Year: 2024

Associated Press: How immigration reshaped the look of a Minnesota farm town

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 ...

Demand for nursing facility beds will vary across Minnesota

By: Kelly Asche A new report by the Center for Rural Policy will be published in early November focused on trends in nursing home facility beds. As many of you may have heard or experienced, nursing homes across Minnesota have been either closing or reducing the number of beds they have available, lately due to ...

The Daily Yonder: Medical Academy Serves High School Students and Their Communities

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 ...

State of Rural preview: Nonemployer receipts

By: Kelly Asche, Senior Researcher Every January, the Center for Rural Policy and Development releases the “State of Rural,” a report that reviews the important demographic and economic  trends in Greater Minnesota. We usually have to wait until December—that is when the U.S. Census Bureau releases the newest batch of data for the American Community ...

KARE-TV: State housing department to fund hundreds of new rentals in Greater MN

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 ...

State of Rural preview: Nonemployer statistics

By: Kelly Asche, Senior Research Every January, the Center for Rural Policy and Development releases the “State of Rural,” a report that provides the trends of important demographic and economic measures. We usually have to wait until December—that is when the U.S. Census Bureau releases the newest batch of data for the American Community Survey, ...

Fillmore County Journal: Greater Minnesota Updates for Rushford

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 ...

Lakeland PBS: Northern Access Hosts Bi-Monthly Meeting to Discuss Rural Disparities in Sober Housing

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 ...

Before it’s a crisis

Connecting kids to mental health services faster By Marnie Werner, Vice President of Research Even before we started work on our latest report, “Youth Mental Health: Where parents can find help now,” we were hearing stories of kids (and adults, too) brought to the emergency room of the local rural hospital because parents (or family ...