Emilee Shell tried to reconcile two conflicting messages from the state Legislature as staff and clients from the Jackson women’s addiction recovery residence Grace House filled the Mississippi Capitol.
Emilie Shell is Director of Grace House for Women. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayThat January morning was Recovery Day, an event designed to connect politicians with those who have experienced substance use disorder in Mississippi. From the Senate floor, lawmakers clapped for Shell, Grace House’s director, and others in the gallery who were recovering from addiction, saying they were proud of everyone’s journeys.
But that recognition came a month-and-a-half after a council the Legislature had tasked with managing hundreds of millions of opioid settlement dollars submitted its recommendations for the first round of state spending. The council members ranked 127 applications last fall into tiers based on how highly they recommended funding projects that aim to address the opioid epidemic.
Grace House’s application was scored in the third of five tiers. That application, which asked for $600,000 to expand medical services for people who’ve completed intensive rehab and are starting to live independently, sat below some applications that proposed approaches experts said could be ineffective at preventing more overdoses.
Shell said the decision was both surprising and expected. She and the Grace House staff were confident its proposal, if funded, would help keep women from relapsing. But Shell saw that in the council’s initial scoring, the majority of money the body recommended in the top two tiers was to organizations with representatives on the council.
“When funding becomes available, it’s like a who’s who popularity contest,” Shell said on Recovery Day.
Brittany Denson, operations coordinator for Grace House and Peer Navigator for the Mississippi Harm Reduction Initiative (MHRI), places a pin on a state map marking her city of recovery during Recovery Day at the State Capitol, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026 in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayAcross the state, applicant organizations that work to treat and prevent opioid addiction have told Mississippi Today they worry the council did not fairly consider their plans to prevent more overdoses. They pointed to the potential for council member conflicts of interest and how the subcommittee grading wasn’t standardized.
Because of that, Shell said she thinks the state could miss out on funding Grace House and other organizations run by people with decades of experience addressing Mississippi’s addiction crisis — organizations with ideas that could save lives.
“I feel like we were definitely overlooked,” she said.
Some lawmakers who helped create the advisory council also question the public body’s recommendations. House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, saw the advisory council process play out last fall as a non-voting committee member. As it did, he told Mississippi Today he saw both the amount of work council members put into reviewing the applications and the imperfections of the process.
Rep. Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, discusses opioid settlement legislation during an interview at the Mississippi Capitol on Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayCreekmore said he plans to spend time during the meeting of House Appropriations, the committee that is expected to review the applications and a body he’s a member of, revisiting lower-tier applications he thinks were scored incorrectly. A bill lawmakers passed last year allows the Legislature to accept or reject any of the advisory council’s recommendations, even those from the lower tiers.
“We can award some deserving people,” he said.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, the chair of the council, did not respond to an email asking for her thoughts on lawmakers changing the council’s recommendations. Last fall, her office said the council has some rules to prevent conflicts of interest from influencing committee decisions.
But this type of legislative intervention could signal that the advisory council process has gone awry, according to Tricia Christensen. An independent drug policy consultant in Tennessee, she said governments across the country task specialized committees with recommending how this lawsuit money should be spent.
Few, however, have looked to reclaim most of the decision-making for themselves when elected officials don’t get the recommendations they want.
“What’s the point of the process if the ultimate decision power is just going to come in and decide they want to fund this thing anyway?” Christensen asked.
‘We have the trust of our community’
When Jason McCarty was recovering from addiction in Mississippi, he didn’t initially know who could connect him with what he needed to stay sober, he said. For people in similar circumstances, access to safe housing, steady employment, support from those who’ve experienced addiction and other long-term resources help prevent relapse.
Now six years sober and the program development strategist at the United Way of the Capital Area, McCarty said that’s a big reason why the organization applied for about $1 million of opioid settlement funds. The proposal seeks to enhance the nonprofit’s 211 phone and text line, which helps connect people to resources like food banks, medical appointments and rental assistance.
Jason McCarty, United Way of the Capital Area program development strategist, shows a naloxone kit shortly before the start of a City Council meeting at City Hall in Jackson, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. Naloxone is a life-saving medication applied to rapidly reverse an opioid overdose. Credit: Vickie King / Mississippi TodayUnited Way submitted a proposal to employ phone operators with experience addressing addiction and tailor resources specifically for those with opioid use disorder, in addition to expanding its efforts to prevent teen drug dependence.
The state advisory council ranked the application in the lowest of the five tiers. McCarty said he tried reaching out to a committee member about why it scored so low, and he never heard back.
He was disappointed that unlike some applicant organizations with representatives on the board, United Way didn’t get the opportunity to explain its proposal in front of the scorers.
“Some of the applications basically got to do question-and-answer in the middle of the session,” he said.
At least one proposal from a smaller agency wasn’t even considered by the council. Leaders for the Corporation For Global Community Development, the nonprofit charity arm of the Jackson Revival Center Church in South Jackson, tried to submit an application requesting $250,000. It wanted to provide outreach, mental health services and other social services to people in underserved parts of Hinds County.
But the application never showed up on any of the public council drafts that were supposed to list all applicants. Mississippi Today reviewed an email chain that shows the nonprofit submitted its proposal two minutes after the council’s submission deadline. Fitch did not respond to an emailed question asking whether the council received the corporation’s application.
The council gave applicants only six weeks to finalize dozens of application pages, which smaller organizations said was difficult to accomplish. The committee itself missed a deadline codified in state law last year to appoint all its councilmembers by June 9, which it did about a week later.
Evelyn Edwards, the Corporation For Global Community Development’s executive director, discusses the organization’s opioid settlement application on Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, at the Jackson Revival Center Church. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi TodayEvelyn Edwards, the corporation’s executive director, said no one from the council ever told her or her staff why the committee members never listed the application. She said omitting the application will delay the organization’s work to reach people in Hinds County struggling with addiction, especially those who are distrustful of other medical systems.
“We have the human capacity,” Edwards said. “We have the trust of our community, that’s number one. They’ll come, they’ll participate in those things.”
Ruby Denson, a nurse practitioner who leads the organization’s current efforts to address addiction and mental illness, said she was also disappointed the advisory council ranked McComb-based clinic Healing Horizons in the third of five tiers. The application asked for $83,000 to make the best treatments for opioid addiction and overdose prevention tools more available in Pike County.
Denson said she’s worked with Laquana Daniels, the psychiatric nurse practitioner from McComb who runs Healing Horizons, and she thinks that organization is as well-equipped to address Pike County’s addiction crisis as any group could be. Denson said because of Daniels’ education and community involvement, Daniels could make a big public health impact with a relatively small amount of money.
“It would definitely benefit her community in that McComb area,” Denson said.
Making changes with those most impacted
Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson, a Republican from Vicksburg, said he expects his committee to review the advisory council’s opioid settlement recommendations soon after it is finished working on agency budgets. Like Creekmore, he thinks his chamber will review the recommendations of the council to see which projects should be funded.
Sen. Briggs Hopson listens to presentations during a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, at the State Capitol in Jackson. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi TodayWhen making those decisions, Hopson said he’ll be looking for applications that will make strides toward stopping an epidemic that’s killed over 10,000 Mississippians since 2000.
Christensen, the drug policy consultant, said legislative leaders should also consider revisiting the advisory council process that led them to question that body’s decisions. Senators and representatives have taken steps to ensure they can continue adjusting Mississippi’s opioid settlement laws before the end of the regular session.
She thinks it would be worth using opioid settlement money, including the funds the Legislature and Fitch have designated for general purposes, to help improve that process. If lawmakers make those adjustments, Christensen said she thinks it’s important for lawmakers to get input from Mississippians most affected by the crisis.
While the state doesn’t have a formal process for Mississippians to testify about legislation, Christensen said it should be on lawmakers to include the voices of those most impacted by the opioid epidemic, who might have effective ideas for improving the advisory council.
“They shouldn’t just be making these decisions independently behind closed doors,” she said.
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