Rita Brent sat at Felicia Hayes’ dining-room table on April 1, a phone to her ear and an open tri-folded water bill at her fingertips. Brent and Brad Franklin had entered through the front door of her North Jackson home earlier that day after learning of Hayes’ circumstances that had left the 57-year-old woman living off of bottled water for eight days.
Felicia Hayes owned a trucking business for 10 years in West Memphis, Arkansas, a job that earned her more than $100,000 a year. Two separate 18-wheeler accidents caused her to have back issues causing her severe pain that she attempted to work through. Eventually, she could no longer ignore the pain, which morphed into Hayes having issues maintaining her balance. These changes forced her to quit and to file for disability through Medicaid, thereby placing her on a fixed income.
“Now that I’m on this fixed income, it showed me how much money I was wasting, you know?
On frivolous things: all these cable channels, never at home to watch, paying 400-something dollars, 500-something dollars for a phone bill,” Hayes told the Mississippi Free Press.
Bored at home with only her three dogs as companions, Hayes wants to find an employer who will accommodate her disability—so far having no luck, leaving her unemployed as she drowns in medical bills, mortgage payments and legal fees for a case she’s actively fighting. Winter Storm Fern caused the pipes in her house to burst in January, and her disability checks that are meant for bills had to be diverted to fixing the pipes.
“ As a homeowner, it is hell when you ain’t got no money coming in and something go down,” the 57-year-old lamented. “I never thought I would experience this. I ran through all my retirement just trying to keep my house.”
One of the bills that took a backseat was her water bill, which totaled $400 for the month of March. She couldn’t afford the bill, so the company cut her water off on March 24. For eight days, she survived off bottled water, but that could only last so long. Then, on April 1, Rita Brent and Brad Franklin with Operation Zero Out knocked on her door.
“I called my cousin Wanda, and she told me about you guys,” Hayes told her guests. “I tried the Health Department and then South Central and Salvation Army. The (former) didn’t have the resources at the time, and the other two places said they just don’t pay water bills at all.”
Operation Zero Out: Jackson is a relief campaign created to help Jackson residents pay off their expensive, past-due water bills. The campaign officially launched with a water-relief concert at the Jackson Indie Music Week kickoff at the Patton House on March 22. People also dropped off water pallets to help those who are without water.
“The idea came about a couple of weeks prior with Rita and I talking and then getting the other organizations to come in and be a part of it, So it’s really super fresh,” Brad Franklin told the Mississippi Free Press on April 1. “I just sat down and had time to get an email yesterday. Now, we’re gonna work towards getting a number that people can call and work towards putting some social-media stuff together.”
He and comedienne Rita Brent are joined by Mississippi Move, Black With No Chaser, and One Voice. Since the campaign’s announcement, everyone has been receiving calls and emails from people who need assistance. So far, the campaign has raised more than $5,700, with their initial goal set at $50,000. Felicia Hayes is the first recipient of the campaign as those behind its efforts are looking to prioritize the elderly and disabled first.
‘Bear the Brunt’
This water-bill crisis in Jackson has affected Rita Brent herself, having received a $400 water bill when her household consists of just her and her dog. The water company told her that faulty meters are to blame for the increased amount, which have been an issue for Jackson households since the Siemens project in 2013. Broken meters are causing inaccurate readings, resulting in inaccurate water bills.
“It’s really nothing they can do because it’s such an overwhelming problem. And you know, I kind of feel silly complaining about that amount when folks have two, three, four thousand dollars upwards of that,” Brent told the Mississippi Free Press. “Me and my neighbors got together, and we calculated how many gallons of water we would need to use for it to amount to the bill, and it’s not calculating.”
Brent talked to someone who had to go to the water office on multiple occasions to get their water meter fixed. It took five times before he was able to get an accurate reading, but the elderly and disabled aren’t always able to go to the office in person and be as persistent.
“ I was at the city-council meeting where we were getting a resolution the other day, and there was an elderly lady that said her bill was $56,000,” Franklin said in disbelief.
There’s also a lingering racist narrative that Black leadership and Black officials aren’t competent enough to run a city or that Black people are lazy and don’t want to pay their water bills. Many of the people Franklin is encountering have always paid their bills and have never had anything cut off until now.
“They’re having to bear the brunt of mistakes that other people made, which is unfair,” he said. “This water issue is something that goes back to the Ditto and Danks administration, and nobody wants to talk about that.”
“Everybody wants to say the can was kicked down the road and it fell into the laps of Tony Yarber, fell into the lap of Lumumba, fell into the lap of John Horhn,” Franklin continued. “And that assessment is incorrect for those of us who have lived here our entire lives and have seen these things that are happening.”
Dale Danks Jr. and John Kane Ditto were back-to-back white mayors who served the City of Jackson in the 1980s and 1990s. The city’s infrastructure began crumbling during their administrations as pipes under the city were more than 100 years old at the time. The City was issuing boiled-water notices from the deteriorating tanks affecting the water system, Franklin explained.
The City did little to nothing to fix the ongoing issues. As the demographics of the city shifted to become more Black and as Harvey Johnson took office in 1997, the problems continued to remain unsolved. Over the years, various administrations, including Tony Yarber’s, have gone to the legislature for monies to fix these issues, but were denied. Things got worse, the water plant finally failed, and the Black leadership became the scapegoat.
“If this wasn’t an 85% Black city. I really, really feel in my heart of hearts that this problem would not be happening,” Franklin declared.
In April 2026, H.B. 1677 the Metro Jackson Water Authority Act was signed by Governor Tate Reeves, a proposal that calls for the appointment of a nine-member board for the city’s water and sewer system. The board will have authority to supervise the construction and operation of the water systems, adopt rules for regulation of the systems, borrow money and issue bonds.
“I know there’s a new regional authority that they’re building. I hope that it is effective. I hate that it has come to this where it looks like Jackson’s not gonna have a say-so because we know that no other city would be subject to that, not having a say-so in how their city government works,” Brent said.
Brent and Franklin paid Hayes’ water bill over the phone, and her water returned later that same day once the system processed the payment.
“ This is a process that we’re fleshing out ‘cause it’s only like two or three weeks old,” Franklin said. “It took off faster than we could even imagine, so now we’re trying to figure out how to meet the demand and also do it in an efficient and fair manner.”
To learn more about Operation Zero Out Jackson or to contribute to the campaign, donate here.
