Pastor Jerry Bishop has buried six young men from the city’s southeast side this summer.

Some were homicide victims. Others died by suicide. Bishop said all of these deaths stemmed from a profound sense of hopelessness.

“We have a growing population under-35 with no vision, no purpose, widespread cannabis abuse, other abuse, opiates abuse, fentanyl deaths, very chronically high unemployment. That is a state of emergency,” the minister of LifeQuest Urban Outreach said.

Bishop said since the mid-90s, quality-of-life outcomes have remained disappointing for Third Ward residents.

“When we leave people without hope, dysfunction runs rampant,” he said.

“It’s been a perpetual, ongoing, redundant statement, yet we still have the same level of lack of investment. Lack of investment breeds poverty,” he said.

Bishop called for sustained efforts at combatting truancy, recidivism and unemployment. He says programs like Cure Violence, which aims to prevent violent encounters by having community members intervene, are helpful but underfunded.

“Many are falling through the cracks because they have substandard households, literacy challenges. I pastor, I live, I shop, I do business in the Third Ward. We are the least-invested ward in the city,” he said.

Millions of dollars have gone into real estate development in the city. Bishop wants to see a multi-year plan with measurable outcomes for Third Ward residents under the age of 35.

“We need a compassion movement. We need relationship building. We need mentoring. We need group therapy. We need places to sit and talk with these young people. They need gathering spaces,” Bishop said. “That type of funding is hardly ever available on scale.”

Bishop said outrage directed at police misconduct should also be directed at homicides and deaths of despair.

“I’m not hearing anything from anybody. That’s the scary thing. We are outraged — and we should be — at police conduct, but we are not outraged at this rampant death,” he said. 

“It takes an entire city to do this. First of all, we got to be honest that we have a problem. We are not honest that we have a problem in the Third Ward. We’re just not honest,” the minister said.

LifeQuest is renovating and expanding its sanctuary. Bishop, who worked in construction prior to joining the ministry, said the church has hired two young men from the Third Ward to learn a hireable skill.

“They’ve been here for two weeks, on-time, worked eight hours, had a lunch, didn’t get high, weren’t getting drunk, no incidents of violence,” Bishop said. “What’s that say? It says the stuff works.”

Write to juliana@grherald.com