The night Mallie Luken, wheelchair bound, slept in a parking lot
Courtesy of Kentucky Lantern
CENTRAL CITY — Pastor Jennifer Banks was still a relative newcomer to this western Kentucky town on the night in September when she watched through a security camera as a police officer brought a woman in a wheelchair to the church and “dumped her in our parking lot.”
Banks’ husband, Zachary, rushed to the church in time to talk to the officer.
“He’s like, ‘Man, I’m sorry. We didn’t have anywhere for her to go. We knew that y’all wouldn’t trespass her here, and we didn’t want to see her go to jail,” Zachary Banks recalls.
Mallie Luken, 70, a widow, was down to her last few dollars. She had asked her former pastor to drive her from the nearby county where she was living to Muhlenberg County because she remembered an old ad for the Central Inn, a motel in Central City, and thought she could afford a night there.
Jennifer Banks had met Mallie Luken the day before after getting a call from police about a “homeless woman” outside Arby’s. The officer told the pastor the woman had trespassed on multiple properties and asked if she could do something.
Banks gathered a plate of food and headed to Arby’s. She found Luken sitting outside in a wheelchair next to her dog Blaze. They prayed together. At that time, Banks had yet to consider using the Abundant Life Church as a shelter. The congregation was barely a year old and still buying the building from the Central City government.
“I had to leave her there, because I didn’t have anywhere for her to go. And then the next day was when they dumped her in our parking lot,” Jennifer Banks said.
Banks’ community was ill-prepared to respond to that kind of housing emergency. That realization has served as a catalyst for the Bankses and others in Muhlenberg County who want to fill gaps they see in services and housing. They have met resistance and support, as the Lantern will report over the next few days.
But on that night eight months ago, all Zachary Banks could do was take Luken a blanket.
She stayed there on the pavement under a stainless steel table, an experience made even worse because she was separated from Blaze after he bolted from an earlier thunder clap. As storms rolled through Luken thought of her parents. “To know that that’s your child laying under a stainless steel table,” Luken said. “I could have gotten electrocuted.”
Looking back recently, she said, “I just didn’t care if I woke up in the morning,” mentioning how worried she was about Blaze. Luken thinks her search for the dog had prompted more calls to police about trespassing.
Seeing Luken in the parking lot, Zachary Banks thought of his mother. “It just broke my heart to see her just dumped out there and for us to not be able to have any resources to be able to do anything.”
An officer wrote in an email to church leaders that Luken was dropped off at the church at her request and that the local police department “currently does not have any type of resources to assist her.” The officer in his email asked the church for assistance to make sure Luken didn’t get into further legal trouble.
Zachary Banks said he urged the officer to “stand up” for the church before the Central City city council and for the work the church was doing to help people experiencing homelessness. The officer told Zachary Banks he would try.
Luken soon found shelter thanks to help from Gwen Clements. Using money given by a concerned neighbor of the church, Clements checked Luken into the Central Inn. Within about a week, calling around to her connections, Clements found Luken an apartment at the public housing authority in Greenville, the Muhlenberg County seat.
She contacted Luken’s daughter in North Carolina who wasn’t aware of her situation and learned the mother and daughter have a strained relationship.
Luken was united with Blaze, and they are still together.
In a rural county with few resources for people without shelter, Clements is part of a loose coalition of people who see a growing need to help those experiencing homelessness. Clements grew up in Muhlenberg County and believes it is not unlike other rural communities suffering a shortage of housing.
‘I feel for these people’
Earlier in 2024, Clements had started a Facebook group to advocate for more resources to help people struggling to secure a safe place to live. Clements, who moved back to Central City in the early 2000s, had a vision for what she wanted for the county: a community space that could serve as a warming center, shelter and kitchen, largely inspired by efforts of a nonprofit in Somerset.
“In this county, if they would just open up more affordable housing. Most of the problems would be eliminated,” Clements said. “If we had public transportation for people to get the documents they need — nobody wants to take these people so that they can get the hand up and get on with their lives just by having a few pieces of paper in hand.”
Clements says her own experiences make her want to help. “I feel for these people. I’ve been in their situation, not knowing where I was gonna go next,” Clements told the Lantern earlier this year. “I want to be the person I needed during my dark times. I want to give hope to those who feel hopeless, show them someone cares about their needs.”
“Sometimes it’s draining. Sometimes I leave my house at seven o’clock in the morning and don’t come back till it’s dark,” Clements said. “If you’re making a commitment, you gotta follow that commitment through till you’re done.”
She helps people fill out birth certificate requests so they can get an identification card. Her Facebook group has become a clearinghouse connecting people who say they need help to those who want to provide it. She often fields several messages a day asking for food, clothing or enough money to stay at a local motel. Sometimes people she helps are dealing with unstable housing situations, getting close to the precipice of living without shelter.
Some who need help grapple with addiction and other mental health issues. Some work or struggle to find work, having limited or no transportation to get them to a job. The county has a limited supply of affordable rentals amid a worsening housing shortage that is common across rural Kentucky.
“Housing as a whole is very hard to come by, whether it’s affordable, whether it’s appropriate, whether it’s up to code, whether or not they get in there. I mean, it’s just hard all the way around,” said Kelsey Rolley, a services coordinator at Pennyrile Allied Community Services in Greenville. “It’s that much harder when you’re in a position like mine, where people come to you for help and then you don’t have any resources to refer them to, or you don’t have the means to be able to help immediately at that moment.”
Muhlenberg County, once bolstered by coal mining and famous for producing musicians, has an aging and declining population similar to other rural communities. Poverty rates are higher than the national and state averages, according to the U.S. Census. Central City has a population of a little less than 6,000 residents. About 1 in 4 of them live in poverty.
Michael Howard, the CEO of the regional ARCH Community Health Coalition in western Kentucky, said finding a way forward beyond coal mining has been difficult and the housing shortage makes fostering new industries and jobs even more challenging. But, he said, the vast majority in Muhlenberg County would reply “No” when asked if homelessness is a local problem.
“They don’t realize that they’re already there. You know, they’re invisible,” Howard said.
Next in the Lantern’s series: Jennifer and Zachary Banks and Abundant Life Church have a plan, backed by others in the loose coalition.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
