Happy Friday! Megan here.

Weather check: Warming up (like, above freezing, even!)

This week, officials from the city, county and state got together to talk about homelessness in the community and why more collaboration (and more data) is needed to help address this growing problem. You'll also meet a local baker who found a successful sourdough business through a her journey with grief. Other than that, it's pretty short and sweet heading into the weekend.

And now, news:

CITY

Local leaders talk data, collaboration in addressing homelessness

Simplified: Leaders from the city, county and state gathered Thursday evening to talk about homelessness in the region, the need for better data and how collaboration is the only way to make any progress.

Why it matters

  • Sioux Falls is a fast-growing city, and even so the number of people experiencing homelessness is growing at a faster rate than the overall population.
  • The Regional Homelessness Forum – a brand new event – brought together a panel of government officials and dozens of interested members of the public in a packed Orpheum Theater Thursday evening.
  • One big takeaway from the forum was the need for more data to help pinpoint the scope of homelessness.
    • Matt Althoff, secretary of the state Department of Social Services said he looks at the more than 70,000 South Dakotans enrolled in supplemental nutrition programs, as well as 148,000 people enrolled in Medicaid at one point last year – indicating the scope of poverty in the state.
"We have to be mindful that at any given moment there's a household that's one behavioral health episode ... one car accident, one missed utility payment away from becoming that (unhoused) individual," Althoff said.

Tell me more about themes discussed in the forum

COMMUNITY

How this woman found solace and success in sourdough

Simplified: Five years after the sudden and unexpected death of her 13-month-old son, Pearl Leiferman baked her first loaf of sourdough bread. It tasted terrible, she said, but she kept at it, and a year later, she's using her baking talents to run a successful business and raise money for other parent's who've experienced unexpected loss.

Tell me more

Leiferman grew up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation and has shared openly about the challenges she's overcome, from a childhood marked by abuse in the foster care system to the grief of losing a child of her own.

  • Her son, Ryan "Junior" Leiferman, died from something called Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC) in 2019.

Leiferman threw herself into her faith community after the loss, and it was a friend from church who, in 2024 gave her her first jar of sourdough starter.

"It sat in my fridge for awhile, and one day I was just really sad, really in my grief, and so I was like, what can I do?" Leiferman said. "I took my sourdough starter out of the fridge and mixed up a loaf of bread."

Full story here

TL;DR

Super Simplified Stories

  • Three quick things from Pierre. Shoutout to friends at South Dakota Searchlight doing the real work at the state capitol. Here are a few headlines from the week:
    • Thou shalt. Display the Ten Commandments in schools, that is. A bill requiring the Christian text in all public schools advanced out of committee this week. That moves now to the full senate. Full story here.
    • Thou shalt not... become a sanctuary city. Another bill advanced this week would ban local governments in the state from enacting policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Full story here.
    • Short staffed. The state penitentiary is struggling to attract nurses, corrections department Secretary Kellie Wasko told lawmakers this week. Right now, there are 63 vacant medical staff positions. Full story here.

THIS AND THAT

What I'm falling for this week:

ICYMI

More Simplified Stories

Meet the nonprofits helping multilingual communities in S.D.
“Let’s treat this time like a fire drill,” Taneeza Islam said. “Something is going to happen. We don’t know the extent of what, but if we want to protect our communities, shouldn’t we want to be prepared as a community? You never want the fire, but we’ve got to be ready.”
Sioux Falls SimplifiedMegan Raposa
Stuff to do: Jan. 22-28
Sled competitively, eat pancakes, paint your pal in the style of Picasso and more.
Sioux Falls SimplifiedMegan Raposa
Super Simplified Stories: Jan. 22, 2025
Lack of feedback at the county level, convention center options and regretfully informing you that the early aughts were, in fact, twenty years ago.
Sioux Falls SimplifiedMegan Raposa

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