With extremely cold temperatures expected to hit this week, the City of Jackson is working with community organizations and the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department to provide shelter for those in need.
The city’s Office of Housing and Community Development is partnering with Stewpot Community Services, Central Mississippi Continuum of Care, the Sheriff’s Department, Shower Power and Mississippi Housing Partnership to provide emergency responses.
The National Weather Service is forecasting very cold weather Thursday night through Saturday night for the metro Jackson area with low temperature in the single digits and highs near or below freezing for much of the area Friday and Saturday. Strong and gusty winds will likely result in wind chill readings below zero, especially from late Thursday night through Friday.
The Shephard’s Gymnasium at 1355 Hattiesburg St. in Jackson will serve as a temporary shelter from 3 p.m. Thursday through Tuesday. The city says it will be open 24 hours a day and be properly staffed and monitored. Cots and blankets will be provided with at least two meals a day. Pets will not be admitted.
A limited number of hotel rooms also are available for families and elderly individuals in need of warm shelter during these days. For more information, contact Freddric Brandon, homeless coordinator for the city.
The following overnight shelters will also remain open for residents:
Billy Brumfield Emergency Shelter for Men, 1244 S. Gallatin St.
Matt’s House Emergency Shelter for Women & Women with Children, 355 Livingston St.
The Opportunity Center, 845 W. Amite St. (Open 24 hours Thursday to Tuesday)
Gateway Rescue Mission, 410 S. Gallatin St. (Open all day Friday and Saturday in addition to normal hours)
Salvation Army, 570 Beasley Rd.
Mississippi Housing Partnership, 1217 N. West St.
REACH Jackson
Anyone in need of warm shelter should call Stewpot at 601-353-2759 for assessment and referral, or email info@stewpot.org.
Those who would like to help their neighbors in need over the next few days, here is a list of needed items:
Blankets
Sleeping bags
Jackets/coats
Long Johns
Handwarmers
Socks
Gloves
Hats
Lip balm
T-shirts for layering
Volunteers also bring donations to the Stewpot office (open until Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.), the Stewpot Community Kitchen (open from noon to 1 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 1-2 p.m. on Sundays), or to another organization that serves people experiencing homelessness.
The Mississippi State Department of Health has joined an investigation into a multistate outbreak of a contagious virus linked to raw oysters from Texas.
So far, at least nine cases of norovirus have been reported in the state linked to raw oysters distributed to Mississippi restaurants. The Health Department says additional cases may be identified.
The department says restaurants and food retailers should not serve raw oysters from harvest area TX 1, Galveston Bay, Texas, harvested from Nov. 17 to Dec. 7, and consumers should not eat raw oysters from these areas. The oysters were distributed to restaurants and retailers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas in addition to Mississippi. Packaged oysters include harvest area information on the packaging.
Consumers who have purchased oysters from these areas are advised to throw them away.
Norovirus infection can cause inflammation of the stomach and intestines. The most common symptoms are diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain. Consumers experiencing symptoms of norovirus illness should contact their healthcare provider, who should report their symptoms to their local Health Department.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, norovirus can spread quickly and a person who gets norovirus illness can shed billions of the virus’ particles that can’t be seen. It takes only a few norovirus particles to make others sick. An infected person is most contagious when exhibiting symptoms, especially vomiting, and during the first few days after recovering, according to the CDC.
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann wants to send taxpayers rebate checks up to $500, increase education spending and push year-’round schooling and pre-K, and find fixes for the state’s health care crisis “not just for next year, but for the next generation.”
Some of his policy priorities for the 2023 legislative session that starts Jan. 3 already put Hosemann and the Senate he oversees at odds with his fellow Republican leaders in the House. For starters, House Speaker Philip Gunn and other GOP leaders said recently they want to eliminate the state income tax, not give one-time rebate checks. House and Senate Republican majorities are also expected to spar over extending postpartum Medicaid coverage for working mothers, which Hosemann and Senate leaders continue to support after it failed in the House last session.
“We did the largest tax cut ever last year, close to $500 million in income taxes cut,” Hosemann said. “We have an excess of $270 million this year from our estimate of taxes we’ve collected. We propose to send it back.”
Hosemann said his proposal will be to refund taxpayers “dollar-for-dollar” what they paid in state income taxes for the past year “from the bottom up, until we run out of money.” He said initial estimates are that refund checks would be capped at about $500.
Republicans Gov. Tate Reeves and Gunn still want to phase out the personal income tax, as a follow-on to the massive income tax cuts passed last year, which are still being implemented. They say this will give the state an advantage with economic development.
Hosemann and Senate leaders say the national and state economies are in turbulent, inflationary times with recession possible, and that much of the state surplus is from unprecedented federal spending that isn’t likely to continue or recur. They warn that fully eliminating the income tax in such uncertain economic times is foolhardy, and that the state’s current windfall should be viewed as one-time money and given back to taxpayers as a one-time check.
Hosemann said he has been meeting with hospital and other health care officials across the state, including Greenwood Leflore Hospital, which he called the “canary in the mine” of the financial crisis facing the state’s hospitals, particularly in rural areas. Hosemann said he foresees the state providing some temporary financial aid and increased Medicaid reimbursement to struggling hospitals, but said he wants to find more permanent, structural fixes.
Hosemann said Mississippi’s health care infrastructure may have to change — particularly given population loss in the Delta and other areas. He said rural hospitals may have to shift to basic and emergency services, with more specialized care becoming centralized.
“I don’t want mommas having babies in the back of a car,” Hosemann said. “I think everyone should be within 30 minutes of care. But for that scheduled heart surgery, you may have to go to a larger hospital for it.”
Hosemann is one of few Republican leaders open to discussion of Medicaid expansion — pushed by many health care advocates and hospitals — but he said politically it’s not likely lawmakers will tackle that issue this year, and he said it’s not a cure-all.
“I don’t think that’s the answer,” Hosemann said. “Even if we had that expansion, (Greenwood Leflore) would not make it, it would still be short.”
Hosemann noted that the Senate has passed extension of postpartum Medicaid coverage for working mothers three times, with the House killing it. He said he expects the Senate to make the push to extend coverage from 60 days to a year again, as a way of helping the state address highest in the nation rates of infant and maternal mortality. He said a new study from Texas extending the coverage has shown numerous positive results.
In recent Senate hearings, numerous experts told lawmakers that Mississippi can spend about $7 million a year to keep mothers and newborns healthier, or continue to spend tens of millions more dealing with the fallout of having the worst infant and maternal mortality and morbidity in the country.
Hosemann said he has recently visited several school districts across the state, including in Corinth, Gulfport and Lamar County, that have started using a “modified calendar,” often referred to as year-around schooling. He said such schedules are already showing positive results here and nationwide, and he wants the state to provide incentives to districts that want to participate.
“We don’t need to just keep doing things the way they’ve always been done,” Hosemann said. He said the schedules of roughly nine weeks in school, two-to-three weeks off have been well received by parents and teachers. He said that for Lamar County, it cost about $200,000 to change the calendar and “that will be our measure to incentivize this with state grants for districts that want to do it.”
Hosemann said he wants to increase funding for pre-K public education. The Legislature has increased funding for early learning collaboratives to $16 million, funding about 30 programs across the state, plus another $20 million for other public pre-K programs, Hosemann said. But the state is still serving only about 6,000 of 20,000 eligible kids. Hosemann said he would like to increase that number to about 10,000 students in the coming year.
Recently House Education Chairman Richard Bennett, R-Long Beach, said he also would like to expand pre-K in the coming session. He noted that the state should not only provide more money for the programs, but provide schools with capital funding to build facilities for pre-K classes.
Hosemann also said he wants to increase funding in the coming year for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program. MAEP is the state’s school funding formula passed into law by the Legislature 25 years ago, but almost never fully funded, usually falling short hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Hosemann said Wednesday he wants to increase funding for MAEP, but declined to give an amount. He said it would likely still fall short of full funding, but “will be enough to make you smile.”
But Gunn recently said he was not for putting more money into MAEP. In the past, Gunn has unsuccessfully pushed to scrap the formula, which he said is flawed and continually calls for more money for schools that lawmakers can come up with. He called it “unattainable,” and has instead pushed for money going outside the formula to school programs lawmakers support rather than a formula that allows schools and districts autonomy on spending.
Hosemann said the state Legislature and federal government have pumped historic amounts of money into infrastructure in the last couple of years, and he plans to continue. He said the state will likely use remaining federal pandemic stimulus money to provide more matching water and sewerage money to cities and counties as it did last year. He said he also wants to provide another $100 million for the state’s Emergency Road and Bridge Program as it did last year. The state had recently faced closure of hundreds of roads and bridges, particularly in rural areas, due to lack of maintenance, but Hosemann said the state is well along in addressing the problem.
Hosemann said the state this year let about $963 million worth of road work contracts, “double what they normally would.”
Mississippi has seen huge budget windfalls since the federal government began pumping pandemic stimulus and infrastructure spending into the states. Hosemann said the state will have paid off about $600 million in debt during this time, increased its “rainy day fund” savings to about $700 million, and he proposes no state borrowing for the coming year.
“That means you don’t have to go out into the market to borrow at 6%-7%,” Hosemann said. “… We started a few years ago cutting our budget and getting things in order. We’re running Mississippi like a business and now we have the cash to address the issues we need to address.”
A recent change to Mississippi’s power generation laws, set to take effect in January, will allow over half of the state’s public school districts to start saving money by generating their own solar energy.
The new rule, which the Public Service Commission agreed to with the state’s two investor-owned utilities in October, paves the way for school districts to earn credits for generating solar power without actually having to pay for the solar panels.
Starting in 2023, any of the 95 public school districts served by Entergy Mississippi or Mississippi Power can enter into what’s called a power purchase agreement, where a third-party contractor foots the bill to add solar panels to the school district’s property. Entergy or Mississippi Power would then buy the generated solar power and credit the district on its energy bill. For funding the new system, the contractor would be eligible for government tax credits.
While the rule change opens a door for widespread renewable energy use in Mississippi, a few of the state’s school districts are already generating solar power, with some seeing new wiggle room in their budgets.
“It’s been a very, very big win for the district,” said Mike Papas, director of Auxiliary Services at the Forrest County School District.
Solar panels on the roof of the performing arts center at North Forrest High School. Credit: Mike Papas / Forrest County School District
Last year, Forrest County School District finished installing 300 solar panels on the roof of its performing arts center, which it uses for events like school plays and faculty meetings. The building, Papas said, seats 900 people and needs constant air conditioning. But because the solar panels create $3,000 a month worth of electricity, he said, they cover more than half of the center’s electric bill.
“For us to be able to produce clean energy, then for us to take that money and put it back into the budget to do what’s needed for the students, we couldn’t lose,” Papas said. “And plus it was free.”
In 2014, the Sierra Club reached a settlement with Mississippi Power over the utility’s now-infamous failed clean coal project in Kemper County. The two sides agreed to direct $15 million towards solar projects for schools as well as energy efficiency upgrades for low-income homes.
“(The Kemper project) was pretty bad for a lot of folks, but something good came out of it,” said Rodger Wilder, president of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community Foundation.
So far, that money has paid for solar panels at a dozen school districts, including all the panels at Forrest County School District. Interested school districts in the Mississippi Power service area can still receive funding from the Coast foundation, which was put in charge of administering the $15 million. Districts receive grants of around $250,000 to pay for solar panels as well as to introduce renewable energy into their curriculum.
Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey said using money from the Kemper settlement to fund solar panel systems has helped demonstrate their effectiveness to people who might otherwise be skeptical.
“If anything, it certainly helped educate school administrators, school finance officers, facility managers and others on what these systems really do,” Bailey said. “I think (the Kemper settlement) served a great deal to help identify and refute any myths.”
Brooks McKay, director of operations at the Ocean Springs School District, said he and others were skeptical of how solar panels would be able to withstand hurricanes.
“There's a little bit of hesitation on the Coast to put something on the roof worth $250,000 that you don't know is gonna blow off or not,” he said.
But McKay said the panels have held up fine since the district put them on top of its central office building two years ago, and now the district is already looking to take advantage of the PSC’s rule change to add more solar panels in the near future.
Solar panels on the central office building of the Ocean Springs School District. Credit: Ocean Springs School District
“What we don’t spend on energy we can spend on (other things),” said McKay, who estimated that the district saves about $300 a month on its electric bill during the summer. “It could be teacher units, classroom supplies, buses is one area we really put some savings in.”
Other districts around the state could soon be lining up as well: During the PSC’s public comment period on updating the net metering rule, superintendents from the following districts wrote in support of expanding renewable energy opportunities to schools: Attala County, Enterprise, Greenville, Kemper County, Lauderdale County, Okolona, Union, Winona-Montgomery, Yazoo County and Newton County.
School districts in the Mississippi Power service area interested in grant opportunities to fund solar panel installations can reach out to GCCF. A list of districts in the Mississippi Power and Entergy Mississippi service areas is available here.
After going 1-17 in Conference USA last season, Southern Miss coach Jay Ladner overhauled his staff and his roster, and has the Golden Eagles off to an 11-1 start this season. Rick and Tyler catch up with coach Ladner, talk about his team and the pressure of coaching the program he grew up rooting for.
The state of Mississippi isn’t getting anything past Danielle Thomas.
Thomas is a bright, young single mother raising her six kids in south Jackson. Because she lives in poverty, Thomas is also an expert in the convoluted policies and bureaucratic red tape surrounding one of the biggest scandals in state history: the TANF program.
Despite recent attention on the graft and corruption within the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant, Mississippi is still pumping less than 5% of the money directly to mothers like Thomas.
“I really think it’s still them stealing from people, to be honest,” Thomas, 34, said. “I really feel like they feel like a lot of us aren’t smart enough, or they feel like we probably don’t know the system in and out well enough.”
Thomas works part time as a home health aide earning $9.50 an hour, the same wage she started at 10 years ago. When she’s not on the job, she’s feeding and changing her 5-month-old, ferrying her other kids to and from school, cooking meals, fetching medication, tending to boo-boos, monitoring screen time, and trying to keep the shrieking to a tolerable decibel.
Danielle Thomas sits on the couch with her son Kannan, then 2, at their south Jackson home in 2021. Thomas, a 34-year-old mother of six, has faced countless barriers in Mississippi’s social safety net. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
On top of all that, Thomas basically moonlights as the unpaid lawyer, auditor and investigator on her own cases at the Mississippi Department of Human Services and other state service agencies. As most public assistance recipients know, it takes fierce self advocacy to ensure fair treatment within Mississippi’s social safety net.
Only about 1,600 very poor families in Mississippi are successfully jumping through the hoops required to receive the small TANF cash assistance payments each month.
Thomas knows a great deal more about how the TANF program works than the politicians who write the laws that govern the program.
But what happened to Thomas in recent weeks has stumped even the nation’s top policy experts.
In October, Thomas learned that she would be receiving a lump sum of more than $5,000 in back due child support from her ex-husband Larry Young, the father of her four youngest children. The state’s child support office, run by a private contractor, intercepted the money from Young’s child tax credit.
This tax offset process is part of the state’s child support enforcement program that Thomas is required to participate in to keep receiving public benefits. The rationale is, if the state is going to provide taxpayer support to single-parent families, then the noncustodial parents, usually fathers, should be forced to pay up as well.
This is where things get tricky: When the office collects support on behalf of a child receiving TANF, the state then seizes the funds to pay itself back for the welfare payments it issued. Most of that money goes straight back to the federal government.
Thomas said she sees the rationale in this, but at the same time, “I think that’s messed up a lot of co-parenting relationships … it doesn’t help how they think it helps. It kinda actually divides the family a little more.”
Thomas receives assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, for all of her children – several hundred dollars a month that comes on a debit card Thomas can only use on qualified items at qualified stores.
But Thomas only receives TANF cash assistance, $118 a month, for each of the two eldest children, not Young’s kids.
This is because of a harsh and little-known rule in Mississippi that if a parent is already on welfare when she gets pregnant and gives birth, that new child is not eligible for TANF benefits. These are sometimes called “capped” children. Just 12 states still have this policy in place, according to a 2020 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report.
For Thomas, this makes the child support payments for the younger kids all the more crucial.
The $5,000 cash infusion from the tax credit was coming just in time for Christmas. Thomas also planned to use some of the money to replace the radiator fan and valve cover gasket on her 2012 Dodge Durango – long overdue repairs on her only mode of transportation to work and the kids’ schools. Right now, she gets under the hood and manually sets spark to the fan before driving anywhere.
Thomas and her kids survive on the combination of her work income, no more than $13,000 a year, about $900 in monthly Supplemental Security Income, or disability benefits, that Thomas gets for her severe depression and anxiety attacks, and the public assistance. Because Thomas receives disability, she doesn’t receive a TANF payment for herself.
The prospect of a financial cushion provided Thomas some hope, but it was short lived.
In late October, Thomas received the child support payment on her debit card. It was $100.
She called a representative at the child support office, who told her that, according to the computer screen she was looking at, the TANF program had seized the rest.
That’s not how that works, Thomas thought.
“TANF took $5,000 from my kids, but the kids that they took the money from, they don’t receive TANF. They have never received TANF,” Thomas said.
Without the incoming funds, Thomas told her ex she still needed him to help pay for clothes and shoes for the kids. At first, the dad was skeptical that the state had taken the money. The situation caused tension between the parents.
“It makes me feel bad,” Young said. “It’s sad how Mississippi does things, man. Mississippi don’t care about no one, but what they do? Help Brett Favre. Help Phil (Bryant). They don’t help the ones that actually need help.”
Mississippi, which offers some of the lowest wages, strictest public assistance requirements, fewest labor protections and most meager health care of any state is also the most poverty stricken.
But Mississippi politicians have long blamed “fatherlessness” and nonmarital pregnancy for the state’s high poverty rate, ignoring the research that reflects the inverse: that those family outcomes are most often a symptom of poverty – and the feeling that upward mobility is unachievable – rather than the cause of it.
Instead of focusing on evidence-based practices for interrupting systemic poverty, the state has spent hundreds of millions of welfare funds attempting to address fatherhood and teen pregnancy. Along the way, MDHS admits it has gathered no evidence of how these “family stabilization” programs reduced poverty.
Millions through these programs ended up going to the pet projects of former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, other famous athletes and the cronies of state politicians.
Danielle Thomas and her son, 4-year-old Kannan Young, pose for a portrait near here home in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, December 15, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Escaping poverty was always going to be a challenge for Thomas, whose parents split before she could remember. Child Protection Services took Thomas from her mother, who is legally blind and ran an unstable household, when she was 6. She moved with her father to South Carolina until her mom regained custody, and, at 16, Thomas returned to Jackson. She bounced around high schools before dropping out, meeting her first child’s father and becoming a mother.
Thomas secured her GED and has started several higher education programs in the hopes of securing a better paying job, but it seemed like something always got in the way of her finishing. “I start strong, I start motivated, and then I might take a blow from different things and I kind of back out,” she said.
She has prioritized the paying gig that she has versus striving for another because, she said, “I know from experience that if I don’t work, we don’t eat.”
Several years ago, Thomas entered a work program offered through SNAP, the federal food assistance program administered by Mississippi Department of Human Services. It was a 24-week course, she recalled, to learn medical billing and coding – a job in which she could potentially earn $50,000. The program promised to provide her with a certificate at the end.
“During the seventh week, we went in and they told us it was no funds left to be able to continue the program,” Thomas said. “I really felt like it might have been something where they just found a way to reroute the money.”
Like that, the program was over.
During the pandemic, Thomas had to leave her home health job to take care of her kids, who were conducting virtual school at home. She applied for unemployment, which would have provided her an additional $600-a-week, more than she’d ever made and finally a chance to get ahead. But unemployment insurance only covers people who make over a certain amount, and because of her low earnings, the Mississippi Department of Employment Security denied Thomas the benefits.
It appeared a technicality: Thomas didn’t qualify under traditional unemployment insurance rules, but she should have qualified under the special pandemic unemployment program, the purpose of which was to extend benefits to people not typically covered, including part-time workers like herself.
Thomas did her research, appealed the decision, and secured a hearing with the labor office. She even got her employer to corroborate the information on her claim. But after representing herself in the proceeding, she was still denied because she had filed under the traditional unemployment insurance.
Through setback after setback, Thomas doesn’t blame the government for her current situation.
“I’m not a victim because I know the decisions and the choices I have made when it comes to these children and certain things, I’ll take the accountability for. But when it comes to my children … I’d shovel horse manure to make sure my kids eat every night. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make sure me and my children have a roof over our head and we have food on the table.”
Then there’s the added stress of raising her children in a neighborhood where gun violence is prevalent. “We’re in an area that’s really crime-ridden. It’s real, real crime-ridden and poverty-ridden,” Thomas said.
Danielle Thomas poses for a portrait near here home in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, December 15, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Not too long ago, Thomas’ 9-year-old son found a bag of marijuana on the ground on his way to school. A curious mind, he picked it up and carried it with him to class. When the administration discovered it, Thomas said they almost opened a DHS case, but because she’d been such an attentive parent – attending all parent-teacher conferences and volunteering to bring food for parties – a school administrator vouched for her.
“I’ve been raised in this type of environment … but I don’t wanna repeat cycles. I wanna break generational curses. I don’t want us to be here, but for some reason I feel like I’m stuck, because nothing will come in to allow me to get away from here,” Thomas said.
“Yes, I had all these kids. I made this bed. I have to lay in it,” she said. “But I also know I’m the type of person to where I’m not looking for the government to take care of me and my kids. I can do without, but they also gotta realize the trauma that they have forced upon some of us to where we can’t even live properly. Like, I don’t even like going outside of my home unless I have to.”
In August, State Auditor Shad White, who initially launched the ongoing TANF fraud investigation, released a report demonstrating the cost of “absent fathers” to Mississippi taxpayers. The report focused on how children who grow up in single-parent households are less likely to finish high school, more likely to go to prison and more likely to become teen mothers.
“I’m hoping folks will be informed as taxpayers, but will also realize collectively as a society we need to be sending the message that if you’re man enough to father a child, you ought to be man enough to step up and help raise that child,” White said when the report was released, WXXV reported.
Danielle Thomas and her then 2-year-old son Kannan, at their south Jackson home in September of 2021. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
In Young’s case, Mississippi has done nothing to inspire his participation. The state took from him to indirectly support the kids of someone else, while his own kids got nothing.
National policy experts have long advocated against states confiscating the child support payments of poor children to pay back the TANF support they received. They say the practice, which barely makes a difference for states since the money is returned to the feds, keeps families in poverty and harms the relationship between children and their noncustodial parents.
“In this case, it’s even worse: the state is taking money paid by a father for children who the state didn’t even provide assistance to,” said Elizabeth Lower-Basch, deputy director for policy for the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP). “While the state may have found a loophole that makes this legal, keeping these funds from Mrs. Thomas and her children is a violation of both decency and common sense.”
Little to no research on this scenario exists. Mississippi’s TANF policy manual doesn’t explicitly address it, according to the reviews of Mississippi Today and two national experts who reviewed the manual at Mississippi Today’s request for this story. It does not come up in exhaustive Q&As published by the federal agency that administers the programs, the Administration for Children & Families under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. When asked about what happened, the federal office told Mississippi Today that the agency was following Mississippi state law.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services similarly confirmed in an email to Mississippi Today that this is the agency’s policy. It said it could not comment on Thomas’ case specifically.
“While they (capped children) are not considered in the calculation of benefits, these children are still part of the head of household’s TANF case,” the statement reads. “When there are multiple children in the TANF-recipient household with different non-custodial parents, and one of those non-custodial parents makes a child support payment, that payment is applied to the overall household’s TANF recovery balance.”
It’s a miniscule policy distinction but with substantial implications – as is true with much of the state’s social safety net. The Legislature could change it.
But this area of government is often too complicated, too niche to capture the attention of the public or even policy makers. It’s part of the reason so much corruption was able to occur within the program in recent years.
Without a closer analysis, it’s easy to miss the catch-22.
When it behooves the state to exclude the children, in the case of determining who gets monthly benefits, it excludes the children. But when it benefits the state to count the children, such as to seize their child support payments, it counts them.
MDHS said it did not have any data on how many mixed-family households this policy affects.
Thomas questions it plainly: “I don’t see how one parent can be responsible for what another parent owes.”
Danielle Thomas poses for a portrait near here home in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, December 15, 2022. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Since the $100 child support payment, Thomas has had countless calls with MDHS, the child support office, and advocates, many of whom told Thomas they’ve never encountered this scenario and that they believed it was a mistake.
When Thomas visited MDHS in person, a supervisor in the office said her TANF case carried an unreimbursed balance of about $17,000 – a mathematical mystery since she’s only received a total of $146-a-month for both children, recently raised to $236-a-month, on and off over the last several years. TANF has a lifetime limit of 60 months. At one point, an MDHS caseworker told Thomas she had been receiving TANF for two children since 2008, before her second child was even born.
“I’ve calculated and added some things up myself and I’m like, you know, ain’t no way,” Thomas said. “… It’s a lot of things I’m not understanding, but I’m really thinking like it is really just (determined by) who reviews your case and files at the time. Like, if you have someone who is reviewing your case who might let some stuff slip through the system.”
Shortly after she began pressing the agency, Thomas found a letter in her mail. It was from the child support office, notifying her that her entire MDHS public assistance case had been closed. This wasn’t true, but it added to her list of issues to resolve. She wondered if her speaking out had triggered this notice.
A tender moment between then 2-year-old Kannan Thomas and his mom Danielle Thomas at their south Jackson home in 2021. During the pandemic, Thomas, a single mother of six, has had to juggle a job and overseeing virtual learning for her children. One of the biggest barriers to upward mobility for Thomas is access to child care. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today
Several days later, Thomas received another letter. This one targeted her 5-month-old, who had barely begun receiving assistance, and ordered Thomas to add the baby to her child support case. The notice said she had 21 days to visit the office and hand over paperwork proving the child’s father or her entire family would be cut off from assistance altogether.
Following Mississippi’s ban on abortion, which led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and others have advocated for more strictly enforcing child support. The policy is advertised as a protection for mothers.
But for Thomas, the state’s meddling has only hurt her.
“They usually don’t contact you this early,” Thomas said after receiving the last letter. “I really feel like once again, this has something to do with me going and talking to people about them.”
With about $12,000 in supposed unreimbursed TANF still hanging over her head, it’s questionable if she’ll ever see a dime of child support from any of the three fathers of her children.
By this point, Thomas was dejected.
“I don’t understand how this system works,” she said in a slow, flat voice. “I’m no longer trying to figure out how it works.”
In fact, Thomas understands better than anyone how the system works. It is working the way it was designed, by wearing down the people it purports to serve.
But then, after talking to a free legal aid office, Thomas learned she could request a formal hearing from the TANF office to challenge the paradoxical policy. It’s scheduled for later this month. She’s already downloaded and started reading the agency’s program manuals from its website.
“I’m actually not going to stop fighting,” Thomas said.
In one of her educational stints, Thomas was studying to become a paralegal. When she thinks about going back to school, that’s the career path she envisions.
If her TANF case is any indicator, she’s a natural.
A massive federal spending bill slated to be voted on this week includes $600 million for work on the beleaguered City of Jackson water system.
Congress is expected to vote this week on the $1.7 trillion spending bill that will avert a pending government shutdown and continue funding federal agencies through late 2023.
Little information was available Tuesday about the earmark for the City of Jackson. But tucked inside of the 4,155-page bill are appropriations of $150 million in one section and $450 million in another section in areas where “the president declared an emergency in August for fiscal year 2022.”
In August, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency as did Gov. Tate Reeves after customers in the Jackson Water System lost water pressure.
The loss of water pressure and perennial boil water notices were caused by long-term problems with the system. Those problems were exacerbated by flooding on the Ross Barnett Reservoir, which is the primary source of the city’s water.
The 180,000-customer system is plagued with numerous problems, including aging pipes that often freeze and burst during extreme cold snaps. In February 2021 during a prolonged cold period, most of Jackson lost water pressure for multiple weeks.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said earlier this week the extreme cold temperatures expected later this week could cause problems for the city’s water system, though, progress has been made in winterizing the O.B. Curtis Treatment Plant that treats most of the water delivered to the system’s customers.
The spending bill says the funds allocated for work on the water system would be administered by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Earlier this month, a federal judge approved an order for the U.S. Department of Justice to step in and oversee the troubled system. A third-party administrator has been appointed to oversee the system as part of the agreement.
Jordan Downs, chief of staff for 3rd District Rep. Michael Guest, who represent a portion of Jackson, confirmed that the money was placed in the spending bill at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Rep. Bennie Thompson of the 2nd District, who represents a large portion of Jackson, has been vocal in advocating for funds for the water system. He said $150 million of the total is for technical assistance and $450 million is for capital projects.
“I look forward to voting for the complete omnibus package,” said Thompson in a statement. “I am proud to support the $600 million that will be included … to help Jackson. Jackson also will be receiving additional funding from the omnibus bill.”
Sen. Roger Wicker said he intends to vote for the proposal. In addition to the funds for the city of Jackson, the Mississippi Republican said it provides money for many other infrastructure needs across the state.
“This legislation fully funds our National Defense Authorization Act while cutting the president’s proposed increase in domestic spending by 50%,” he said in a statement.” It represents the best possible opportunity to end this budget stalemate… and get our military men and women the resources they need to win.”
Gov. Tate Reeves has joined with 24 other states to ask President Joe Biden to end the Federal Public Health Emergency for COVID-19, which would allow the state to remove some people from Medicaid coverage.
First declared in January 2020 under the Trump Administration, the public health emergency gives health care providers flexibility in how they operate. This public health emergency has been extended repeatedly since — it was last extended again in October and set to end in January 2023, though the department has not indicated it will not renew. The department has said it will give governors at least 60 days notice before a declaration ends.
“It’s past time to get back to life as normal,” Reeves said in a tweet Monday.
His comment echoed the notion put forth by the governors in the letter: “While the virus will be with us for some time, the emergency phase of the pandemic is behind us.”
While Mississippi is not currently seeing a major surge, COVID-19 cases are still occurring on a daily basis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 3,255 cases were identified in Mississippi in the last week. Case numbers have ticked up slightly in recent weeks, but have not approached any of the earlier peaks. The CDC also reports that 53.5% of Mississippians have completed the primary vaccine series, a number that has held stagnant for some time.
During the public health emergency, states are not allowed to kick anyone off Medicaid under federal regulations. In exchange, the states have received extra federal funding.
In the letter, the governors say the increased number of people covered by Medicaid has been a drain on state funding. The percentage of each person’s care the federal government covered was increased, but the state has more people they are responsible for overseeing.
The governors say that 20 million people have been added to Medicaid coverage since the start of the pandemic, a number that “continues to climb as the (public health emergency) continues to be extended every 90 days.”
The Mississippi Division of Medicaid has also changed the services they provide for those who would have traditionally lost eligibility, to the confusion of patients and providers.
By lifting the public health emergency, Mississippi could return to only providing Medicaid coverage to specific groups: poor pregnant women, poor children, the disabled, some categories of the elderly and some caretakers of Medicaid recipients living in extreme poverty.
Hard to believe this has been my 57th year of covering sports in Mississippi. Fifty-seven years! Think about it. I covered the integration of sports in Mississippi. I covered the game-changing effects of Title IX on women’s sports. I have watched college baseball go from being a springtime dalliance to a huge business, one that Mississippi teams are extremely proficient at. Two years, two national championships. Can’t wait for next spring.
I have covered 13 head football coaches at Ole Miss, nine at Mississippi State — including the legendary Mike Leach, 13 at Southern Miss and 10 at Jackson State. That 13th coach at Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin, and that 10th at Jackson State, Deion Sanders, have kept me really busy here the last few weeks.
And I know what you’re thinking: Where is he going with this? Bear with me, I am getting there …
People ask me all the time: Do you ever get tired of writing about games or the people who play them? I do not. Every game is its own passion play. Every athlete has his or her own story. I have learned over the years, it’s not so much about the games as it is the people who play them. Fact is, sports are a huge part of Mississippi’s social fabric.
I love what I do. I love my job. Indeed, I love the job I have now more than any I have ever had. For the past six years, I have written my columns for Mississippi Today, joining this not-for-profit company not long after its launch.
I believe in Mississippi Today’s mission. I believe we have filled a void left by newspapers’ drastic cutbacks and, worse, closures, across the state. In a democracy such as ours, newspapers have been the traditional watchdog over government at all levels. In Mississippi, we were dangerously close to losing that, especially at the state level. Mississippi Today has filled the void.
As our newsroom has grown, so has our influence. One of the biggest news stories in Mississippi this year has been the Robin Hood-in-reverse, robbing-from-the-poor, giving-to-the-rich welfare scandal that has rocked the state. Mississippi Today’s Anna Wolfe first uncovered and then has owned that ongoing story.
What’s more, Mississippi Today currently is covering the state’s health care crisis as no other news organization has. Hospitals are closing, and many more are on the verge. Health services are being slashed. Hundreds of thousands of Mississippians cannot afford the care they need. Too many people are dying far before they should. State government has largely turned a blind eye to the catastrophe. Mississippi Today hasn’t. And won’t.
By now, you probably know that Mississippi Today is a non-profit newsroom. Our digital, public service journalism is free. We operate for the most part on gifts from foundations and on donations from readers such as you. Please consider helping us continue to cover Mississippi and its people in the manner it must be covered.
Most of all, keep reading. You keep reading, and we’ll keep telling your stories.
Now through December 31, the Maddox Foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s education program, and additional supporters will match your new recurring donation dollar-for-dollar, combined up to $54,000. That means your $25 turns into $100 to continue telling your stories.
Maddox Foundation was founded by Dan Maddox in 1968. He and his wife, Margaret Maddox, had a commitment to young people, a love of nature and a vision for making their corner of the world a better place. Maddox Foundation President Robin Hurdle has continued their legacy, which lives on through the current work of the foundation.
Maddox Foundation, located in Hernando, has made many signature investment grants into youth development. These investments include renovating and supporting the Margaret Maddox Family YMCA; putting an internet-connected computer in every public classroom in Mississippi; creating innovative places for children to learn and play; establishing the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi; and funding the Education Director position and the MTV exhibit at the Grammy Museum Mississippi.
The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation (JLFF), based in Berkeley, CA, supports organizations that advance social justice by promoting world-changing work in investigative journalism, the arts, documentary film and democracy. As a small foundation, JLFF’s investment in NewsMatch allows the Foundation to make a difference across the entire field of local investigative journalism.
The Hewlett Foundation’s Education program supports media outlets that strengthen the information ecosystem around our country’s K-12 education systems. They believe that local communities are a key part of improving teaching and learning opportunities for every student.
Los hospitales regionales más grandes en Mississippi, donde los pacientes más enfermos suelen recibir atención, están llenos, y los funcionarios de salud estatales están rogando a los habitantes de Mississippi que se vacunen contra el COVID-19 y la gripe para protegerse a sí mismos y al sistema de atención médica.
“Es la incapacidad de transferir (a los pacientes) a un nivel superior de atención: nuestros hospitales de Nivel 1 y Nivel 2 realmente están siendo inundados”, dijo el jueves el Dr. Dan Edney, Oficial de Salud del Estado. “… Hemos tenido muchas transferencias fuera del estado”.
Los hospitales de los estados vecinos también se encuentran en situaciones similares y no pueden aceptar transferencias.
Hasta el mediodía del jueves, algunos hospitales en Tennessee no aceptaban transferencias, dijo Jim Craig, adjunto principal y director de protección de la salud del Departamento de Salud del Estado de Mississippi.
Las camas disponibles en la unidad de cuidados intensivos (UCI) alrededor de Mississippi están disminuyendo, con 65 camas disponibles en todo el estado, una tendencia similar a los últimos dos inviernos, dijo Edney.
Hasta el jueves, solo había 27 camas de UCI disponibles en los hospitales más grandes.
“Son 27 camas para todo: traumatismos, accidentes cerebrovasculares, ataques cardíacos. No solo la gripe y el COVID”, dijo. “Queremos proteger esas camas lo mejor que podamos”.
El Centro Médico de la Universidad de Mississippi, el único centro de trauma de Nivel 1 del estado, estaba lleno, lo que significa que las camas están llenas, dijo un portavoz de UMMC a la 1 p.m. Jueves.
North Mississippi Medical Center en Tupelo, un centro de trauma de Nivel 2, ha negado un promedio de transferencia de un paciente cada día durante los últimos tres meses debido a problemas graves de personal. También ha tenido problemas para transferir pacientes a otros hospitales.
“Cuando tenemos que transferirnos, principalmente por servicios que no brindamos, como quemaduras, experimentamos más dificultades debido a los problemas de capacidad de los hospitales receptores”, dijo Kim Marlatt, vicepresidenta de marketing de North Mississippi Health System.
St. Dominic Memorial Hospital en Jackson también está experimentando problemas de capacidad.
“S t. Dominic’s está trabajando diligentemente para explorar todas las soluciones posibles para satisfacer las necesidades de atención y seguridad de los pacientes en las comunidades a las que servimos”, dijo Meredith Bailess, directora de marketing del hospital.
Edney, junto con el epidemiólogo estatal Dr. Paul Byers, instó a los habitantes de Misisipi a obtener su refuerzo bivalente de COVID-19, que incluye un componente de la cepa del virus original y un componente de la variante omicron para brindar una mejor protección contra la cepa dominante actual del virus.
“Este (refuerzo bivalente) es una vacuna de refuerzo muy importante para brindar protección no solo contra la infección, sino también contra esas hospitalizaciones y protegernos de las muertes”, dijo Byers. “Es extremadamente importante para nosotros ahora, especialmente para las personas más vulnerables de nuestra población, asegurarnos de que todas las personas elegibles estén al día con la vacuna de refuerzo bivalente”.
Mississippi está experimentando una actividad gripal “muy alta“, y Edney y Byers también alentaron a las personas a vacunarse contra la gripe.
Los habitantes de Mississippi pueden programar una cita para las vacunas contra la influenza y el COVID-19 en el sitio web del departamento de salud. Las citas para vacunas también están disponibles en el sitio web federal vaccines.gov.
Las personas pueden recibir el refuerzo COVID-19 actualizado incluso si no han recibido una vacuna de refuerzo anterior. Eso significa que si recibió dos dosis de Pfizer, Moderna o Noravax, o una dosis de Johnson & Johnson, califica para el nuevo refuerzo siempre que hayan pasado dos meses desde su última dosis. También es elegible si recibió una dosis de refuerzo hace más de dos meses.
“Haga lo que pueda para protegerse a sí mismo y a su familia para que no termine en el sistema de atención médica cuando está bajo estrés”, dijo Edney.
Andrés Fuentes
Andrés Fuentes es periodista de FOX8-TV en Nueva Orleans y traductor de Mississippi Today. Antes de que el nativo de Nueva Orleans regresara, era periodista para WLOX-TV en Biloxi, Mississippi.
