Tag: rural minnesota

Interconnected Rural-Urban Conversations: Examining Health Care Access

      Thursday, June 3rd: Examining Health Care Access Access to healthcare services is critical to good health, yet both rural and urban Minnesota residents face a variety of access barriers. When we talk about healthcare, cost is often the focus. But broader accessibility issues remain a challenge. Both rural and urban residents encounter ...

Meatpacking Towns bring diversity to rural Minnesota

By Whitney Oachs, Research intern If you listened to our latest episode on our The Center of Everywhere podcast, you know that my classmates and I at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs completed a capstone thesis this spring on local government outreach among rural immigrant and refugee communities. In the study, we ...

Interconnected Rural-Urban Conversations: Minnesota’s Workforce – Help Wanted, Everywhere

      Thursday, April 29th: Minnesota’s Workforce – Help Wanted, Everywhere Our second Interconnected Conversation focused on the workforce shortage in Minnesota. Panelists discussed the similarities and differences in the workforce shortage between urban and rural Minnesota, how the pandemic affected employment in rural and urban areas differently, and some possible solutions for solving ...
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Disruptions in child care access show its importance to the economy

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations A lack of reliable child care was the single biggest problem for employees in America before the pandemic. Now, as parents head back to work, they will be looking for child care, whether it’s with their old provider or a new one, and that will drive up ...

Season 1 Ep. 19: Homelessness in rural MN, with Rhonda Otteson

On this week’s episode, Julie talks with Rhonda Otteson, Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless, about homelessness in rural Minnesota. It’s easy to overlook since homelessness doesn’t always look the way we think it should. Rhonda and Julie discuss the many hidden factors that put people at risk for homelessness, why the housing situation in Greater ...

Child care in rural Minnesota after 2020

by Marnie Werner, VP Research A unique opportunity? For a printable version of this report, click here. To view the accompanying webinar, click here. To download the slides from the webinar presentation, click here. After a year of COVID, spiking unemployment, closed schools, and restricted businesses, rural Minnesotans may be looking at a unique opportunity in ...
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The key to a great opportunity if we can grab it

By Marnie Werner, VP, Research & Operations Ready for a silver lining? So much of what we hear about the pandemic is doom and gloom, but as a new report we released last month on workforce and job vacancies showed, rural Minnesota is sitting at the crossroads of two important trends that have created a ...
Center of Everywhere podcast

Season 1 Ep. 17: Vaccine rollout in Greater Minnesota

For the last ten months, Minnesotans have been waiting along with the rest of the world for a vaccine to protect us from COVID-19. Now that we have one, though, officials face the next big issue: how to get those shots out to the public. For this topic, we’ve invited back Sue Grafstrom, a CRPD ...