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The post Marshall Ramsey: Torn Paper appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann presided over the Senate on Thursday, a day after he collapsed in the chamber.

In brief remarks from the dias Thursday and a statement posted to social media, Hosemann said he had been dehydrated.

“I do want to apologize for interrupting the session yesterday,” Hosemann said, and joked, “I am going to ask the Rules Committee to make February 19, Hydration Awareness Day.”

A few minutes before 11 a.m. on Wednesday, as the Senate was about to take up its final appropriation bills for the day, Hosemann slumped over his lectern and microphone, then fell to one side.

Medical staff tended to him as regained consciousness and was sitting upright shortly after he fell. Later, Hosemann was seen walking out of the Capitol flanked by staff and security and he got in a government vehicle.

The Legislature quickly removed a video recording of Senate proceedings that showed the incident. The video remained unavailable on the Legislature’s YouTube page as of Thursday morning.

In a statement posted to social media on Wednesday evening, Hosemann said he hadn’t drunk enough water that day.

“Thank you all for the kind words and prayers,” Hosemann wrote. “I was dehydrated and am feeling fine now. I am grateful for Mississippi’s phenomenal medical professionals and am ready to go back to work tomorrow. Lesson learned: Stay hydrated.

Senators rose to give Hosemann a standing ovation before the body continued its normal proceedings.

“On behalf of the members of the Mississippi Senate and millions of Mississippians, welcome back and we’re glad you’re well,” said Republican Sen. Kevin Blackwell.

The post Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann back at Capitol day after collapsing appeared first on Mississippi Today.

“Anybody home?” Dee Dee Barlow Moore shouts from the window of her Jeep as she pulls up to a homeless encampment in North Jackson known as The Hill. Her truck is loaded up with clothes, water, gallon ziploc bags filled with snacks and 30 pound bags of dog food. Moore is a volunteer who spends her days supporting the homeless community and rescuing animals from the streets.

“This is what feeds my soul,” Moore said. “Serving these people gives me purpose and it actually makes me feel like I’m contributing and I’m trying to improve someone’s life. It may not be a big improvement. It may be enough for them to know that someone cares.”

Around Jackson, people experiencing homelessness have said their paths to being homeless have all been different. Josh said he lost his job during the COVID-19 pandemic. He decided to go into business restoring sport bikes, and after he put all of his money into one project, someone stole it from outside of the Motel 6 where he’d been staying. He lost his income, and within the month, he found himself on the streets for the last two years.

“I couldn’t pay for my room anymore, and it just snowballed from there,” Josh said.

Phillip, who is disabled, said he’s been homeless for the last five years.

“I had no place else to go but a shelter or a halfway house, and they’re just too messed up to go to,” said Phillip. “I try to stay away from drugs and that’s where they’re at. So I just stay in the woods.”

Preston Martin has been living in an encampment for over a year. He was released from prison and is now caught in a legal fight over his parole. 

“They wouldn’t let me go home, so this was the next step,” he said. “I don’t have anybody in Jackson, and I really don’t have any family to this day.” 

Another man experiencing homelessness closer to Downtown Jackson, Giom, a Marine veteran, said that in his two years on the streets, his encampment has become a safe space for homeless people. 

“This is the village is what we call it, and this is a family,” said Giom. “We take care of each other. People have been mistreated in other spots. This is a sanctuary for them. This is where they’re going to be safe. This is holy ground.” 

Anti-camping bills are being introduced in the Mississippi Legislature this year, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which allows cities to ban public sleeping, targeting homeless populations. 

Compared to other states, Mississippi has one of the lowest numbers of people experiencing homelessness, according to data from the 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Jackson has been praised for avoiding the homelessness crises other cities have experienced.

But that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from introducing legislation that could ban public camping or prohibit panhandling. 

“It’s a national topic, so I think they’re kind of jumping on the bandwagon, because honestly, our homeless numbers aren’t near as high as a lot of other states,” Moore said.

House Bill 1203 passed from the Mississippi House on Feb 5. Authored by Rep. Shanda Yates, an independent representing Jackson, the bill would prohibit camping on property that is not a designated space by a municipality or the county.

If passed into law, anyone who violates the bill and is convicted can be charged a fine of $50 after a hearing before a judge. The bill also states that alternative penalties may be imposed, but those penalties may not include jail time.

“The goal is to obviously encourage those who are sleeping on the street to go to shelters or other resource centers as opposed to sleeping on the street,” Yates told Mississippi Today.  “None of us feel that those who are sleeping on the street are getting resources or help that they need. There’s nothing on the street to help anybody there.”

The bill was met with pushback from House Democrats, with many questioning whether the bill would infringe on the rights of people experiencing homelessness.

“If I’m homeless, do you think I have $50 to pay for a fine?” asked Rep. John Hines, a Democrat representing Greenville, during the Feb. 5 floor debate.

“I don’t know what people do or do not have. I’m not here to speculate on that,” Yates replied.

Rep. Gene Newman, a Republican representing Rankin County, who introduced a similar unsuccessful bill, told Mississippi Today, “I’m not trying to be punitive to people. This is just trying to make sure they’re not infringing on other people’s rights by camping on the streets.”

The Senate advanced a separate bill, Senate Bill 2334, that would not only prohibit public camping, but also target panhandling by prohibiting solicitation without a permit, and provide for the removal of encampments after 48 hours. 

And in Jackson last year, the city council introduced an ordinance banning public sleeping outside. Ward 7 Councilwoman Virgi Lindsay said she received calls from her constituents, concerned about the unhoused taking over public parks.

“I was really hoping to bring the matter into focus so that we would have more energy and effort put into finding alternative housing solutions. What I came to realize was that it’s just such a complex and complicated issue,” Lindsay said.

The Jackson City Council postponed the vote indefinitely in December, which Lindsay said was to give council members more time to study the homelessness issue.

“I pulled the ordinance back because I think there just has to be more conversations, not only with the agencies that are providing services to the unhoused at this time, but also other nonprofit and church organizations to see if we can come up with a better plan to address the unhoused needs,” she said.

Homelessness advocates worry about what these bills, and potential fines, could mean for the homeless communities who are having to do without, especially as community conversations point to bans.

In the early morning hours in late January, Dawn Magee pulled a yellow vest over her winter coat in preparation to head into the woods in search of homeless encampments around south and west Jackson. She’s a volunteer for the Central Mississippi Continuum of Care, and she’s participating in a federal census known as the Point in Time Count, or PIT Count, when organizations across the country take a count of their homeless populations.

Magee, assistant administrator at Utopia Assisted Living, said she volunteers because it puts into perspective how much effort people experiencing homelessness put into building a community.

“You have the stereotype of homelessness that everyone is familiar with,” Magee said. “But when you go into the encampments, you see that there is actually a community. They look after each other. They take care of each other.”

The PIT survey starts like this: “Where did you sleep on January 22nd?”

Since 2005, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has required states to conduct a yearly census of their homeless populations in order to receive funding for homelessness services, such as permanent rehousing, rapid rehousing and shelters. Nationally, experts agree it’s a flawed count, often resulting in a much smaller number than the actual population.

The count attempts to quantify the number of homeless people who are sheltered, meaning the person is residing in temporary housing or a shelter, and unsheltered, those who are sleeping in places not meant for habitation, such as sidewalks, encampments and or abandoned buildings.

“It gives us a snapshot of our homeless population to show a snippet of how homelessness looks on one specific night within our five counties,” said Melvin Stamps, Planning Director for the local Continuum of Care organization covering five central Mississippi counties including Hinds County, where Jackson is located.

Local organizations are supplemented by funds from the Central Mississippi Continuum of Care. On average, the COC grants out about $1.3 million in federal dollars. For the 2025 funding year, that number increased to nearly $1.6 million. Stamps said every dollar gets into the hands of organizations.

“I can definitively say that all the service providers that are all funded through the COC, all of the money is expended and used within that granting period,” Stamps said. “We don’t have any money that has been recaptured that would cause them to not give us more funding.”

Data from the Central Mississippi Continuum of Care show the number of people experiencing homelessness in the region has pretty steadily declined since 2007, the start of available data. The count was the largest at 1,300 in 2008, then ranged from about 400 to 800 between 2015 and 2020. By 2024, the rate of people experiencing homelessness dropped to 273. About two-thirds were male, and more than half were Black. 

Stamps credits community awareness events and job fairs for the declining numbers, saying people who were at risk of becoming homeless were directed to resources, such as rapid rehousing or transitional housing.

“Any individual who had been identified to be homeless or at the verge of becoming homeless had providers and us who could be able to assist them and refer them over to a housing provider to ensure that their homeless experience, or potential homeless experience, will be brief and rare,” said Stamps. 

But local homelessness organizations say according t0 the requests they receive, the city is facing an influx of need. “Based on the phone calls we get daily, and we’re just one organization, the numbers are not accurate. They’re inaccurately low,” said Jackson Resource Center CEO Putalamus White.

Moore worries that the proposed legislation will lead to unnecessary jail time for the remaining homeless people who are trying to survive.

“They don’t have a dime to their name, don’t have clothing, don’t have hygiene products. Where are you going to put them?” Moore said. “If you take them to jail, how long are you going to hold them? Because you can’t hold them for something like that for long, and they’re going to be right back where they were.”

Lisa, who lives in an encampment in West Jackson with her husband Eric, worries about run-ins with police. She said that sometimes, homeless people are lumped into one with those who are committing crimes. 

“We got people out here doing stuff that’s not right, and all homeless people get blamed for it,” said Lisa. “We get profiled from having a backpack on. They say we’re a thief. I get accused of being a thief and I’m not. I don’t bother people. I try to stay out of the way, because my life has been threatened.” 

The Jackson Police Department said that the department will continue to respond to crime related calls that involve homeless people, though they aren’t looking to criminalize homelessness.

“Being homeless is not a crime, so we don’t go around the city telling people to move,” said Tommie Brown, Public Information Officer for the Jackson Police Department. “We don’t go around tearing down encampments. We only respond to crime related calls.”

Brown said JPD has a community engagement unit which supplies homeless people with resource guides for where to find shelter. If either bill makes it into law, JPD will enforce it, but Brown said there are a lot of issues to be addressed before the bill could work the way it’s intended.

“In order for the city or any city to be effective in enforcing laws that move homeless people along, or move them outside of what they have established as their place where they’re living or staying, the city needs to have options or alternatives to places where they can stay,” said Brown.

Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley said the issues of homelessness can be a drain on City resources such as the police and fire departments. 

“Right now we have fires all over the city,” said Hartley. “Some of them are related to homeless individuals trying to stay warm. It taxes our resources, and we don’t have a strategy, a plan to deal with it. So, I am encouraged by the state stepping up and saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to create laws.’”

Hartley said in a December City Council meeting that his ward has the bulk of the homeless population, around 80 percent he estimated. He’s concerned about the City’s ability to mitigate the issue without a designated homeless coordinator – a position it filled in the past – or the infrastructure needed to tackle the challenges that people experiencing homelessness deal with. 

Mukesh Kumar, a former Director of Planning and Development for the City said it helps to have a homeless coordinator because the city could concentrate mitigation efforts through one office. 

“It doesn’t have to be one person, but what it does is allow you to coordinate in a more organized way, but you still have to deal with several different entities,” said Kumar. “It’s not purely a housing problem, and having a coordinator allows you to coordinate all the services that you’re trying to provide.”

A homeless coordinator acts as a liaison between the homeless person and city and government resources. Because Jackson doesn’t have a homelessness coordinator, there isn’t a dedicated person in the city who can direct homeless people to those entities, such as nonprofit organizations and church groups, housing assistance or veteran services. 

“One can’t treat the unhoused population as they have the same problem, so you have to determine what approach you want to take to help the most people,” said Kumar. “It’s almost never a one size fits all challenge, and no two cities are going to be alike.” 

The city did recently approve a project with Jackson Resource Center to build a 60-unit tiny house village for very low-income Jacksonians, designed to address homelessness, in west Jackson, but months after the approval, White told Mississippi Today the city has yet to deliver a signed contract for the organization to break ground.

The City has not responded to repeated requests for an interview to discuss its strategy to address homelessness.

Mississippi Today requested the city’s 10-year strategic plan to end chronic homelessness, data gathered through the city’s participation in Functional Zero, and any other documents related to the city’s homeless programs.

The Built for Zero initiative seeks to ensure homelessness is rare and brief in communities across America, with Functional Zero set as a major milestone. Functional Zero means the number of people experiencing homelessness is not greater than the available housing during any given month. It requires cities to collect comprehensive data on their homeless communities and create equitable solutions.

The City only provided one document, the strategic plan drafted in 2006.

“The city needs to take leadership and at least develop a comprehensive plan to deal with homelessness, which includes some non-profits, but we need to take the lead,” Hartley said. “We need to first admit we have a problem. The second thing we need to do, in addition to admitting that we have a problem, is to say, ‘Here’s the plan of how we’re going to deal with it.’”

The post In a city without a plan, anti-public sleeping bills pop up at Jackson City Hall and state Capitol appeared first on Mississippi Today.

For nearly nine years, Mississippi Today’s team of dedicated journalists has provided impactful, nationally-renowned accountability journalism at the statewide level on behalf of every Mississippian.

We’re proud to announce this week that we’re adding a new aim to our newsroom’s mission: We’re launching a team of journalists focused solely on the city of Jackson.

For the past several months, we’ve been meeting with and listening to stakeholders across Jackson to determine how, exactly, we can best serve. It has become clear to us during this process that our capital city needs responsible and focused journalism now more than ever, and our journey officially begins today.

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s full coverage of Jackson

Depending on who you know, your personal experiences, the classes or churches you attend, the media you consume, or the route you take to work, Jacksonians carry very different perceptions of this wonderfully weird city. In this way, there become multiple — all very real — Jacksons. Ideally, the storytelling by Mississippi Today’s new desk will help readers understand one Jackson, in all its complexities.

When we’re doing it well, our reporting presents solutions and results in tangible impact — every proper journalist’s goal. Just as worthy is our mission to produce stories that delight, astound, inspire, haunt, instruct, excite, gobsmack, galvanize and advance more social connectedness in our city.

Rarely in our city’s 203-year existence has there been a more critical time to launch such an endeavor.

In the coming weeks and months, Jacksonians will be hiring a mayor, the executive in charge of managing the city and its $335 million budget, as well as seven city council members tasked with representing the interests of their wards. We hope the comprehensive 2025 Jackson Election Guide we published today, with words directly from all of the 54 candidates vying for public office, encourages better-informed civic engagement across the city during this historic election.

We’ll also be watching how Jackson’s interests play out during the legislative session — where funding requests for needs across the city are often overlooked by state leaders. And with so much tumult in Washington, we will closely cover the effects of the new administration on the critical federal resources Jackson is able to access.

Jacksonians deserve strong storytelling and deeper accountability reporting, and we are ready to provide just that.

This will include person-centered stories about housing, like Jackson Reporter Maya Miller’s report published today about the challenges facing homeless Jacksonians and efforts from state leaders to penalize them. (It’s the very definition of shoe leather reporting… she came back to the office recently with debris on her combat boots and the knees of her blue jeans.)

READ MORE: Maya Miller joins new Mississippi Today team covering Jackson

And tomorrow, a piece from me about predatory unlicensed care homes that have long plagued the city — a situation that has rattled me since my earliest days of reporting in 2014 when I first arrived in Jackson.

Our team’s coverage of safety will include stories on policing, of course, but as my reporter colleague Molly Minta sharply observed to me recently, examining the safety of Jacksonians can take many forms: taking stock of the public parks where our children play; code enforcement in the apartment buildings and houses where we live; accessibility to things like energy and rental assistance for those homes; and the care and regard that Jackson schools offer to our young people, many of whom are affected by trauma.

Other areas of focus for our team will include public education and schools, economic opportunities and civic engagement, and the effects of distrust in institutions.

Expect to see pieces that highlight Jacksonians, some in government, business, or one of thousands of registered nonprofits across the city, and some working independently, often creatively with few resources, to affect positive change in their communities.

And we will, of course, bring you stories about what your leaders are up to at City Hall (and elsewhere), always asking how their actions affect you.

We’ll be asking ourselves a lot of questions, too, about our role in helping Jacksonians stay informed and about the value and ramifications of the stories we choose to tackle.

Firstly, we want to continue to hear from you. Tell us what questions you need answered, which stories have been overlooked or deserve deeper coverage, and what information you need to feel empowered and more connected.

Can’t wait to hear from you.

The post Mississippi Today announces new team of reporters to cover the city of Jackson appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Today is pleased to announce that Maya Miller has joined the newsroom as a Jackson reporter.

Miller, who started in the newsroom in January, was the first reporter hired for Mississippi Today’s new Jackson team, which formally launched its coverage this week.

“As a lifelong Mississippian, I’m thrilled to be able to cover our state’s capital city and report on topics that are impactful to Jacksonian’s lives,” Miller said. “I’m excited to dive into issues of inequity and poverty, while also telling stories of community and Jackson’s immense potential.”

READ MORE: Mississippi Today announces new team of reporters to cover the city of Jackson

Miller, a Florence native and alumna of Jackson State University, joins the staff from The Gulf States Newsroom, where she reported on reproductive health, poverty and Black communities across three states. Previously, she was the managing editor for The Lighthouse, covering racial inequity, and deputy news editor for the Jackson Free Press, where she covered the criminal justice beat.

Her work has been featured on NPR and in Scalawag Magazine, where she wrote a piece in 2023 about the loss of her grandmother and the inheritance of her home. She’s been awarded a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Hard News and a National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award for her stories on Emmett Till and the Mississippi Delta.

“Maya is a classic storyteller. This reporting team and all Jacksonians are going to benefit enormously from her gifts. She has deep Mississippi roots and her commitment to home inspires me,” Jackson Editor Anna Wolfe said. “Simply put, I can’t wait to see what stories get brought to life only because she’s finding and telling them.”

The post Maya Miller joins new Mississippi Today team covering Jackson appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s largest hospital quietly left the Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative less than four months after it joined the group as a founding member. 

The University of Mississippi Medical Center no longer appears on the collaborative’s website. 

It is unclear if other hospital members will follow suit as they did in 2023 when UMMC terminated its membership with the Mississippi Hospital Association. 

UMMC and the Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative both declined to comment for this story. 

The change comes on the heels of the departure of Drew Snyder, the collaborative’s chief health policy officer, for a position as deputy administrator of the federal Medicaid program. 

The Mississippi Healthcare Collaborative has not announced a replacement. 

The new health care group was announced in November and united the hospitals that left the Mississippi Hospital Association, along with the state’s community health centers and several other hospital systems. 

The trade association splintered after the UMMC left in May 2023, with seven other hospitals following soon after. Four additional hospitals, all led by Gregg Gibbes, left the association in 2024.

UMMC cited concerns about transparency and communication in a letter to Mississippi Hospital Association announcing the medical center would be leaving. But many saw the exodus of hospitals as a rebuke of the association’s support for Medicaid expansion. 

The departure came just days after Mississippi Hospital Association’s political action committee made its largest-ever donation to then-gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley, a strong supporter of Medicaid expansion. 

The Mississippi Health Collaborative’s advocacy agenda for this year’s legislative session includes closing Mississippi’s health care coverage gap as a legislative priority, according to a document obtained by Mississippi Today.

“Like most healthcare providers, Collaborative members support pathways to close the healthcare coverage gap, from traditional Medicaid expansion to other hybrid models,” it reads.  

Its agenda also includes increased trauma care system funding, certificate of need reforms and changes to health care provider taxes. 

The collaborative contracts with Jackson-based lobbying firm Capitol Resources’ health policy wing, Health Resources for lobbying and consulting services. 

Capitol Resources is a strong supporter of Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. The firm’s political action committee has contributed over $70,000 to Reeves since 2018.

Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized UMMC’s membership in a hospital association. That reference has been removed.

The post UMMC quietly leaves new health care association appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Counseling appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A bill to legalize direct shipment of some wines to Mississippians’ homes will soon be considered by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves. 

After supporters fought for over a decade to get the Legislature to agree to the proposal, both chambers finally approved Senate Bill 2145. This bill allows citizens to order specialty or rare wines that cannot be purchased at Mississippi package stores.

Mississippi is one of only a handful of states that doesn’t allow direct shipment. House State Affairs Chairman Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs, told House members on Tuesday that some Mississippians circumvent state law by ordering wine from other states or countries, having it shipped to a friend’s house in another state and driving over to pick it up. 

“Make no mistake, this is happening now, and we are not collecting the tax revenue,” Zuber said. 

The House approved the measure 79-29 on Tuesday, and the Senate approved the measure 24-14 last week. 

If signed into law by Reeves, the legislation would enact a 15.5% tax on direct wine shipments and put a cap of 12 cases per year that a person can order. 

To ship wine directly to a Mississippian, a person must purchase a direct wine manufacturer’s permit from the Mississippi Department of Revenue. 

The post Legislature sends governor bill allowing direct wine shipment to Mississippi homes appeared first on Mississippi Today.

by Samuel Hughes with contributions from Miracle Jennings, Rowan Luke, Mallory Strickland, Srividya Karuturi, Gretta Graves, Gerome Webster

GULFPORT — Tall grass creeps up boarded windows. Overgrown lots hold little but broken glass and flat tires. Rotten porches sag under the weight of years of neglect. These sights of urban decay are common in Mississippi – and cleaning them up is not a simple job.

State leaders explain fixing the problem requires more than cutting the grass or tearing down crumbling homes. Many of these properties are caught in legal and financial gridlock, leaving cities without the resources to maintain or clear them for redevelopment.

How properties fall into disrepair

In neighborhoods across Mississippi, abandoned properties aren’t just neglected — they’re stuck in a cycle that keeps them from being restored.

Rev. John Whitfield has seen it firsthand in Gulfport. As pastor of Morning Star Baptist Church, he has watched homes deteriorate as families move away, taxes go unpaid and legal complications pile up.

“A lot of these properties become the way they are because parents will die, the children will not follow through with probating an estate, back taxes become due and they go unpaid,” Whitfield said. “The properties are then purchased at an auction, or they will lapse back to the state, and the state will take them for these back taxes.”

But many of these properties don’t get fixed. Buyers at tax auctions often don’t live in the community — and sometimes, they never intend to fix the property at all. ; others walk away once they realize the cost of repairs exceeds potential returns, leaving properties to sit untouched for years.

“As a consequence, it’s just a matter of neglect. It’s neglect on the part of families; it’s neglect on the part of heirs; it’s neglect on the part of elected officials,” Whitfield said. “It’s neglect on the part of those people who come into possession of these blighted and dilapidated properties; it’s neglect on the part of the State of Mississippi – the Secretary of State’s Office – who may come into possession or ownership of these properties.”

Whitfield believes systemic change is needed — not just in how the state handles abandoned properties, but also in how much financial support is available for communities struggling to clean them up.

The challenge for cities

While abandoned residences and empty lots look similar from the street, the cleanup process is different between properties owned privately and those owned by the state.

Under the current system, when a privately owned property is reported for disrepair, code enforcement officers are sent to do an assessment. If the property meets the legal definition of blight, they can issue warnings or order the property owners to make repairs.

For abandoned private properties, a public hearing is scheduled – typically with a two-week notice – to determine the next steps. However, many of these properties are owned by out-of-state investors or heirs who fail to show up, leaving cities with limited options.

At that point, cities can clean the property and bill the owner, but many local governments lack the revenue to pay for the cost on the front end, especially without a guarantee the owners will pay.

When it comes to properties already under state control, limitations increase. Rep. Shanda Yates, an Independent from Jackson, said part of the problem is the way the rules are set up when it comes to buying property through a tax sale.

“Right now, the way that properties are sold at tax sale is: you have your tax sale, if someone purchases the property or taxes, there’s a two-year redemption period,” Yates said. “During that two-year redemption period, nothing can be done to the property. Nobody can go in and clean it up or maintain it, tear down any dilapidated structure – essentially nothing.”

Yates explained if someone buys delinquent property taxes, the property owner must pay those taxes back at 18% interest to that buyer or lose their property.

“It’s stuck as sort of a holding period waiting to see if the original owner who did not pay the taxes is going to come forward, pay the taxes and reclaim their property,” Yates said.

After the redemption period, Yates explained, the person who bought the taxes can take the deed and own the property – or, more often than not – they refuse the deed and the property ownership goes back to the local governments to be sold again.

“There’s no end to how many times a property can be stuck in that cycle,” Yates said.

Ending the tax cycle

Yates sponsored two bills in the House to prevent properties from falling into the tax-sale cycle for decades and slowly falling into further disrepair.

Under House Bill 1198, after the end of the first cycle, if the purchaser of the delinquent taxes does not accept the deed, the property would go to the state and fall under the management of the Secretary of State’s Office.

Then, if enacted, House Bill 1199 would allow the Secretary of State’s Office to utilize any proceeds from selling tax-forfeited properties to maintain other state-owned, previously forfeited properties, to lessen the burden of maintenance on cities and counties.

The Mississippi Municipal League is also pushing for a Property Cleanup Revolving Fund. As outlined in House Bill 733 and Senate Bill 2023, the fund would establish a $5 million fund for low-interest loans for larger cities and grant opportunities for smaller ones to clean up blighted properties.

Rep. Randy Rushing, R-Decatur who sponsors House Bill 733, called it a base for building a much-needed support system.

“Having been a mayor of a small town, your funds are limited, and you have to prioritize your funds. So, when it comes down to the pecking order, cleaning up a dilapidated old structure or cleaning up a lot that is an eyesore is way down on the list when it comes time to do your budget every year. In a lot of municipalities and cities, it just doesn’t get done,” Rushing said.

“By creating this fund that strictly can only be used for that particular purpose, it allows a tool for our municipal government officials to reach in and borrow that money, or in your small towns’ case, it would be a grant to clean up a specific problem area,” Rushing continued.

Offsetting the burden with investors

Several lawmakers, including Rep. Jeffrey Hulum, D-Gulfport sponsored bills in the 2025 legislative session aimed at addressing blight and soothing cities’ financial roadblocks. One of the key measures Hulum outlines is $350,000 in state appropriations for West Gulfport.

For Hulum, it’s an issue of public safety, public health and economic vitality.

“When I drive around my city, when I drive around my district, and I see all the blighted properties, the rundown housing, the overgrown lots; You start to think, ‘As an investor, would you invest in that area?’ And when the answer is no, you say, ‘What can I do to help the people?’ … You’ve got to go above and beyond the municipality to the state level and try to bring monies to the municipalities to improve that area,” Hulum said.

Yates believes, while using state funds for special projects can be effective in clearing blighted areas, providing developers incentives to develop state-owned property offers a long-term solution to improving state-owned blighted property.

Yates said House Bill 1201 could be the solution. The legislation proposes tax credits for developers who purchase state-owned, tax-forfeited property. In her district of Jackson, she’s seen first-hand the cost conundrum investors face.

“We know that there are housing developers that would be interested in coming in and buying chunks of property and building affordable housing,” Yates said. “An average house, from what we’ve been told, would cost about $150,000 to build. Unfortunately, in the current market and in the current areas where the housing is needed, it’s not going to sell for $150,000 – probably closer to $95,000 … So, the tax incentives would allow the developer to remain whole.”

Currently, there are solutions to making the numbers work for developers, according to David Perkes, director at Mississippi State University’s Gulf Coast Community Design Studio. Gulfport, for example, receives U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grants and federal HOME funds that can be used as grants to help cover the cost of construction, to fill the gap in neighborhoods that suffer from low property value.

Perkes said these federal programs, along with other community development efforts, can help to raise property values in communities, enabling property owners the assurance and ability to invest in their property.

“I would love for our elected officials to take serious: renovating, removing, improving blighted properties and dilapidated homes within our communities, to provide grants for those people on fixed incomes to make the improvements necessary for their houses to become not an eyesore, but to become the primary attraction on that block,” Whitfield said.

“If we invested in people through community development corporations, and had the very people who live in those communities to help bring about this change, then you have ownership, where people feel like they have invested something in it — whether sweat equity or money out of their pocket — then they will protect it and they will begin to police themselves.”

Outlook for state-owned lots

Assistant Secretary of State Lands William Cheney believes, regardless of what legislation is passed, any funding to the Secretary of State for maintenance will give cities more options for reimbursement if they look to maintain state-owned lots.

“Before the legislature changed the funding in 2016, we had a couple hundred thousand dollars. It was never a huge amount, but it was enough to help keep the grass cut twice a year,” Cheney said. “But what they’re now talking about is like a couple million. Now, if it is a couple million, that’s cutting grass, that is demolishing some of these homes.”

Following a housing market crash in 2013, the Secretary of State had an inventory of 20,000 properties statewide in 2014. Now, through aggressive efforts to auction these properties, it has an inventory of about 6,800 properties, about 2,000 of which are in Hinds County.

Cheney said in many areas, such as those with poor infrastructure or a lack of civil services, a holistic approach is required to sell state-owned lots back onto the tax roll.

“It’s not just, ‘Oh, give the state some money to cut the grass.’ Well, if it’s got a bad road, you’re still not going to sell it. It doesn’t matter whether that piece of property is in the city limits of Jackson, on the Coast, or anywhere; if you don’t want to live on it, I’m going to have a hard time selling it,” Cheney said.

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Former U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo will pay $30,000 to settle with the Federal Election Commission, which found he used campaign money for personal expenses.

Palazzo, a certified public accountant and former state legislator who lost his congressional reelection bid in 2023 to now U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell, faced ethics and campaign finance scrutiny for several years while in office.

The FEC found he paid $3,000 a month from his campaign to a company he owned for rent of a river house in D’Iberville he alleged was a campaign office despite “almost no campaign activity” being done there, a report said. In his settlement with the FEC, he agreed to pay a civil penalty of $13,500 and cover outstanding campaign debt of $16,500. The FEC noted Palazzo had already reimbursed his campaign $23,000 for personal use of a vehicle the campaign leased.

The FEC investigated Palazzo after Republican primary opponent Carl Boyanton filed a complaint.

Palazzo, who held the District 4 Mississippi U.S. House Seat from 2011 to 2023, also faced probes by the Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee. The OCE, in a 2021 report, claimed that Palazzo misspent campaign and congressional funds and said it found evidence he used his office to help his brother and used staff for personal errands and services. After its investigation, the OCE handed the matter off to the House Ethics Committee.

But the House Ethics Committee, after a year-and-a-half long probe, did not take any action on the issue and let the matter drop when a new Congress took office.

READ MORE: Rep. Steven Palazzo ethics investigation: Is the congressman’s campaign account a slush fund?

The allegations in the OCE report included that Palazzo used campaign funds to pay himself and his erstwhile wife nearly $200,000 through companies they own, including thousands to cover the mortgage, maintenance and upgrades to a riverfront home Palazzo owned and wanted to sell. But Palazzo said that the payments were legally made for the campaign’s rent of the home for a campaign office.

A Mississippi Today investigation in 2020 also questioned thousands of dollars in Palazzo campaign spending on swanky restaurants, sporting events, resort hotels, golfing and gifts. Federal law and House rules prohibit using campaign money for personal expenses. The Palazzo campaign at the time said it had found a few mistaken, non-permissible purchases and the Palazzo had repaid the campaign.

READ MORE: Ethics complaints against Rep. Steven Palazzo likely to ‘evaporate’ in Congress

The OCE report also claimed Palazzo had used congressional staffers for personal errands and campaign work. It said former staffers it interviewed said Palazzo’s office failed to separate official work from campaign and personal activities, including shopping for his kids. In 2011, during his first term in office, Palazzo had also faced allegations that he and his wife used congressional staffers for babysitting, chauffeuring kids around and moving.

Palazzo on Tuesday responded with written statements about the case.

“It’s not the complete exoneration we had hoped for, but I’ll take it,” Palazzo said. “My family, friends, and loyal supporters have endured 5 years of lies and half-truths created by my 2020 political opponents. They couldn’t beat me at the ballot box, so they had to resort to malicious allegations and distortions. They may have taken the seat from me, but they cannot take 12 years of successful service for our military, veterans, and families in South Mississippi. I delivered on my promise to make Mississippi stronger and more prosperous for future generations, and I’m glad President Trump is continuing what we started in 2011.”

Palazzo said: “At no time were campaign funds converted to personal income. All expenditures were approved by my campaign treasurer for ordinary and necessary campaign expenditures … “$13,500 is not a hefty fine, but it is a lot of money to me. To see this finally resolved and to be fined for technical violations is a huge win. The other money will pay off some outstanding campaign debt which is normal for all campaigns.”

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