Mississippi relies on foreign aid

One of the poorest areas of the U.S. is in central Mississippi. The area is so poor that is not only depends on government assistance from the U.S. but it relies on foreign aid as well.

From the Huffington Post, writer Marian Wright Edelman of the Children's Defense Fund tells us how they made this discovery.

The Children’s Defense Fund commissioned Julia Cass, an award-winning journalist, to prepare a report on child poverty and to interview poor children and families. She began in Quitman County, Mississippi, a touchstone of poverty in America that was the starting point of the 1968 Poor People's Campaign.

There, she made a startling discovery: Enriching experiences for children are so meager and government aid so spotty that after school tutoring and reading programs in Quitman and three other Mississippi Delta counties are financed by what is essentially foreign aid—The Bernard van Leer Foundation of the Netherlands.

"The foundation focuses on children and families in what it refers to as oppressed societies," said Betty Ward Fletcher. Her Jackson-based consulting firm was contracted by the Dutch foundation to help it design a program in Mississippi, called Children's Villages, for children aged 5 to 14. "Some of its people wondered why it should be working in the most affluent country in the world, but they decided the reality is, we have poor children in this country who are denied the opportunity to be all they can be." Fletcher heard of a ten-year-old boy consistently breaking into homes. He would eat and play on the computer and then leave.

People and jobs are leaving Quitman County, as in other parts of rural America. Adults without the money or education to make it elsewhere are stuck—and their children are stuck with them.

A good education is a major escape route but it is a well-known disgrace that America's poorest children generally go to the worst schools, which perpetuates disadvantage. A study done by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts found that of American children born to parents in the bottom fifth income level, 42 percent—and 54 percent of African American children—remained there as adults.

Only about 30 percent of the children who graduate from Quitman County's Madison Palmer High School go to college, primarily to the two junior colleges in neighboring counties. About two graduates a year have the test scores and scholarships to make it to the University of Mississippi. Very few go to colleges outside Mississippi and none make it to an Ivy League or top-drawer private college or university.

Anti-Poverty march this weekend in Jackson, Mississippi

An anti-poverty march will take place in Jackson, Mississippi this weekend. The size of the march is what we are not sure on. Organizers say "busloads" yet the local police will not have extra patrols around for the march.

The organizers are the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who traces their roots to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The march will begin in the inner city and make it's way to the state capitol. Some say the numbers may be small, and that the SCLC should have done more to get the word out.

From Macon dot com, writer Shelia Byrd tells us more about the conference's roots.

The SCLC was co-founded by the King in 1957. When King was killed in 1968, he was working on a similar initiative to reduce poverty, especially in hard-hit areas of the country. Evans said efforts to help the poor on a large-scale began to wane after that.

"We just let it lay. I'm not trying to be accusatory, but we went into the 70s doing our own things and it ended last year with almost the ruin of America," Evans said.

The renewed push comes as the nation grapples with a deep recession, and Congress has steered billions in federal dollars to corporate bailouts. Clay has said the poor have been left out.

King's campaign was to culminate in a march in Washington, D.C., and Clay said initially that's where the SCLC had planned to revive the movement.

But he said God instead directed him to go to Jackson, a capital city with a population of 176,614 that is nearly 71 percent black. Twenty-three percent of the population lives under the poverty level. He said Mississippi also is home to the Delta region, considered among the poorest areas in the nation.

Some residents living in a poor area of Jackson where people are to gather Saturday said they weren't told about the march.

Mobilizing marchers in Mississippi

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has been trying to mobilize people to join them in an anti-poverty march in Jackson, Mississippi. The state has one of the biggest concentrations of poor people in the nation. The SCLC hopes to give more attention to the people struggling, and that they are struggling even harder in this recession.

From this Associated Press article that we found in the Picayune Item, SCLC leader Rev. Byron Clay describes his plans for the march.

Clay was in Jackson on Wednesday to announce details about the campaign, which is similar to the initiative Dr. Martin Luther King was working on before he was killed in 1968. The renewed push comes as the nation grapples with a national recession, and Congress steers billions in federal dollars to corporate bailouts. Clay said America’s poor have been left to fend for themselves.

“The working families in this nation are in deep trouble,” Clay said.

The June 20 demonstration will be held at the Mississippi Capitol. Poverty hearings will follow Aug. 1-5 at the SCLC’s national convention in Memphis, Tenn.

Initially, the SCLC wanted to take its march to Washington, D.C.

“We had pretty much concluded that’s where we were going to go,” Clay said. “And one morning the Lord spoke to me and said ’Take this march to Jackson, Miss.”’

He said Mississippi leads the nation in “terms of suffering and poverty. We thought we would bring the nation here so they can witness firsthand.”

But the SCLC will be more than 100 miles away from pockets of the Mississippi Delta with some of the highest illiteracy, teen pregnancy and disease rates in the nation. Surrounded by fertile flatlands, the area was once a sea of cotton plantations, where blacks often worked as sharecroppers for white landowners. Many of its residents still live in ramshackle homes and some towns have streets that haven’t been paved for decades.

Video: Poverty's vicious cycle from CBS News

Video: Poverty in Mississippi

Rising Insurance costs keeping Habitat houses locked in Mississippi

After Hurricane Katrina, Habitat for Humanity built 100s of houses in the Gulf area. But for one state, many of the houses built still haven't been occupied.

In Mississippi, the rising insurance coasts have kept the people out. Only 6 out of the 30 houses have been filled. The people have been having trouble saving for the first year taxes and insurance that Habitat requires.

In this Associated Press story found in the Desoto Times, the prospective homeowners have had to apply for other grants to raise the money.

"It is a struggle. That is not unique to Habitat families. It's a struggle to most first-time buyers," Monforton said.

But Hurricane Katrina, which hit in 2005, has exacerbated the average challenges homebuyers face.

The storm nearly wiped out Mississippi's coast, taking with it affordable housing. That is compounded by some insurance companies, scared off by the hurricane risks, greatly increasing their rates and others pulling out of the region altogether.

Since Katrina, rates along the Gulf Coast have increased about 33 percent in some areas, depending on how close a property is to the water, said Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney.

...

All of the Mississippi homes have been assigned. Some of the families are turning to outside grant programs for assistance with varying degrees of success. Families who qualify for up to a $48,000 grant through the state's Katrina work force housing program were waiting to receive that money before closing. But Monforton said the grant can't be used for taxes and insurance.

Tracey Robinson, 40, just moved into her Habitat home after receiving a grant from the city of Pascagoula to help cover her insurance costs. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently stopped paying Robinson's rent at a house she moved into after she left a FEMA trailer.

"My kids and I were at the point where we really didn't have anywhere to go," said Robinson.

Mississippi still plugging away at poverty

from WDAM

This story details the state's efforts on fighting poverty. A recent report omitted Mississippi from it's findings, despite it's having the highest poverty rate in the US. - Kale

The report from the Center for Law and Social Policy, or CLASP, discussed Connecticut's initiative to cut child poverty in half by 2014, and Louisiana's goal to do the same thing by 2018.

Mississippi hasn't set a target date for reducing poverty in any demographic. It has created legislative committees and task forces to look at the issue - an approach that's yielded few tangible results.

In 2006, the Legislature created the Delta Revitalization Task Force to focus on a region of the state that's cursed by high poverty and illiteracy rates. The multi-county area also has inadequate health care and decrepit infrastructure.

The task force met with residents, business and community leaders and state officials, collecting information about the systemic problems fueling the poverty rate. For the past two years, the panel has offered legislation based on those findings, but most of the bills were unsuccessful.

House Speaker Billy McCoy, D-Rienzi, created a select Poverty Committee this year. Its charge was similar to the Delta task force, but applicable to the entire state. Ten bills were referred to the Poverty Committee, including proposals to create a commission on health, to open an obesity clinic in the Delta and to create a task force to study the feasibility of an affordable housing trust fund. All of them died.

The author of the CLASP study, Jodie Levin-Epstein, said Mississippi should have been among the states listed, but she was unaware of the Poverty Committee.

"Just the emergence of the efforts are a signal that the political will that seemed totally nonexistent is at least rebirthing," said Levin-Epstein, referring to the anti-poverty initiatives under way across the nation.

While Levin-Epstein attributes a certain mind-set to the Poverty Committee's creation, state Rep. Reecy Dickson believes personal attitudes and beliefs have hindered some proposed policies and programs.

"What we're finding is such insensitivity among a number of representatives because they don't have the foresight. You have so many folks who only understand their communities and their needs," said Dickson, who was appointed chairwoman of the Poverty Committee.

Dickson, D-Macon, has attended meetings around the state, where she's heard about the lack of job opportunities, the need for childcare, and the probability of poverty rising with a growing elderly population.

"Mississippi is not able to sustain poverty and its impact," Dickson said.

A good place for lawmakers to make a change would be a reduction in the state's 7% grocery tax, said Warren Yoder, executive director of the Public Policy Center of Mississippi. Yoder said 1 of every five Mississippi families doesn't have enough money to always feed children nutritious meals. He said that's the highest rate ever in the U.S.

An attempt to reduce the state's grocery tax failed in 2006. It had been part of a proposal that also sought to raise the tobacco tax.

"There's been no shortage of good ideas. The shortage is of political goodwill to make things happen," Yoder said.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Mississippi poverty rates continue to rise

from The Reflector

State's poverty levels increasing due to general low education level
Dan Malone

The poverty rate in Mississippi is still on the rise, according to a census released last week.

While national poverty rates are declining, Mississippi's rate is up from 19.9 percent in 1999 to 21.1 percent. Mississippi has led the nation in poverty for several years.

The Mississippi Economic Policy Center released a report in April that showed almost 130,000, or 39 percent, of Mississippi's working families live in low-income households. The report also indicates that 35 percent of the state's jobs are low-wage occupations.

It is a centuries-old problem that has proven to be a continuing trend for the state, said Charles Campbell, an MSU finance and economics professor.

Campbell said he agrees with many who say Mississippi's biggest problem surrounding poverty is the generally low education level of the state's impoverished.

"The key is education," Campbell said. "Too many people do not have a stake in the community because they have few skills and no education."

He said he believes the separation of quality education between black and white communities has to do with the private school system.

"In Mississippi public school systems you have what's called the tipping point, which is the percentage of schools that become populated with [an African-American majority,]" Campbell said. "This point is when whites flee and attend private schools. When that happens, all of the money is taken out of the school system and there becomes little incentive to change that."

A disconnect has occurred between the majority of Mississippi citizens and the educational system, he said.

"Unfortunately a lot of people do not want to see any kind of tax increase in this state. They do not see money for education as an investment in their community," he said.

An infusion of money and people along with an emphasis on local, high quality educational programs are the way to turn the problem around, Campbell said.

According to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has approved millions of dollars for work force training programs at the state's junior colleges over the last three years. Barbour also said he has plans to reform the state's tax system in hopes of lowering taxes for low-income families.

Arthur Cosby, director of the Social Science Research Center at MSU, believes that an increase of Hispanic labor along the coast also attributes to the rising poverty rate.

Rebuilding projects along the coast have brought an influx of low-income Hispanic families to Mississippi, he said.

"The economy in Mississippi is pretty good. We have a lot of money coming in from insurance and the slate is clean in terms of economic activity," Cosby said. "A lot of low-income families will go where the work is and Katrina has brought a great deal of work to Mississippi."

MSU students view Mississippi's rising poverty rate as a familiar.

MSU sophomore and political science major Christen Brooks said, "I think Katrina could be a cause of the rising poverty rate. When you have something like that happen, a lot of people went homeless, and poverty is influence by homelessness."

Junior political science major Maia Miller said Mississippi unfortunately has a stereotype of being low on the education pole.

"Even though there are other states that are lower in education, Mississippi's poverty rate is not a single issue," she said. "With low education you get other problems like teen pregnancy, poverty in Mississippi is not a single issue."

Mississippi's poverty a draw for politicians

from Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal

Edwards' visit last week only the most recent of many by national figures.

By SHELIA BYRD
Associated Press Writer

When politicians want to talk about poverty, Mississippi, especially the Delta, has been a jumping off point.

In 1968, Democrat Robert Kennedy's 200-mile poverty tour included stops in Mississippi. The late Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., came through in 1997, followed by President Bill Clinton in 1999.

The latest political figure to launch a poverty tour was Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. The former North Carolina senator said during stops last week in Canton and Marks that he wanted to shine a light on the nation's poor and find ways to end economic stagnation.

These tours reminded the nation, albeit briefly, about the persistent grip poverty has on Mississippi, where 19.9 percent of the population lives below the poverty level, several counties have unemployment rates in the double digits and substandard housing proliferates statewide. However, politicians focus on the Delta.

What tangible benefits has Mississippi reaped from these tours?

In 1999, Clinton pledged $15 million to the Mississippi Delta, part of $46.5 million in community development grants to bolster private investment.

Thanks to Clinton, the region earlier had received millions of dollars in tax breaks and other incentives to attract industries. Those incentives led to the creation of some small to medium-sized businesses in the Delta, but big industry development is rare and farming remains the region's main employer.

Wellstone, a progressive Democrat who died in a 2002 plane crash, kicked off his 1997 tour in Tunica County, bringing a busload of news reporters and network television crews.

Again, the nation peered into the lives of poor Mississippians, a few of whom lacked bathrooms in their homes. But they also saw progress. Some residents were now living in three-bedroom homes instead of shacks as a result of good-paying jobs from the growing casino industry.

"A lot of times this notion about a poverty tour is really about raising awareness rather than producing a tangible policy benefit," said John Bruce, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi.

Bruce said this increased awareness can bring about new strategies over time, but "what comes out may be an unrecognizable product of what started."

Bruce said the tours of Wellstone and Edwards were perfect examples of raising awareness.

"(Barack) Obama and Hillary (Rodham Clinton) are being so careful they don't want to make a mistake, and being third, Edwards is able to speak out and make headlines," Bruce said, referring to the leading Democratic candidates for president.

Edwards stopped in Canton to listen to poultry plant workers, who complained about low wages and mistreatment by their employers. The workers, most of them Hispanic, said they had to live in dilapidated or rundown housing because that's all they could afford.

He then went to Quitman County in the Delta and heard a call for more jobs.

Edwards told both groups he wanted to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour, provide universal health care and create a savings plan for the low-income.

If nothing else, Edwards gets credit for helping poverty emerge as a top issue in the Democratic campaign. Two days after Edwards' tour began, presidential hopeful Obama gave tackling the problems of poverty more prominence in his speeches.

Obama said his first step would be to attack urban poverty by expanding a New York City program that provides to an entire neighborhood training for expectant parents, early childhood education, and charter schools, among other services.

Obama said he would roll out his anti-poverty initiatives for rural areas in coming weeks, and though he's already stopped in Mississippi earlier this year, it's possible he'll swing this way again.