This one-room utility trailer on Crayton Street is home to Denise Fisher and nine children. (The Vicksburg Post/MELANIE DUNCAN)

[05/18/01] A promise has one woman in the city raising nine children alone and, while their love for each other may keep them together, Denise Fisher hopes human compassion can lend them a hand.

Fisher, 31, has nine children ranging in ages from 3 to 16, residing with her in what is essentially a shed on Crayton Street. Five belong to her, and four were the children of her sister, Yance Hawkins, who died in jail in 1999 after a long illness.

Ironies in the case are abundant. If the children were being abused, Fisher said, government would intervene. Also, while public housing may be available that would be spacious compared to their present home, regulations prohibit assigning a family to housing that is too small for them.

Fisher said she knew it would be hard to raise all the children and keep them together, but it was a promise she made to Hawkins and their mother, Martha Martin, who also died in 1999.

“In August, when my mom got sick, she told me to take care of her babies and Yance,” Fisher said. “Yance always asked me to take care of her children. I know they would do the same for me.”

Before Martin’s death, Fisher had help keeping the family tight-knit. Since then, they’ve been in a one-room utility trailer rented to Fisher by her uncle. While they are on the waiting list of the Vicksburg Housing Authority, HUD guidelines allow only two people to a room and children older than 3 cannot stay in an adult’s room. That means Fisher would require a six-bedroom house and the VHA only has three, none of which is available, said Jan Chism of the VHA.

Last month, Fisher received approval for another federal housing program, Section 8, after the city wrote a letter on her behalf requesting it. Section 8 would pay her rent to a private landlord, but with the number of people in her family, she said, they haven’t been able to find anything large enough to comply with federal regulations.

“Many things come through our office that aren’t directly in line with what we do, but we always try to do what we can to help,” Mayor Robert Walker said. The city has written 100 such letters to help people get Section 8 status, he said.

Fisher said despite the tight squeeze, the children are as close as siblings and she wouldn’t want to separate them.

“Me and Yance were close coming up, so our children were always close,” Fisher said. Fisher and her mother have always been involved in caring for Hawkins’ children so all nine have been reared together.

She has received assistance from other agencies such as the Salvation Army and the United Way, but a bigger place is all she said she needs now.

“The problem is, she can’t find a place to live, and there’s nothing we can do there,” Eula Phelps of the United Way said. The United Way has helped with Christmas, Thanksgiving and electric bills though.

Fisher also worked recently at McDonald’s but said it was difficult to hold down a job because she has a 3-year-old and the older children were in school. She is looking for work again now that school is about to let out, she said.

Fisher is not bitter, but she said she just hopes if people know about her situation , they may have some ideas for her.

“If they (the children) were being abused, people would get involved,” she said.

Yance’s older children often miss their mother and grandmother, she said, but Fisher saves a card she was given by her eldest niece thanking her for being there for them.

“I just have to have faith in God,” Fisher said. “I just hope someone sees this and says I know somebody who can do something.'”