When I visited Grand Rapids in July, I spoke with KAXE Radio’s female reporters to have on-the-ground conversations about issues that matter to local people, and what I’m hearing as journalists who are sensitive to community concerns and emotions. It included a discussion about. Some of the opinions shared are listed below. The comments are not attributed to a specific person (as the notes were lost), but reflect a summary of what was said.
KAXE Wireless State in Grand Rapids
political leadership
There is sometimes a disconnect between our elected officials and the officials running things on the ground. In Itasca County, most nonprofit organizations are run by women, and this is not a new phenomenon. Women have been running these organizations for decades. We are empowering women to make decisions to lead these organizations. Some of our community foundations are home to strong, powerful women.
However, looking at the ballot papers, most of the candidates and candidates who are elected are men.
I recently had a conversation with a very passionate woman and asked her if she would be interested in running for Congress. She said it wasn’t possible. She had two children. “How do we get to St. Paul’s? We have some great ideas that we would like to implement, but our children are young.” Our situation makes it difficult for women to run. It has become. You can’t just go to the city and work in Congress.
I think the national story often subsumes parts of the local conversation. I think when you look at local government, there are a lot of ways that people can come to agreement around here, regardless of their political affiliation. Everyone agrees we need more housing. If we want this community to grow economically, we have to provide people with a place to live and child care options. They are not partisan issues.
Do people sometimes approach them from a partisan lens? Yes. Sometimes the national narrative or the pulse of social media leaks into the conversation. But overall, I think there’s something going on at the local level of government that is bipartisan. People from all walks of life can agree on goals.
Women are leading in many ways here, but the people we elect don’t reflect that. For example, there are no women on local county boards. The majority of local governments in the region are controlled by older, retired men. To serve in such a way when faced with additional challenges such as not being able to find affordable child care, not being able to find affordable housing, not being able to earn enough money to live. How can I extend myself further? Life in the countryside is more difficult.
housing
Rural areas face the challenge of not receiving similar financial support from the state. The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency is a great example. Rural areas are inherently disadvantaged in accessing funding.
Itasca County has a new community housing trust model in which people own their homes but the land remains in trust. When reselling, the idea is that the owner is just selling the house. They call these homes affordable homes, but if you look at the real estate agent’s website, the homes are selling for $225,000. So affordable, so who is it for?
Even though we’re trying to hire younger staff, the average age was probably 50-55 around here, and now we’re working with people in their 20s, and it’s hard to find affordable housing in this area. is. We want to encourage young people to come back here and make a living for themselves. Maybe they don’t want to live in mom and dad’s basement. They need a place to stand on their own and space to ground themselves, and we don’t have much of that here.
At Report for America’s national convention, I was sent to communities across the country to sit in on discussions with reporters all sharing their experiences. They all talked about the challenges of finding affordable housing. They either had to make very long drives or spent at least half of their income on housing. Therefore, it is not unique to our region. But the development part, the infrastructure behind it, is deeply flawed and doesn’t provide the right incentives to build truly affordable housing. That is capitalism.
Homelessness has always been a problem in rural Minnesota, just not as prominently as in other places. Much of this has to do with mental health and substance use, which are closely intertwined. There just aren’t enough programs, resources, or beds.
I don’t think it’s fair at all to expect law enforcement to have social workers as well. It was a failure from the beginning. The nearby Crow Wing County Jail serves as a shelter. Brainerd City Council is pushing for a public camping ordinance.
safety
We conduct interviews and focus groups with women. When the #MeToo movement began, women in this region quickly learned that they had no right to tell their employers what they were doing to them. There was a single mother here whose boss had been pushing her up against a wall and harassing her for years. But she said she didn’t know what else to do because she couldn’t afford to lose her job and was trying to find a new one. Everyone participating in the conversation slowly demonstrated understanding. One person said he consulted his brother and was told there was a law against harassment. But how do you hire a lawyer if you’re about to lose your job?
transportation
I used to work at a community foundation, and there was funding there. One of our biggest requests was people wanting to fix their cars. They become ill and are unable to travel to and from work or attend probation appointments. We wrote a lot of grants for bicycles and timed transit buses. If you had an overnight job, you had few options other than your feet or your bike. Currently, there is a free self-driving car system, GoMARTI, but its service area is quite limited. If you have difficulty finding housing and must live outside of Grand Rapids, you may also have transportation difficulties. It will snowball.
Transportation is probably the biggest problem. Because if you don’t have a car and you’re not in the right area (where you can probably catch a city bus every 5 hours), it sucks.
GoMARTI recently received additional funding. They plan to expand westward to the Leech Lake Reservation. This is a pilot project. They are intentionally testing these cars to see if they can survive the winter. It has created opportunities for people, especially people with disabilities. The cars are all wheelchair accessible and can go quite far from the city centre. It has a lot of potential, but so far it also appears to be dependent on government funding. How long will it last?
health
Itasca County is the only county in the state that administers its own public health insurance program. Depending on which side of the story you believe, the program essentially ended up excluding the primary behavioral health providers in the community. It was due to billing disputes and many other things. But it was one of the few places where people could get specific treatments and medications for extreme depression. Now they have to drive to Duluth. For some people, finding a way to get to Duluth, or even having the motivation and desire to go that far for a one-time appointment, is difficult for some people when they are already facing serious hardships. You end up adding an insurmountable barrier. .
LGBTQ+ and humanization
I think I was able to engage in some difficult conversations through my personal story. We spoke to women who were victims of domestic violence. We talked to the abusers. When marriage equality was on the ballot here in Minnesota, we spoke with people in the LGBTQ+ community about what marriage equality meant to them. It humanizes these things.
I think a lot of people react and act out of fear in that place. When you can express faces and voices, you say, “I saw that woman at church. I see her coming to my school to pick up the kids.” It humanizes people, so you becomes less afraid of it.
At a recent LGBTQ+ Pride event, we did multiple stories. We covered the opposition. We investigated the response to this. After that, I covered the event.
Some considered it Grand Rapids’ first Pride event. But while it was the first major Pride festival in history, it certainly didn’t measure up to the first Pride event. This has wiped out much of the work that LGBTQ+ people have traditionally done in rural areas. There has been research in this area for a long time, albeit on a small scale. This scale caught people’s attention and made some people nervous.
This feels like another example of how sometimes the loudest voice in the room is the most opposing. Therefore, it may appear that there are more opponents than there actually are. On the day of the event, thousands of people gathered to have a great time, enjoy the day with their families, and support the event. If you’re sitting at home and only consuming through a particular lens: social media, it might seem like there’s a massive backlash like this.
There were a few people who showed up that day to protest. And frankly, they have such strong points of view that they never change their minds. That’s the truth of the matter. But that space in the middle gets a lot of movement – the exposure is great. And yes, that’s it
It’s a reminder of where we started this conversation, which is that people are in a vacuum with no good information in front of them. They rely on social media. We know that the people behind the keyboard are often expressing their deepest, darkest, angriest selves. By interviewing people, having conversations, and actually researching what the issues are, you can put real facts and information out there.
The reason journalists who actually cover these things are so important is because they can shine a light on these things and put some disinfectant on them. Thousands of people have found themselves having a great time supporting those who feel marginalized in their communities. Then there were 6 people who came to the party just to spew hate and be miserable. It was important that we were there to tell that story.
It was also another example of the difference between community-based reporting and outside reporting. The outdoor interview was about drag queens. The photos we shared focused more on the stripes of the entire family.
The event took place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The drag performance occupied approximately 45 minutes of that time range. Some of the media across the state was here reporting on this, and they covered it for exactly 45 minutes. Families playing bingo together, artists singing and playing, community organizations setting up tables and booths, and people enjoying food and drinks are not featured. That was completely lost in their coverage.
