Mississippi Today
Jackson State eying downtown Marriott as solution to student housing shortage
Jackson State University has been eying an empty hotel in downtown Jackson as a potential solution to its shortage of student housing.
President Marcus Thompson pitched the project โ a $5 million purchase of the Jackson Marriott at 200 E. Amite St. โ to the university’s governing board last month, calling it a forward-thinking win-win for the historically Black university and the capital city.ย
โAs Jackson grows, Jackson State grows, and vice versa, similar to what I believe and I’ve seen over the years at an Oxford or a Starkville,โ Thompson told the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees at its retreat at Mississippi State University’s Riley Center in Meridian.
The effort comes as the state’s largest HBCU recently received roughly 800 more housing applications than it had room to accommodate, Thompson told trustees. The campus has about 2,000 available beds. In fall 2022, Jackson State had about 4,900 undergraduate students, according to federal data.
Enter the Marriott, a 15-story, 303-bed hotel that has been unused since the pandemic. It has had a number of owners over the years but is currently owned by a limited liability company affiliated with a Florida-based developer named Charles Everhardt. Everhardt could not be reached before press time.
Thompson told trustees some of them likely saw the hotel years ago. The IHL board has a policy that universities are required to seek approval for real estate purchases above $100,000. Jackson State did not respond to inquiries by press time.
โHousing has been a topic and an issue for our university for a number of years,โ Thompson said. โWe’re really excited about the possibility to bring forward a solution to the issue of housing through this Marriott project.โ
Jackson State hopes to purchase the hotel for $5.25 million, about $2 million below its assessed value, Thompson told trustees. It would provide housing to roughly 500 students, as well as meeting and parking space and leasing revenue.
The university has already obtained $7 million from the Legislature and conducted several key reports and assessments, Thompson said, adding that Jackson State anticipated the Marriott could be available to students in one to two years if the plan goes forward.
Originally, Thompson sought to get $68 million in funding to construct a new residence hall, but earlier this year, he asked Al Rankins, the IHL commissioner, for permission to pivot to purchasing an existing space that could be available sooner.
In January, the administration had to relocate students after discovering mold in its University Pointe apartment complex, which was purchased in 2015. Another dorm for female students, McAllister Whiteside, has been offline since 2021 due to mechanical, electrical and utility failures and broken equipment.
The housing shortage is a particular issue for out-of-state students who make up about a quarter of the university’s enrollment, Thompson said. During his presidential tour, he talked with parents in cities like Memphis and Chicago who told him it was a struggle to find off-campus housing. And, Thompson added that students with federal student loans may also not be able to afford off-campus housing.
โOur students come from a population who, perhaps, mostly aren’t able to go out and secure leases on their own,โ he said. About 65% of the student population comes from a low-income family that receives federal tuition assistance, according to the College Scorecard.
The Marriott also fulfills one of Thompson’s goals to see Jackson State further expand into downtown, where the university already has a satellite campus and a number of apartment leases for student housing.
It’s unclear how much it will cost to renovate the Marriott or what that would entail. Thompson said that figures in a comprehensive assessment conducted over the summer reflected a โcomplete gut renovationโ that wouldn’t be necessary, and the university can use certain federal funds to renovate academic spaces.
โMany of those things are cosmetic things that don’t necessarily have to be replaced, and we can speak to those things later,โ he said.
After Thompson finished his presentation, he asked the board for questions. Trustees immediately voted to go into executive session, citing a section of the Open Meetings Act that permits closing a meeting to discuss the โtransaction of business and discussion regarding the prospective purchase, sale or leasing of lands.โ
Trustees deliberated for about an hour before calling Thompson and his administration into the room, where they spoke for about another hour.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
AG urges lawmakers to enact paid maternity leave for state employees
A post-Roe agenda should include paid maternity leave for state employees, Attorney General Lynn Fitch said to lawmakers Wednesday.
This recommendation is part of her office’s Empowerment Project, which was launched in 2023 after abortion in Mississippi became illegal โ a โgame changer,โ Fitch told members of the Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families.ย
Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann tasked the Senate group with reviewing the needs of Mississippi families and children from birth to age 3, following the Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that allowed the state’s near-total abortion ban to take effect.
Mississippi has no paid family leave on the books. Currently state employees may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.
There are around 85,000 state employees โ including public school teachers and staff and faculty from public universities and colleges โ and tens of thousands of Mississippi women could benefit from legislation offering paid maternity leave.
It’s a critical workforce issue, Fitch said in response to a question from Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, and it could be the deciding factor for someone choosing between a private sector job and a public sector job.
โThis is a great tool, a great resource, to have these women in public service and to keep them there,โ she said.
Mississippi has the nation’s lowest workforce participation rate. Despite the fact there are more working-age women than men, women have a lower rate at 48.5%.ย
Last year, a bill authored by Boyd to give state employees six weeks of paid maternity leave died in the Public Health committee, chaired by Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory. Bryan did not respond to a request for comment from Mississippi Today by the time this story published.
Fitch urged lawmakers to reconsider their decision this year.
โComing up in this session I’d like for you to consider paid maternity leave for state employees โฆ I know many times here we look at who else has done that, and I just want to tell you that Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, Louisiana and Virginia have all passed these laws. And so I would encourage you to take a hard look at this.โ
Fitch, who petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the Dobbs case that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, has faced pressure to advocate for policies that would benefit low-income women in the state with the highest maternal mortality and poverty rates.ย
The five pillars of her Empowerment Project, Fitch said, are making quality child care affordable and accessible; promoting workforce flexibility; improving child support enforcement; fixing the state’s broken foster care and adoption systems; and giving women the opportunities and resources to โupscale and educate.โ
Mississippi is one of only 10 states not to expand Medicaid to the working poor under the Affordable Care Act. And while pregnant women making less than 194% of the federal poverty level โ roughly $30,000 annually for a single mother โ are eligible for Medicaid, a policy that would streamline the application process and provide timely prenatal care only just became law in Mississippi and is currently awaiting federal approval.ย
Fitch lauded lawmakers for several measures passed in the last two years, including 12 months postpartum coverage for mothers on Medicaid, tax credits for crisis pregnancy centers and Safe Haven Baby Boxes.
Fitch said the baby boxes are โa very safe, anonymous way for a very courageous young mother to place her child in the care of others,โ and that the state will increase the number of them.
Committee members weren’t able to ask follow-up questions to Fitch, who also addressed child support enforcement and the foster care system, due to her schedule.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1904
Oct. 3, 1904
Mary McLeod Bethune opened a training school in Daytona Beach, Florida, with โ$1.50, faith in God and five little girls.โ Discarded crates and boxes served as their desks and chairs.
Eventually that school became an accredited institution, Bethune-Cookman College, and she served as a college president, one of the few women in the world to do so.
โInvest in the human soul,โ she urged. โWho knows? It might be a diamond in the rough.โ
A determined civil rights leader, she decried the lynchings of Black Americans and fought for voting rights and better health care. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her as a national adviser of his โBlack Cabinetโ to direct the National Youth Administration. She was known as โThe First Lady of The Struggleโ because of her dedication to the movement.
Her home in Daytona Beach was designated as a National Historic Landmark. In 2018, the Florida Legislature designated her to become one of two statues representing the state inside the U.S. Capitol. Two years later, Time selected her as one of the most influential women of the past century.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi Todayโs Anna Wolfe honored by Time magazine
Mississippi Today poverty reporter Anna Wolfe has been named to the 2024 TIME100 Next list.
According to Time, the list aims to recognize “rising leaders in health, climate, business, sports, and moreโand by doing so, not just show the stories that are capturing headlines in 2024, but also introduce you to the people who we believe will play an important role in leading the future.”
A majority of this year’s honorees are people of color; more than half are women.
“Mississippians have come to know and respect Anna as a champion for people whose voices are overlooked or ignored, and as someone who is not afraid to speak truth to power,” says Adam Ganuchaeu, editor-in-chief at Mississippi Today. “It’s awesome for her to get even more national recognition for just that. This is so deserving a recognition for a true Mississippi legend, and all of us are so lucky to have her here.”
Wolfe won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for her remarkable investigation โThe Backchannel,โ which uncovered the depth of the sprawling $77 million welfare scandal, the largest embezzlement of federal funds in the state‘s history.
In her profile of Wolfe for 2024 TIME100 Next, PBS senior correspondent Judy Woodruff writes, “at a time when journalism is struggling to survive, Anna reminds us why it matters.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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