DUBLIN — Pregnant with her second child and entering addiction treatment at a Coahoma County residential program in 2019, Katiee Evans worried she had ruined her life beyond repair. The Columbus native had struggled for years with methamphetamine addiction, a disorder that led the state to take custody of her then-7-month-old daughter.
Evans didn’t complete treatment after giving birth to her first child, but the prospect of remaining with her newborn motivated her to try it again. This time, she stayed sober during her second pregnancy – which she credits to being surrounded by dozens of other new parents going through the program, many of whom had their children with them.
“I got to love on my baby, and everybody else’s baby,” she said.
Since then, Evans has reunited with her first child, given birth to a third baby and stayed sober. She now works for Fairland, the addiction treatment center that served her, helping to administer the program she credits with stabilizing her life.
But a major source of funding for this program has been cut. In March, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration abruptly stopped distributing billions of public health dollars across the country. About $4.1 million of that was for Mississippi’s community mental health centers, organizations across the state that run services including the addiction treatment program Evans attended.
A federal district judge has temporarily blocked the cuts, but the ruling only applies to the 23 states that sued the federal government, not Mississippi.
“This announcement caught us off guard,” said Adam Moore, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, the agency that administers state and federal funds to the centers.
The centers’ services — including crisis response teams, adolescent support and development disability programs — are available regardless of people’s ability to pay. That’s possible in large part, center directors say, because of funds like the halted grants. Moore said that about 43% of the dollars the state’s mental health department provided centers in the 2024 fiscal year came from the federal government.
A spokesperson for the federal government’s mental health agency said Mississippi’s money was granted to address the pandemic, which is no longer a threat to the U.S. She said a new federal agency called the Administration for a Healthy America will prioritize mental health efforts.
The Region 6 center, which serves much of the Delta and runs the Fairland clinic, is expected to lose out on just over $850,000 in federal funds, according to the Mississippi Department of Mental Health.
Joanne Shedd discusses her journey through addiction and rehabilitation at the Fairland Center in Dublin, Miss., on Monday, April 28, 2025. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Part of the program that provided financial assistance for mothers and children to transition to independent housing had to be shut down in March as a result of the loss of funding. Phaedre Cole, the region’s executive director and Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers president, said she’s uncertain whether the state agency would replace the money for that service.
Joanne Shedd, a Fairland peer support specialist who also completed treatment at the center, said it can be nearly impossible to find housing options for new mothers and their children without that additional resource.
“Our whole game plan that we have with these clients has got to completely change,” she said.
CMHCs struggled to stay afloat before federal cuts
Mississippi’s community mental health centers have struggled to fund their services for years. Four have closed since 2012. Cole said consolidations have created more financial strain on her center, which has grown from serving eight to 16 counties over the past dozen years.
Another four of the remaining 11 centers have little on-hand money to buffer any funding losses, according to the Mississippi Office of the Coordinator of Mental Health Accessibility’s latest quarterly report.
Cole said much of this financial instability comes from the responsibilities of community mental health centers: the Department of Mental Health tasks them with being the “primary service providers of outpatient community-based services” for kids and adults with mental health needs in every county they serve.
“No one’s providing those safety net services that we provide,” Cole said.
That means they maintain programs that are critical but expensive, including crisis stabilization unit beds and the Fairland program.
A sign marks the Fairland Center in Dublin, Miss., on Monday, April 28, 2025. The facility was part of Region I Mental Health Center before being absorbed by Region 6 and is affiliated with Sunflower Landing. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
While Cole said the maternal substance use program is costly, it addresses a disorder that can lead babies to be born prematurely, underweight and with birth defects if untreated. Substance use is also the second leading cause of Mississippi’s pregnancy-related deaths, according to the state’s most recent maternal mortality report.
The Delta, where Fairland is located, has the highest rates in the state of mothers dying during pregnancy and the postpartum periods.
In Oxford, Melody Madaris leads Communicare, the Region 2 Community Mental Health Center for six Mississippi counties. She said the majority of Communicare’s patients can’t pay for the center’s services, and her organization provided nearly $7 million of free care last year.
Because the organization relies heavily on federal funds, Madaris was shocked when she found out the federal mental health agency stopped hundreds of thousands of dollars Communicare was set to receive.
“It was absolutely terrifying,” she said. “Within a day, we started looking at our budget and how we can continue to provide services at the same level.”
Communicare is now unable to staff a diversion coordinator, an employee dedicated to working with judges overseeing mental illness-related civil commitment cases. The diversion coordinator helped people in this position and their family members determine if the person could get treatment in a community setting and avoid state hospital commitment.
It’s the type of service the Department of Justice accused Mississippi of not doing enough of in its seven-year lawsuit against the state’s Department of Mental Health. Although the lawsuit was overturned in 2023, the mental health department’s executive director has said avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations remains a priority for the agency.
“A lot of CMHCs had a lot of success with that role,” Madaris said. “When the federal government stopped those grants, that role stopped.”
Moore, the Mississippi mental health department’s spokesperson, said the agency continues to fund 33 similar roles, called court liaisons, across the state. He also said the agency plans to use state alcohol tax revenue and other federal grant funds to try to fill the gaps, but there’s not enough to fully cover the lost dollars.
“You can backfill and keep things going on a short term basis,” said Mississippi Senate Public Health Committee Chairman Hob Bryan, D-Amory. “But long term, if the federal funding goes away, then those services are going to go away.”
State House Public Health and Human Services Committee Chairman Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, said he and other state lawmakers had assumed these funds would be available until September.
Rep. Sam Creekmore, the new chairman of the Mississippi House Public Health and Human Services Committee, speaks during a committee meeting at the State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today
“It does not seem fair,” he said. “We have a real, real need for mental health services in Mississippi, and I hate that this has happened. But it kind of seems par for the course, the way things are going with this Trump Administration right now.”
Creekmore noted that in its last regular session, the Legislature passed a law that instructs the state to apply for a federal community mental health payment model that allows Medicaid to reimburse more for services. But it’s up to the federal government to approve Mississippi’s application.
‘This is life or death for people’
Phaedre Cole, president of the Mississippi Association of Community Mental Health Centers, right, listens as Katiee Evans talks about her recovery at the Fairland Center in Dublin, Miss., on Monday, April 28, 2025. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today
Cole, the Region 6 executive director, said it would dramatically help Community Health Center operations if Mississippi’s application is approved next year. But she worries more drastic cuts could be coming – ones that would cripple the centers completely.
She said centers like Region 6 receive other funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, a source of federal COVID-19 relief funds, and those contracts are set to end next year. If that money is also canceled, Cole said the state mental health centers would likely have to cut more services.
Additionally, the U.S. House of Representatives has adopted a resolution to cut $880 billion over the next 10 years from agencies including Medicaid, the federal and state partnership that provides health insurance to over half a million Mississippians. Cole said Region 6 receives over half its funding from Medicaid, and any cuts to the program could be “disastrous” for community mental health centers.
For Evans, the Columbus mother who was treated at Fairland, she wishes decision makers would visit Mississippi’s Community Mental Health Centers before cutting their funding.
While people treated there, like those with severe mental illness, can’t always travel to Washington to advocate for themselves, she said it’s easy to see the deep impact programs like the one that saved her life have once one is inside the building.
“This is life or death for people. There’s no other way around it.”
Community Health Reporter Gwen Dilworth contributed to this story.
-- Article credit to Allen Siegler for Mississippi Today --
