By Marnie Werner, Vice President of Research & Operations In a report we released last February, we talked about an important tool in the work on suicide prevention, 988. The suicide prevention phone number changed in 2022 from its former ten-digit 800 number to the easy-to-remember three digits. As part of our discussion on suicide ...

The Center for Rural Policy & Development and the Citizens League hosted another conversation in their Interconnected series on Wednesday, May 22, 2024. This online conversation covered the housing crisis and challenges across Minnesota – from substantial racial disparities in homeownership to innovative housing solutions, how are communities and organizations across the state working to ...

EXCERPT: “Domestic abuse involving intimate partners is happening at a higher rate in the nation’s rural areas than it is in urban ones, a problem made worse by fewer safety screenings of people who are potentially at risk for abuse, according to studies conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Minnesota. One of ...

On this episode, Kelly Asche, Senior Researcher at the Center for Rural Policy and Development, speaks with Amy Baldwin, Community Development Director at Otter Tail County, about their housing initiative – The Big Build. Housing is one of the biggest problems when it comes to attracting people to Greater Minnesota and fill our workforce needs. ...

EXCERPT: “After seeing the economic pressures people were facing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Center for Small Towns – an organization connected to the University of Minnesota – Morris – began looking into what challenges their community faced when it came to food security. The team found that many people in Stevens County experienced food insecurity. ...

The USDA – ERS has released the new Rural-Urban Continuum Codes for each county. Kelly Asche, Senior Research April 2024 People love classifications—the ability to split things into separate, distinct groups makes them easier to measure, providing some clarity when creating policy. Although we agree that most classifications aren’t perfect, we also don’t give enough ...

EXCERPT: “While St. Cloud is looking to help people without homes find a permanent place to live, many businesses in greater Minnesota are having difficulty hiring employees because they can’t find adequate housing. But few developers are willing to build in areas with low population density. Kaomi Lee found one west central builder trying to help, ...

In this episode, Julie Tesch, President and CEO of the Center for Rural Policy and Development, has a discussion with our newly appointed members to our Board of Directors – Brown County Administrator Sam Hansen and  Aitkin County Administrator Jessica Siebert. Sam and Jessica discuss current issues in their county, recent successes, population change, and ...

The recent Census of Agriculture shows that ag in rural Minnesota isn’t monolithic. Kelly Asche, Senior Researcher April 2024 A topic that is frequently discussed among rural residents, particularly in agricultural areas, is how much farming has changed over the last 50 years. The technology being used, the crops that now dominate the landscape, and ...

EXCERPT: “This summer’s most fashionable color will be orange. Again. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has 193 road and bridge construction projects on tap for this spring, summer and fall in pretty much every corner of the state: Edina, East Grand Forks, Duluth, Litchfield, Minneapolis, Monticello and lots of other spots. ‘Drivers throughout Minnesota can ...