Equity
COVID-19 has made in-person court too risky, but eviction hearings continue — virtually
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As the pandemic continues to strip income, tenants have been ordered to appear in virtual court to answer for unpaid rent to their landlords.
Jobs and Workforce
Mississippi makes mad dash to ‘ReSkill’ workers before the end of the year
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State leaders must spend millions on a workforce training program called ReSkill MS before the end of the year.
Equity
Mississippi Works? Four years later, state has used just one-tenth of $50 million workforce fund
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Officials don’t know the scope of the state’s taxpayer-funded training happening and its results, several of them told Mississippi Today.
Equity
How can Mississippians receive rental assistance to avoid eviction?
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In Mississippi, the program to prevent homelessness during the pandemic is called the Rental Assistance Mississippi Program. View a map of where rental assistance is available across the state.
Coronavirus in Mississippi
Unemployment rate — and the number of people seeking work — jumped in July as pandemic relief neared an end
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The state’s unemployment rate, which had hovered around 5.5% before the pandemic, was 10.8% in July, just above the nation’s rate of 10.1%,
Equity
Trump supporter kicks tenant out after political disagreement, showing renters live at the whims of landlords
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The difference between housing stability or an expulsion can hinge on personalities and the landlord-tenant relationship.
Equity
Over half of Mississippi renters could face eviction during pandemic without help from Congress
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Congress hasn’t issued COVID-19 relief after crucial protections expired in July, thrusting many families into greater economic uncertainty.
Coronavirus in Mississippi
Where there’s uncertainty in the pandemic, poverty is a constant
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The pandemic has both offered a short reprieve and exacerbated existing turmoil for Mississippi families living in deep poverty.
Mississippi Welfare
Was welfare misspending a one-man scheme? Here’s how Human Service spent TANF since the former director left.
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Welfare dollars have continued to flow to two Mississippi nonprofits accused of spending millions on services that didn’t help poor families.
Mississippi Welfare
In a pandemic-ravaged economy, state welfare agency isn’t offering more cash assistance to families in need
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Director says state law, current agency standards didn’t allow agency to quickly re-prioritize programs to provide more assistance to needy families.
Mississippi Welfare
Q&A: New DHS director considers increase to welfare benefits, expanded eligibility to serve more Mississippians in need
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The new director of Mississippi’s welfare agency says the state should look at increasing benefits and expanding eligibility for cash assistance.
Coronavirus in Mississippi
‘A disease of a splintered society’: Politics and science clash in community COVID-19 response
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As pandemic responses have polarized communities across Mississippi, not even medical professionals are immune to the discord.
Coronavirus in Mississippi
The ones who never went home: Mississippi plant workers call for greater COVID-19 protections after coworker’s death
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Mississippi’s “sea of outbreaks,” fueled by community COVID-19 transmission, is creating dangerous working conditions in factories across the state.
Equity
Rooting for and rooting out the Confederate mascot in small town Mississippi
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As the state reckons with Confederate imagery and its place in the state, residents of Caledonia are debating whether the local high school mascot, the “Confederates,” belongs anymore.
Mississippi State Flag
‘Picking sides’: How a conservative Gulf Coast community grapples with the Mississippi state flag debate
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Within debate over the current state flag, which contains the Confederate battle emblem, rural, white Mississippi asks, “Why do I have to change?”