When the Sunflower County Transitional Shelter for the Homeless opened its doors a year ago, there was plenty of demand for the shelter’s services, with a limited supply of resources.
Sunflower County Ministerial Alliance Counseling Services Director Rev. Phillip McGee said that he was called by God and later tasked by the county to run the transitional program in a near $1 million new facility next to the sheriff’s department in Indianola.
The county was statutorily allowed to give SCMACS $40,000 a year toward the shelter’s operations, something the board of supervisors opted to give in $10,000 quarterly payments.
There was a $25,000 commitment from the company that built the Harvest Gold solar farm north of town.
Church donations trickled in much slower than had been anticipated.
Money, as it often has a way of doing, became a source of friction between the SCMACS and the county board.
Since last August, a $92,000 Shelter grant through Mississippi Home Corporation and another $15,000 donation from the City of Indianola seems to have alleviated some of the shelter’s early budgetary woes.
And that has allowed shelter Assistant Director Phillip “JR” McGee Jr. to focus on the main mission of the program, and that is to help the homeless in Sunflower County find paths to financial independence.
“A lot of these people have to start from the ground up,” McGee told the board of supervisors during his quarterly report to the county this week after stating, “Some weekends, I don’t have the fluid in me to cry, because I’ve cried for these people this week so much.”
For the younger McGee, the tears many times come from compassion for people who struggle to find a way to bathe and eat at least once a day. Sometimes the tears fall for the ones who don’t stay, fall back into drugs and often end up in jail.
“A lot of times, it’s emotional, and it takes a lot out of you,” he said.
Over the past year, McGee and the shelter’s small staff have reunited a teenage runaway with her mother, they have helped several people gain employment in the area, and they have assisted people in obtaining documents that many take for granted like state identification cards, birth certificates and social security cards.
The documents are the first step toward becoming employable, and they are also needed to fulfil a common long-term goal of obtaining housing outside of the shelter.
McGee said that one current resident spent 23 years incarcerated before coming to the shelter’s door.
“He came to us after being locked up,” McGee said. “He didn’t have anything, so we had to start from the ground. We got him his ID…We got him in to go see the doctor.”
McGee said that the man is currently working with two landscaping crews and is saving his money. His long-term goal is to get back home to California and to be reunited with his family there.
A female resident came to the center four months ago all the way from Wichita, Kansas, McGee said. She had been pulled in multiple directions, he said, by people who said they would take her in, but each time she arrived at a location, there was no home for her.
When she missed a bus in Mississippi, she ended up in Greenville, where she was connected with the Sunflower County facility.
“She has two jobs,” McGee said.
Originally, her short-term goal was to save enough money for a ticket back to Kansas, but after staying at the shelter this year, McGee said that she has shifted her plans. She wants to become a “self-sustaining resident of Sunflower County.”
McGee will be the first to admit that there are more unsuccessful intakes than successful ones.
Such is the case with a resident who was referred to the shelter by the drug court.
“I gave him a chance. I think he stayed nine days the first time, but he wasn’t ready to receive the help that we were trying to give him,” McGee said.
One day, he simply walked away and did not return until about a month ago.
“Come to find out, he had gotten locked up,” McGee said.
McGee said that he was asked by the court to give the resident another chance. He was hesitant, but he agreed.
“I should have followed my gut,” he said.
McGee said that he found out that the resident had started to use drugs again.
“He had an outburst with a resident,” McGee said. “The next day, he tried to assault that resident. We had to get the police involved. He is currently incarcerated.”
McGee said that the shelter’s partnership with Life Help has led to intakes of multiple residents with mental disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
One male resident, he said, who has been at the shelter for eight months, is being treated for one of those disorders, but thanks to the transitional program, he is able to work four hours a day.
“We work with all types of people. We get them to the doctors. We get them jobs,” McGee said. “We do a lot of things over there at that building.”
Sunflower County Sheriff James Haywood said that the shelter has been a blessing for his department, as they have been able to refer multiple people coming out of incarceration to the program.
“I appreciate what they’ve done,” Haywood said. “They have solved a major problem when people are getting out of jail. That in and of itself is worth them being there.”
The annual budget for the shelter, after totaling the fragmented sources of revenue, currently stands at under $200,000.
Thanks to recently revised legislation in Jackson, the county is now allowed to accept donations from all of the area municipalities to give to the shelter.
A part-time social worker was also hired this summer to keep up with cases and to comply with the Home Corporation grant the shelter hopes will be awarded again this coming year.
The budget may fluctuate from year-to-year, but for McGee, the mission will be the same.
That is to transition as many of the homeless here into jobs and permeant housing.
“I didn’t have all of this compassion before I started working with these people that I don’t know,” McGee said. “I like my job, and I like helping them.”
