Hattiesburg is a community of less than fifty thousand people.
We’re the fourth largest city in the state of Mississippi.
There was a community that we found, that had in excess of six thousand people that
were not connected to health care in any way.
Mississippi ranks very poorly in most health outcomes nationwide.
We’re working in areas that are impoverished, that are really very rural, and people don’t
have access to health care.
They don’t have access to health services, and they need it.
This project is called “Cities Expanding Health Access for Children and Families.”
NLC worked closely with eight cities to build and then implement these city-led outreach
and enrollment campaigns to connect their kids and families to Medicaid and CHIP.
So the city of Hattiesburg was one of our grantees working on this project, and the
city was the lead for the project but they engages the University of Southern Mississippi
and some other community partners on this work.
Our partnership with the city of Hattiesburg initially started out, I think there was some
uncertainty on both parties, with the school and with the city, because we weren’t sure
how we were going to work together and how that was going to look.
And as we began working together and trusting each other more, it grew and it became a partnership
that still exists today.
City leaders have a vested interest in seeing their residents healthy, both physically and
financially healthy, and we knew that at NLC working with cities, working closely with
cities, on a number of different projects.
We found that there were a lot of barriers that the individuals, families in our community
had in accessing health coverage through Medicaid and CHIP.
Some of those barriers were things like transportation.
The public city busses don’t run all the way out to the Medicaid office.
Also people didn’t understand eligibility and the application.
Oftentimes, Universities go into communities, do research, step back, and then nothing really
comes from it.
We were able to use the backing of the city government to actually make something happen.
So a lot of what we did was going out into the community, speaking directly to consumers
or to their community members.
…do me a favor.
Some of your friends that you know have children and may not have insurance…
Being a part of the city of Hattiesburg, representing that agency, immediately legitimized our efforts
into the community.
So, not only did community members trust us when we went into places like food pantries,
WIC Centers and health department clinics, the housing projects, those community agencies
also immediately opened their doors.
Can you imagine going door-to-door, and a young lady or an older person comes to the
door and they have an illness in the family and they don’t know what to do, or how to
do it and you tell them that they have an opportunity for them to connect to an insurance
program for their child, their children, their grandchildren, or for them themselves?
I mean, that’s giving them hope.
Through the relationships that they’ve built around this project between the city and through
the University, they grew that partnership and received the Federal Navigator grants
and then also the Connecting Kids to Coverage grant.
To continue their work around Medicaid and CHIP.
There’ve been approximately four thousand families who have received coverage through
this effort but we have touched at least, or more, than one hundred and forty thousand
families and individuals.
And I just know that this relationship is going to continue, whether I’m sitting in
this chair or somebody else is sitting in this chair.
So I challenge you other cities, and I challenge you other mayors.
Get involved in your community.
We thought going into this that city leaders and city agencies could have a role to play
in connecting their kids and families to coverage, but we’re really excited to see what it’s
turned into, in communities like Hattiesburg.
To see Mayor Dupree get excited about this initiative and put his weight behind it.
It’s changing lives.