Homeless in Greenville: Mother and son find housing, but time ran out

Lying in a nursing home bed, Tiniki Johnson remained squarely in the center of COVID-19's dizzying fallout.

A devotional book rested on her table — a guide to living a more peaceful life through Jesus. A card from her son, Jacquez, hung on the bare wall. A ring on her finger caught the light from bulbs buzzing overhead.

Although Johnson struggled to breathe through an oxygen tube, she felt grateful to be in this nursing home in downtown Greenville and out of the hospital, she said. She had a roof over her head and the assurance that she could sleep there again that night.

In 2021, their landlord evicted Tiniki and Jacquez after they invited a friend to sleep at their apartment for more than 14 nights, a violation of their lease. When mother and son were kicked out, they took only what they could carry. The apartment complex managers tossed the rest, including Tiniki's wheelchair and oxygen tank, Tiniki said.

The mother and son lived night by night, room by room, at motels scattered across the city for almost a year.

On this day in March, as his mother lay in the nursing home, Jacquez, 20, was sitting on a co-worker's couch six miles away. That night, he slept on the same couch. He had nowhere else to stay.

"It hurts me just knowing that he's not with me," Tiniki said from her nursing home bed. "I worry that my child is out there."

The city's Black community has borne the brunt of the affordable housing crisis, burdened by stagnant incomes as Greenville becomes more expensive and exclusive. Almost half of Greenville's homeless population is Black, even though the total population of the county is only 18% Black.

The median white family in Greenville makes almost three times as much money as a Black family. And Greenville is one of the most difficult places in the country for a young person like Jacquez to move from a low- to upper-income class, according to research produced by Harvard and Stanford universities.

Jacquez Johnson was earning a low wage in a city where rents average almost $1,400.

He worked as a cook at a walk-up burger window attached to a downtown hotel where the rooms start at around $160 a night. A burger there costs more than the minimum hourly wage in South Carolina, a state that hasn't bothered to set one and so falls under the low federal rate.

Nearly 75% of all jobs in Greenville that pay a living wage — more than $20 an hour — require a college degree, says the Network for Southern Economic Mobility. Jacquez dropped out of high school so he could care for his mother, who had long suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

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From his friend's couch, Tiniki's nursing home was a 15-minute drive away in a car Jacquez couldn't put on the road. His car wasn't insured because he couldn't afford the monthly payments.

So Jacquez closed the distance between himself and his mother however he could. Jacquez couldn't afford a phone plan, but they would message through Facebook when he could access free internet.

Their hearts were bound. Jacquez cried when she did, he said. He called her his best friend.

And when they were together, Jacquez quietly anticipated her needs. Before she sat up in the bed, he was an outstretched hand. Before she moved, he was an arm around her shoulders.

Her response also was unspoken, written into the curve of her smile.

After a month in the nursing home, Tiniki's health improved.

The mother and son put a plea on social media for help finding a new home. A pastor connected them to a small two-bedroom place they could afford, outside the city limits.

They moved in late April, and Jacquez had to leave his kitchen job behind. It was too far away from their new apartment, and the region's limited bus system doesn't make it possible for someone to ride downtown from very far away.

On May 1, Jacquez turned 21. He hosted a cookout outside of their apartment's squat brick building, grilling hot dogs for friends and family.

Tiniki rested inside, her health still fragile. There were good and bad days, and days like his birthday, which fell somewhere in between.

On the worst days, she returned to the hospital. But when she came home, she came to the place she shared with her son.

They were together on Jacquez's birthday, as they had been for 21 years — together, but exiled from Greenville by harsh economics powered by a string of city and business decisions determined to grow the prosperous, majority-white class.

One month later, Tiniki Johnson died. She was 46.

"If you knew her she didn't meet a stranger," said the GoFundMe drive for her funeral costs. "She was always smiling no matter what she was going through." They raised $865. It wasn't enough, but an anonymous donor covered the rest.

On June 24, Jacquez sat in the front pew of a funeral home, as close as he could to his mother's casket. White flowers graced the coffin. He sat with his head bowed as his relatives stood in front of him. They took turns celebrating Tiniki Johnson and her love for him.

At the end of the service, Jacquez walked back down the aisle, away from his mother for the last time.

Her ring, on a chain, swayed above his heart with each step.

— The latest: In January 2023, Jacquez Johnson continued to live in the same apartment outside of the city. He keeps an urn of his mother's ashes in the home he once shared with her. "I wanted to keep her forever," he said. Johnson also has a new job: He's working as a cook at a Greenville restaurant.

— This is part of the Greenville News’ "The Cost of Unity" series, investigating unrecognized harm from revitalization efforts, including 2022's Unity Park, that are making historically Black neighborhoods unaffordable for the people who used to call them home. Our year of reporting — with research help from partner Furman University — showed the staggering loss of Black residents from a city with one of the highest racial economic disparities in the Southeast.The full project launches Jan. 11 on our site. If you value this kind of journalism, please help us continue it with a subscription to greenvilleonline.com.