Category: Rural Headlines

EXCERPT: “Insurance, interest rates, and staffing are common challenges for rental housing owners and operators in Greater Minnesota, a region made up of 80 of the state’s 87 counties and home to 45 percent of its population.1 That’s according to conversations with dozens of multifamily property owners there this summer. They told us that while ...

EXCERPT: “Immigration from around the world has transformed Worthington, bringing new businesses to emptying downtown storefronts as well as new worship and recreational spaces to this town of 14,000 residents in the southwestern Minnesota farmland. On the same downtown block where children once admired Coast King bikes while their parents bought furniture and do-it-yourself tools, Asian and ...

EXCERPT: “For Montevideo Public School Superintendent Wade McKittrick, creating a medical academy in the Montevideo High School filled a need on two fronts for the rural Minnesota community – the students’ and the community’s. Montevideo Medical Academy provides high-school students with medical training to give them a leg up when it comes to getting jobs. For ...

EXCERPT: “Dozens of small- and mid-sized communities in Minnesota are about to get a big boost from the state’s housing board of directors. Minnesota Housing announced Friday that $38.7 million will soon go toward building new rental properties across Greater Minnesota. The agency said the nearly $40 million investment will create 832 market-rate rental units ...

EXCERPT: “At the September 23 meeting of the Rushford City Countil, Elizabeth Wefel, attorney and lobbyist with Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities (CGMC), provided the council with a summary of the coalition’s work in the last legislative session. Rushford is a longtime member of the coalition, made up of more than 100 cities across the ...

EXCERPT: “Northern Access, a Treatment and Government Organizations coalition, held their bi-monthly meeting at the Beltrami County Administration Building in Bemidji. They met with several other nonprofit organizations to discuss homeless and addiction recovery access throughout northern Minnesota. Many representatives from different organizations met at their bi-monthly meeting in Bemidji to address rural disparities and issues ...

EXCERPT: “In the past five years, over 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies, contributing to the 57% of rural U.S. hospitals that lack labor and delivery services. This finding comes from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Its July report details the number of rural hospitals by state that lack maternity care services, those ...

EXCERPT: “The U.S. Postal Service is planning to make changes that could result in slower service to rural areas. The proposal, announced Aug. 22, would adjust mail delivery times while maintaining a commitment to a maximum five-day delivery for the flagship Ground Advantage program nationwide and a maximum three-day delivery for local first-class mail. USPS said the ...

EXCERPT: “Paulette Johnson described her brother John’s move from one nursing home to another as ‘traumatic.’ John Johnson had lived in the Meadow Lane Restorative Care Center in Benson for about five years before he had to leave when the center announced its closure last summer. Since the COVID pandemic, nursing homes across Minnesota have been closing ...