The Sunflower County Transitional Shelter for the Homeless has had few problems finding residents.
Getting government money through the door has been another story entirely.
The City of Indianola pledged back in September to give $15,000 toward the shelter’s operations, and that money is still in limbo.
The county board of supervisors also will likely decide next Monday whether to receive a $92,714 Mississippi Home Corporation shelter grant that could go toward operations. That is a pot of money that had its own controversy several months ago.
Shelter Assistant Director Phillip McGee “J.R.” Jr. told the county during a meeting last week that the shelter recorded 22 intakes during the final quarter of 2024.
That was the first full quarter of operation for the shelter, which cut its ribbon at the end of September.
The intake is the process the shelter goes through with any new potential client.
Some are taken in as residents, but not all people end up staying at the shelter, due to a multitude of issues, the main one being that some people simply do not want to follow the written rules set forth by the shelter’s operator, the Sunflower County Ministerial Alliance Counseling Services.
That is according to shelter Director Rev. Phillip McGee Sr.
Nevertheless, SCMACS told the county that it does whatever it can for each person that comes to the shelter, based on their immediate needs.
Right now, the staff is doing this on a shoestring budget, as the county is capped by the Legislature at what it can give to the shelter. That’s $40,000 a year, which the county has elected to give to SCMACS quarterly ($10,000 per quarter).
The shelter has also received a five-year commitment from the solar farm company that operates the Harvest Gold solar project. That’s $25,000 a year to go toward feeding the homeless.
Even with the city’s $15,000, that’s less than $100,000 in appropriations for what has been billed as a 24/7 shelter.
The city had originally entertained giving the $15,000 directly to SCMACS, but former City Attorney Kimberly Merchant advised the board not to do so.
“Our attorney said that we couldn’t do a gift,” Ward 1 Alderman Gary Fratesi said during this past Monday night’s meeting.
To remedy that, the city decided to write a check to the county and have that body act as a conduit for the donation.
The issue with that is that the $15,000 would put the county beyond its $40,000 cap for shelter giving.
There was also a miscommunication as to how the city might have wanted the funds used. The county was under the impression that the money was to be earmarked for security.
That apparently was never the case.
When SCMACS invoiced the county to draw down those funds to pay for its security, the county had concerns about whether the security guards at the shelter were certified.
Eventually, the county decided to ask the city to request the money back in hopes that the city could find a more efficient way to get it to the shelter.
That may take a while, as newly-appointed City Attorney Derek Hopson told the mayor and board this week that he would need to seek an attorney general’s opinion about the legality of a direct donation to the shelter.
That could take 30 to 90 days, Hopson said.
In the meantime, the county will likely decide next week on how it will handle the shelter grant.
When the shelter first began operations several months ago, the board of supervisors approved Dr. Adrian Brown of Brown & Associates Inc. to pursue the Mississippi Home Corporation grant, at that time totaling over $120,000.
At the time, there was miscommunication about whether this was a match grant, meaning that the county might have to put skin in the game in order to receive it.
That was never the case, but the fate of Sunflower County’s application was in danger at the time after the board balked at approving it.
The supervisors eventually voted to move forward with the application.
At a recent board meeting, Brown informed the supervisors that the county was one of the finalists for the grant, now trimmed to $92,714.
District 5 Supervisor Gloria Dickerson told Brown during that meeting that the county needed to hold off on any action until they are certain that the grant is awarded.
She also noted that the award amount is lower than what the county had applied for, meaning there would likely be a need to amend the budget.
Brown told The Enterprise-Tocsin that he has already informed the county that the reimbursement grant has been awarded.
Apparently, out of 19 total homeless shelters that have been awarded grants this year, Sunflower County’s is only one of two that are receiving funds for the first time.
“For the State of Mississippi to recognize you as a homeless shelter that they want to put money into, that’s a big deal,” Brown said.
Brown said that the grant may be used to reimburse the county for any expenses related to the operation of the shelter, including utilities, food and even grant administration costs.
Salaries are not included as an allowable expense.
Brown said that the county has the option of appointing a grant administrator or seeing to compliance internally.
“The data collection process is a tedious process,” Brown said, noting that the county’s first report is due to the state on July 31.
If the county moves forward with accepting this grant, and the city’s $15,000 eventually reaches SCMACS, that could mean a steady operating budget of over $170,000 annually.
That coupled with donations from community organizations, which have picked up over the past few months, could mean sustainability for the facility.
“The community has gotten behind the shelter,” Brown said. “By all of us working together, we can have an impact on a lot of people’s lives that have been impacted by things beyond their control.”
