Then-Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour channeled $570 million in Hurricane Katrina housing recovery funds away from rebuilding housing for poor Gulf Coast residents and toward improving the state port at Gulfport. That’s vital context for $77-mllion TANF scandal, Ellen Ann Fentress writes.
Ellen Ann Fentress
Ellen Ann Fentress, a lifelong Mississippian, is a journalist, filmmaker and teacher in Jackson and a member of the MFP advisory board. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Oxford American, The Bitter Southerner, The Baffler and on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Her documentary film “Eyes on Mississippi,” on the civil-rights era experience of iconic journalist Bill Minor, has been screened across the country. In 2019, she launched The Academy Stories, an online forum (theacademystories.com); learn more at www.ellenannfentress.com.
