Elevating conversations in rural areas to identify problems and solutions

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In St. Joseph, Minn., a young woman throws herself into the work of running her parents’ orchard, but she wonders how she’s going to cope with the isolation she feels in a rural community. She’s optimistic, but, she says, “I want to be honest, it’s deeply lonely.”

In Two Harbors, a senior who lives with her older, ailing sister puts a human face on the high cost of housing. “I’ve got a nice place right now, but the only way I can afford it is because my sister lives there too,” she says. “When she gets to the point where I can’t take care of her, I’m going to have to find a different place. What do I do? I just close my eyes and pretend it isn’t happening.”

In Chisholm, a manager whose work involves hiring qualified welders for her company vents her frustration with suggestions about training programs. “We need them today, not two years from now,” she says. And anyway, her company is engaged in training efforts with local colleges and high schools. “There’s not enough people, and not enough skilled people.”

These dilemmas come from real people who told their stories at events held by the Rural Voice, a series that I and my colleagues in the Minnesota Initiative Foundations, along with support from the Otto Bremer Foundation and Compeer Financial, launched two years ago. Their stories serve as proof of our concept: By elevating the Rural Voice, we can work to identify solutions to problems that bedevil our whole state, including rural and urban areas.

Admittedly, sometimes the problems come more readily than the solutions. Yet the solutions are often not far behind.

Dr. Cindy Firkins Smith, medical education vice president for CentraCare, related the central Minnesota health provider’s difficulty in recruiting enough nurses and doctors to staff rural hospitals and clinics. “Over half of rural physicians in this state are over age 58,” she said. “I fall into that category. We’re not going to practice forever. We’re not seeing enough young physicians coming up to replace us.

“How do we replace rural physicians that are going to be retiring, when 2% of medical students want to practice in rural areas? That is a crisis … . What kind of incentives can we create for some of those students with debt burdens of half a million dollars to come out and serve our rural communities?”

Her words caught the attention of Compeer executive John Monson. “She’s got me thinking,” he said. He mused that his firm offers grants and scholarships to people who are planning careers in agriculture. Couldn’t such financial support play a role in ensuring that medical professionals spend at least part of their careers in small towns?

Greg Ruberg, CEO of Lake View Hospital in Two Harbors, described similar difficulty in recruiting doctors to his facility. And when he has found good candidates, he said, some have backed out because they could not find a house in town.

“Housing needs a major moonshot right now,” declared Paul Peltier, a longtime choir and band teacher who moved his family to take a better job in Virginia, Minn., and was rattled by higher mortgage interest rates. “The more we can come together and realize that everybody’s problem is everybody’s problem, we’re gonna solve it together.”

Jason Hale, executive director of the Cook County Housing and Redevelopment Authority, spoke up with an idea that may not qualify as a moonshot, but it comes close.

“We have to look at this more regionally,” he said. “There are a lot of small towns in this beautiful part of the state that need housing, but there isn’t the bandwidth locally. People don’t have the time, resources or expertise to do that. We need to figure out a way to leverage the need more broadly to come up with solutions, like ‘Here’s a 40-unit housing footprint that can get approved and fast-tracked,’ and we get a development team that goes and builds 10 of them in these 10 small towns. We’ve got to think a little bit bigger than we have been.”

Hale added, “The whole state needs it.”

A consistent theme that emerges from these town-hall-style meetings is that the problems of rural Minnesota are widespread and interconnected. A shortage of workers contributes to a shortage of housing. The shortage of housing, in turn, leads to a further shortage of workers, because companies can’t recruit employees if there is nowhere for them to live. Young families decide to live elsewhere, and the demographics of the remaining population grow grayer. The younger people who are still there, like the woman tending her parents’ orchard, can feel isolated.

And yet the conversations also reveal reasons for hope. Speaker after speaker describes a determination to remain in these rural neighborhoods, even if it means forgoing a hefty salary in the city. Rural Voice reveals communities that are vital, engaging places to live, with benefits that include priceless natural beauty, reduced stress, a gentler or nonexistent rush hour and a lower cost of living.

We have partnered with the Center for Rural Policy and Development — a research organization that has produced important studies on these issues. We have enlisted the skills of Minnesota Public Radio journalist Kerri Miller, who has expertly moderated these town-hall discussions. We have learned that rural residents are eager to come to the table to share their perspective and offer solutions.

Our third series of conversations will kick off on Monday, Aug. 26, at the Minnesota State Fair and will be broadcast by MPR. Additional events are slated in September. In Worthington, we will explore how rural communities thrive as new immigrants put down roots. In Red Wing, we will discuss civic engagement. In Detroit Lakes, we will address ambitions, solutions and tensions around sustainable agriculture.

By elevating rural voices, we celebrate the rural way of life. Moving forward starts with coming together, listening to and learning from one another, and then seeking common ground. After all, our lives are inextricably linked.

As state Sen. Aric Putnam from St. Cloud suggested in our meeting at St. Joseph, the future of Minnesota is neither rural nor urban. It’s both.

Tim Penny is a co-founder of Rural Voice and president/CEO of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation.