The Mississippi Free Press is committed to fostering dialogue across race, ethnicity, economic status, political parties, gender and religious beliefs. MFP’s Solutions Circles help provide a platform for these conversations where Mississippians can not only address challenges but also imagine solutions. MFP is continuing to hold Solutions Circles across all of our bureaus, from the Delta to Jackson to the Gulf Coast.
On June 30, MFP held its first Solutions Circle in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Around 25 residents gathered to discuss their top concerns about their community. These concerns included health and wellness, crime and economic development.
Health and Wellness
Problems:
- Lack of doctors outside emergency room
- Health insurance affordability
- Lack of insurance options
- Overmedication
- Medication affordability
- Awareness of service services and resource resources
- Lack of talk groups for kids
- Poor quality of care
- Negative representation of Hospital
- Bad customer service in healthcare
- No healthy food options locally
Solutions:
- Healthier food options
- Promote local farmers markets
- Update Hospital branding
- Dedicated healthy food days around town
- Extend operating hours of healthy food, restaurants
- Offer a list of solutions two municipal leaders
- Publicize the free clinic in the hospital
- Build a resource directory information about all of the existing resources in Clarksdale
Crime
Problems:
- Economic development and poverty causes lack of opportunity for youth
- It’s a catch 22. How do you bring economic opportunity when there is crime? How do you bring down crime without economic opportunity?
- 2024 there were 22 to 24 murders in a 13,000 person population
- Need to address crime first and not wait on it – Be proactive
- Lack of accountability in police department for performance
- Loss of reliable officers to other places
- Local police department does not utilize federal resources
- Youth is influenced by gang members, even in schools
- Peer pressure and school environment overwhelm parents
- Violence perpetuated through arts, music and media.
- Pressure on youth to join gang or street life for protection and economic gain
- Economic gain presented by gangs may appear to outweigh the rewards from better role model models
- Young people need protection and belonging, and gangs are currently filling that gap
Solutions:
- Strong community influences that are alternatives to gang
- Connect elders to youth who can relate to each other
- Get to young people with better opportunities as young as elementary school
- Teach kids how to start a business
- Programs to help improve community and family infrastructure to support families
- Teachers need to be educated on positive options and alternatives to low wage work
- Teach kids about trade schools and starting businesses that can still be high income
- Ensure that mostly innocent young people don’t get swept up into punishments meant for the worst 2-3% of offenders
- Early intervention programs for youth at their first point of law-enforcement contact
- Show youth they don’t have to be afraid of or intimidated by gangs, and that they do not have to participate
- Let them know they have things to lose by joining a gang carrying, selling, etc.
- Programs to help the youth in the juvenile system early how do we divert them from jail with programs
- Partner with local churches
- Youth Court could expunge their records for involvement in a program or achieving certain goals like getting a GED or graduating
- Find community rights of passage as an alternative to gang participation, eventually with trusted leaders leading the rights of passage.
Economic Development
Problems:
- Lack of businesses
- Code enforcement/trash
- Crime
- Education
- Youth unemployment
- Youth recreation shortage
- Lack of parental engagement
- Lack of access to quality foods
- Investment from local farms
- Nepotism
- Too many consultants
- Lack of affordable housing
- Corruption, lack of accountability
- There’s no homeless shelter
- There’s a lack of trades in schools
- Lack of access to entrepreneurial support
- Lack of safe spaces for diverse conversations
- Dilapidation
- Lack of cultural accountability
- Lack of community accountability
- Lack of checks and balances
- Classism racism and colorism are all still problems
- Unequal distribution of wealth
- Lack of economic education locally
- Lack of financial literacy
- Lack of government transparency
Solutions:
- Good schools
- Reading and literary spaces one-on-one connections with students and mentors pre-K through 3rd to 4th grade
- Do mentorship programs from 4th to 6th grade and then 6 to 8th grade offer on-boarding experiences to welcome young people into the community
- Crimestoppers program
- Access to reports for progress (transparency)
- Limit on number of positions one person can hold
- Create more safe spaces for discussions
- Create more opportunities for civic engagement
- Make local farmers part of the economic ecosystem
- Maybe be require a certain percentage of produce to come from local farmers
- Expand the experiences of local workers
- Church cooperative
- More educational access for adult adults
- Better village for parents
Read more about our Solutions Circles here.
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