cancer. She met her husband during her first year in the area. They would go on to raise five children.Īfter finishing her Ph.D., Jackson Johnson worked as a psychologist, opening a practice in East Lansing. "And so are we failing as a community? Do we fail families where they lose subsidized housing? When we allow a family to be put out of a house where they are paying $10 a month for four bedrooms, the system has failed those kids, the system has failed the family."īorn in Jacksonville, Florida, and raised in Tampa, Jackson Johnson moved to Michigan in 1970 to study rehabilitation counseling and psychology at Michigan State University. "The end of last year, we still had over 5,000 homeless people in Lansing," Jackson Johnson told the State Journal in 2017. On the weekends, she could be found driving around the city making sure nobody was sleeping on the streets. We all want to do something to celebrate her."Ī licensed psychologist, Jackson Johnson volunteered for decades with area nonprofits. "I have received so many messages from people, and they want to do something for her. "The community is distraught," said Barbara Roberts Mason, who served on Michigan's State Board of Education and worked with Jackson Johnson for years. A city employee for about 15 years, she focused on feeding and housing people in need both in and outside of the office.
Known by the nickname "Triple J," Jackson Johnson worked tirelessly to address food and housing insecurity in Greater Lansing. LANSING - Joan Jackson Johnson, the former longtime director of Lansing's Human Relations and Community Services department, died Saturday morning. View Gallery: Voice for the voiceless: Joan Jackson Johnson
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