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Already dire lack of affordable housing for low-income Mississippians on verge of worsening

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mississippitoday.org – Simeon Gates – 2024-11-04 11:00:00

In Mississippi, where there’s already a dearth of 50,000 or more affordable homes for extremely low-income residents, that number could grow in the next five years.

Housing units available under the federal Low Income Tax Credit program could lose their affordability by 2030 –a number estimated nationwide to be 350,000 with 2,917 in Mississippi, alone; 496 in the state already have.

The federal program responsible for most of the nation’s affordable housing is expiring.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit, introduced as part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986,  provides for developers to buy, build and restore low-income housing units. Under the deal, the housing only needs to stay low-rent for 30 years. Construction began in the early 1990s. 

Some LIHTC housing will remain affordable due to other subsidies, nonprofits, state law and individual landlords.

“I think the low-income housing tax credit has done everything that it can to address the need for affordable housing around the state,” said Scott Spivey, executive director of the Mississippi Housing Corporation, a state office that administers the program and works with the state government and those in the affordable housing industry to create and support affordable housing

Spivey supports the proposed Affordable Housing Credit and Improvement Act, a federal bill that would expand upon the low-income housing tax credit in several ways, including giving developers more credit for certain projects for low-income households and changing tenant eligibility rules. 

The bill was introduced in the House and the Senate last session, and is co-sponsored by Mississippi Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker and in the House by Reps. Mike Ezell, and Michael Guest. As of this spring, both bills are in committee. 

While housing has become a major issue for Americans, getting legislation passed has been challenging. “Everybody knows that housing is an issue, but it gets caught up with everything else…and it kind of gets lost in the shuffle,” said Spivey.

This issue is especially important in Mississippi, where demand for housing is high across all incomes. 

“All the market studies that we see that come with the applications tell us that there’s a huge need for affordable housing across the state at all the income bands” said Spivey.

According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, almost a third of Mississippi renters are extremely low income; 65% of them are severely cost burdened, meaning they spent more than half their income on rent. The majority of these households are seniors, disabled people, single caregivers of young children, people enrolled in school, or other. 

Director of Housing Law at the Mississippi Center for Justice, Ashley Richardson said housing problems worsened after Mississippi stopped participating in the federal rental assistance program in 2022.

MCJ’s work on housing includes a statewide eviction hotline, investigating instances of housing discrimination, and more. 

Richardson praised the LIHTC program, but echoed Spivey’s concerns. “Even with the affordable housing we do have in Mississippi, we are still at a lack,” she said. 

The National Housing Preservation Database estimates Mississippi is short 52,421 affordable and available rental homes for low-income people. The National Low Income Housing Coalition puts the figure at 49,478.

Richardson wants the state to deal with issues like providing more tenant protections and rental assistance. There’s also a need to improve homes that are rundown or in poor condition, and many housing nonprofits are running out of funding. 

Spivey said people should talk to their property managers and learn about their rights. MHC’s website has resources for homebuyers and renters.

As the housing crisis goes on, there are options for people struggling to find and keep affordable housing and an effort to take action at the federal and state levels.  

Some aspiring low-income homeowners may qualify for Habitat for Humanity, a program that builds homes for families in need. Families who qualify work on the homes alongside volunteers, pay an affordable mortgage and receive financial literacy education.

New applicants must meet the qualifications, including a good debt-income ratio, 125 hours of sweat equity and taking classes on financial literacy, home repairs, and being a good neighbor.

Merrill McKewen, executive director for Habitat for Humanity Mississippi Capital Area, emphasized the importance of housing to individuals and communities. 

“There are untold studies that have been done that, you’ve gotta have a safe, decent, affordable place to live. The children are better students, the parents are better employees…it grounds you to a community that you can contribute to and be a part of. It is the American dream, to own a home, which is what we’re all about,” she said. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

JXN Water to send notices about lead line inventory

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mississippitoday.org – Alex Rozier – 2024-11-20 17:07:00

JXN Water said Wednesday it’s confirmed no lead in about 43% of the city’s service lines, and that it will continue to investigate the remaining lines as it complies with recently updated guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency.

A representative for Jacobs, a contractor that manages the city’s drinking water plants for JXN Water, told Mississippi Today their goal is to fully determine whether there’s lead in any of the city’s nearly 75,000 service lines by 2027.

Yvonne Mazza-Lappi, water compliance manager for Jacobs, said JXN Water has so far identified nearly 14,000 galvanized iron service lines, or about 18% of the total amount. For each of those lines, she explained, JXN Water will have to find out if they were ever downstream of a lead service line, as lead particles can attach to the surface of those pipes according to the EPA. If so, JXN Water will have to replace the galvanized line.

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There are another roughly 29,000 service lines, she added, where the material is unknown.

“With this inventory, the EPA requires certain validation,” Mazza-Lappi said. “So we can’t just assume that someone’s service line is non-lead. We have to prove that. We use historical records. If we don’t have enough of those, we do build inspections.”

The EPA in October finalized a revision to its Lead and Copper rule, requiring public water systems around the country to find and replace lead service lines over the next decade.

JXN Water released a mapping tool where residents can look up their address and see the latest information for their service line, both on the customer side and the utility side. JXN Water spokesperson Aisha Carson said the utility will mail notices this week to residents that fall in the “unknown” or “galvanized” categories.

Mazza-Lappi said that so far, JXN Water has found just four lead service lines in the city, and that it replaced those lines earlier this year. She said they also offered those residents filters and will do follow-up sampling in January to make sure their water meets federal standards.

While there are still tens of thousands of lines to examine to make sure there’s no lead present, Mazza-Lappi said that their predictive modeling suggests there’s no widespread presence.

In the notices JXN Water is mailing to customers with galvanized lines or lines with unknown materials, the utility lists a number of ways to reduce the risk of lead contamination, such as letting the tap run before drinking, using a filter, or cleaning faucet screens and aerators.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

‘Groundhog Day has come to an end’: Appeals court orders dismissal of Jackson airport authority in lawsuit

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mississippitoday.org – Geoff Pender – 2024-11-20 12:53:00

A federal appeals court has ruled, again, that members of Jackson’s airport authority can’t sue over a state takeover of the city’s airport.

The court overruled a lower federal court decision, and ordered it to dismiss members of the airport authority in a lawsuit to block a state takeover of the Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport.

“For the fourth time, Mississippi state legislators appeal a district court order compelling discovery in an eight-year-old dispute over control of the Jackson-Medgar Evers International Airport,” Judge Edith Jones wrote in the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion issued Tuesday. “For numerous reasons that have percolated throughout this litigation, we conclude that the current plaintiffs, members of the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, lack … standing to sue. Groundhog Day has come to an end. Accordingly, we vacate the order of the district court and remand with instructions to dismiss.”

Jackson’s mayor and city council remain as plaintiffs, and the authority members could appeal Tuesday’s order, but the federal appeals court has appeared to make clear it doesn’t believe the challenge should be in federal court.

“This suit is nothing more than a political dispute between state and local governments over control of an airport and the land around it,” the court wrote Tuesday. “One side has dragged that fight into federal court by tricking it out in equal protection colors. That won’t fly.”

The state Legislature in 2016 passed a measure that would abolish the Jackson Municipal Airport Authority and replace it with a regional authority with members from the cirt of Jackson and Madison and Rankin counties. Currently, the Jackson mayor and council appoint JMAA’s members.

Under the new regional authority, the governor would appoint five members including one each from lists supplied by the Jackson City Council, Madison supervisors and Rankin supervisors. The lieutenant governor would appoint one and the mayor of Jackson one. The adjutant general of the Mississippi National Guard and director of the Mississippi Development Authority would also serve on the nine-member authority.

City leaders and Jackson’s lawmakers have opposed the move, and the city and authority in its litigation claimed the move was racially motivated by a group of white lawmakers and violated Jackson citizens’ voting rights. They point out state leaders are treating Jackson differently — an argument city leaders have also made on the state’s takeover of policing and courts in the downtown Jackson area and efforts by lawmakers to take over the city’s troubled water system, which is now under federal control.

U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves has ruled in favor of the city and JMAA several times in the airport litigation, but then has been reversed by the Fifth Circuit.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Crooked Letter Sports Podcast

Podcast:  Mississippi College football is no more

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mississippitoday.org – Tyler Cleveland and Rick Cleveland – 2024-11-20 10:00:00

Monday’s news that Mississippi College will become Mississippi Christian University and discontinue the sport of football caught everyone off guard, including the Clevelands. Fred McAfee, the most famous player in M.C. history, heard the news on the radio and said he felt like he had lost a family member. The Saints, Ole Miss-Florida, and college basketball are also discussed.

Stream all episodes here.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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