A modest proposal: Leaving

Torn down building in Shiloh Mountain area, Arkansas
© Lisa R. Pruitt, 2011

The Washington Post's 2017 article "Disabled and Disdained" tells the story of the McGlothlins, residents of Grundy, Virginia, who have fallen on hard times. The patriarch of the family is in jail after struggling with addiction. One of his sons shared the same fate. Sheila, the matriarch, lives on $500 a month in disability payments. Tyler, her 19-year-old son, lives in the household with his wife Morgan. Neither works. Tyler panhandles to supplement his mother's income. The article wants the readers (or at least that it is my impression) to feel sympathy for Tyler. Tyler did things right. He graduated high school, stayed clean, avoided unwanted pregnancies, got financial aid, enrolled in community college, and bought a car. Then, he lost his license as the result of a car accident, and as a result was unable to keep going to school. The article also describes a man named David Hess. Hess is an almost absurd character. He crossed paths with the McGlothlins when Tyler's father was out on the streets panhandling. Hess offered McGlothlin a job, but the McGlothlin patriarch refused on account of his work injuries. Outraged, Hess proceeded to chastise him (both in person and online) for his idleness. And yet, by the end of the article, I found myself sympathizing with Hess more than I did with Tyler.

Being 19 years old

In 2018, I was 19 years old, just like Tyler. I had been in the country for a couple of years by then. I rented the living room floor of a relative's apartment for $350 a month. I say floor because I slept on the floor. I did not have to, but doing so was more comfortable than sleeping on the couch, and so that's what I did. In those days, I worked full time as a shift leader at Carl's Jr. (although, due to my coworkers' chronic absenteeism, I often worked overtime), and I was simultaneously enrolled full time at Sacramento City College. I took the bus to both, spending several hours a day on it. I met a lot of curious characters on those buses (e.g. a man, who by my best guess was from Panama, who had made it routine to tell me he was going to kill me). I thought life was pretty good. One of my classes that semester was English Composition II. The class was taught by a professor whose name I have unfortunately long forgotten. The professor was a South African woman, advanced in years, and clearly well read. She taught us how to make proper use of the English language. She taught us about how we were not supposed to say "terrorist," since "freedom fighter" was the correct term. When asked whether Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist or a freedom fighter, she said he was a terrorist. English is a complicated language. The overarching assignment for the semester was an essay on a book titled Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Shepard's job of choice in Scratch Beginnings
© Aim 2 Please Moving

Ehrenreich and Shepard

Nickel and Dimed follows journalist Barbara Ehrenreich as she goes undercover working a variety of minimum-wage jobs. In the book, Ehrenreich describes her experience in those jobs as difficult, injury-inducing, and soul-crushing. The wages she earned were not enough to cover her basic needs, and Ehrenreich, despite her best efforts, ate into the modest amount of savings she set aside for the experiment. The book's conclusion is grim: the American working poor are trapped, with very little-to-no hope of escaping despite their best efforts.

I was not convinced. My task that semester was to write a four- or five-page essay on the book. On account of a flare up of chronic contrarianism, I set out to find a book which was the antithesis to Nickel and Dimed, one which I could wield as a club against it in my essay writing process. I did not have to look for very long. Scratch Beginnings, by Adam Shepard (who, according to his LinkedIn page, is the co-founder of a brand named "Practice Empathy"), is a direct response to Ehrenreich. Shepard, a 23-year-old recent college graduate, started from scratch in Charleston, SC (a city he was unfamiliar with) with nothing but $25 in his pocket. He deliberately avoided using his degree, his connections, or any advantage not available to the general public. Ten months later, he had bought a truck, saved over $5,000, and by his account made friends and even gotten physically stronger. I echoed Shepard's criticisms of Ehrenreich in my essay and got a B. Curiously, I was not docked for the blatant contrarianism or lack of effort, but for using male pronouns a bit too much (such as when saying "if he did so..." instead of "if she did so..."). I explained to the professor that I only wrote that way because my own inner voice was male, and that was being reflected in my writing, but such an explanation was not sufficient. My core criticism of Ehrenreich, then and now, is that her experiment was unrealistic. Sixty-year-old women do not spawn into the world with nothing. In sixty years, a person accumulates skills, connections, and at least the opportunity to save. Her starting point was not a true starting point. Almost every story is a tragedy when the only thing you write is the final chapter. 

Who keeps Tyler home?

Tyler is the opposite of a 60-year-old woman. His story has really just begun; at 19, he has just entered the "agency" part of the human experience. And yet, throughout the article, I couldn't avoid the feeling like I was reading the last chapter of a story, not the first. What exactly could be the reason for that? My main suspect is the town of Grundy itself. Grundy has a population of 875 residents, distributed among 300 households and a bit under 200 families. Of these households, only about one-fifth have children at home. In the last decade, Grundy lost almost 15% of its population. With such conditions, it is not entirely unexpected that there is a lack of good jobs there. Explaining why there are no good jobs is harder. It certainly is at least partially caused by a variety of policy choices made by people far away from the McGlothlins (deindustrialization, climate policy, trade, and many more). Maybe it's just bad luck.

But a lack of good jobs cannot be the end of the inquiry. Tyler's life was more or less on rails before a few events derailed it. He lost his job at McDonald's after missing a shift due to a snowstorm, and he lost his ability to go to school after losing his license as the result of a car accident. Perhaps I am being a bit too cynical, but I doubt that a simple snowstorm and a "car accident" is all that happened. To be clear, I am not accusing Tyler of anything. However, these descriptions do not match at all with my lived experience. What kind of employer fires an employee over missing work once because of a snowstorm? I have worked a variety of jobs in food and retail, and I cannot remember even a single instance of someone being fired due to one episode of (justified) absenteeism. In all the jobs that I have had, when a person missed work due to other commitments, forgetfulness, or just being too busy doing drugs, nothing happened. At worst, they got a write-up. Businesses generally don't like to get rid of  good (or even mediocre) employees for minor absences or tardiness. Training new employees is a cost that most businesses would rather not bear too frequently. Similarly, it seems unusually harsh to take away a person's license over an accident in which they had little fault. Virginia is perhaps harsher than California in this regard, but this is still suspect. Here we come to two policies that could help a person such as Tyler, but which I am unconvinced would do the trick: (1) more stringent laws against wrongful termination, and (2) more lenient penalties for traffic infractions that result in accidents.

But even the lack of any jobs and a driver's license cannot be the end of the inquiry either. If the idea is that rural areas have a high density of acquaintanceship, was there truly not a single person in Tyler or his family's entire social network who could get him closer to a bus, or to school, or a place with jobs? Is Grundy really so far from everything? A quick search reveals that the closest metro area to Grundy is Kingsport, TN (population ~55,000), about a 2-hour-drive. This is a significant (but not insurmountable) distance, and it may explain the lack of opportunities. There are seemingly no public transportation options that would cover that trip either. Here we arrive at yet another policy that could help Tyler's situation: more extensive public transportation options. Admittedly, I have not seen a "commuter" route that stretches as far as the one Tyler would need, so its feasibility is debatable.

Rural people, immigrants, and subsidies

Venezuelan immigrants in Ecuador.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there isn't a single job available in Grundy; and, assuming also, that Grundy is simply so remote that it is literally impossible to commute by any means (whether public or private) to any other place where a job might be found, that raises the final question: why not move? How could things be worse anywhere else? I have looked for a satisfying answer to why people in economically depressed areas resist moving, and I have not found one.

As an immigrant, I find the resistance to moving genuinely difficult to understand. If life is so bad where you are and economic prospects are better elsewhere, why stay? I understand loving a place. Most immigrants from my country to the United States that I have met have expressed that they would like to go back some day. Many have expressed that, even if not possible during their lives, they would like to at least be buried back at home (it almost never happens, but it is a really nice sentiment). However, even with attachment considered, isn't leaving and returning with more resources a more productive approach? From my perspective, the McGlothlins' situation resembles something close to the natural, baseline state of things. What historically propels families out of such circumstances is a willingness to take risk, usually when things cannot get any worse. Usually, one member, often male, ventures somewhere harder and less comfortable, lives cheaply, saves aggressively, and slowly creates a foothold for others to follow. It is usually not pretty, but it's also a practice not unique to international migrants.

What I cannot relate to, in terms of my own lived experience, is the $500 in disability payments. Sheila's disability payment is also a policy choice. So is every other federal and state subsidy or program that flows into a place like Grundy. I want to be careful with my words, lest the spirit of David Hess fully take over me. I am not arguing that the government should abandon people in hard circumstances in order to force a sink-or-swim outcome. If the government did, a lot of people would undoubtedly just sink. I am asking whether support sometimes functions as an anchor. Tyler is not facing a choice between certain misery (staying) and possible misery (leaving). He is facing a choice between possible misery (leaving) and a small, predictable share of $500 (staying). There is a Spanish refrain which roughly translates to: "A bird in your hands is worth more than 100 in the sky."

Conclusion

Which brings me to a question that has loitered in my mind for the entire time I spent writing this post: at what point does subsidizing rural and remote areas just become subsidizing misery? Maybe the "death" of places like Grundy (or in less scary terms, their transformation) would benefit everyone, especially the people who live there. And maybe, what is slowing that transformation down is the accumulated weight of everyone's personal share of $500. I did not mean for this post to sound so negative. I do not think the McGlothlins are contemptible people. But perhaps there is something to the contempt that the David Hesses of the world display.

SNAP under fire

Credit: USDA, May 2010
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”) has played a pivotal role as one of the most effective tools for combating food insecurity at a federal level. Food insecurity and food desserts often go hand in hand, and this blog has previously discussed their impacts. The current administration has proposed major changes to SNAP under the Make America Health Again (“MAHA”) campaign, but what exactly is happening? And how will those changes impact rural Americans differently than urban ones? 

In July 2025, Congress passed H.R. 1 (the "One Big Beautiful Bill"), which introduced significant federal cuts to a range of social programs, including SNAP. Beginning in October 2027, the law will change SNAP’s work requirement policy, payment error rate policy, and the share of administrative costs covered by the federal government.

SNAP time-limit work requirements require participants to spend at least 80 hours per month engaged in allowable activities such as employment or job training. Previously, applied these requirements only to “able-bodied adults without dependents.” This group included people between the ages of 18 and 54 without children or a work-limiting disability, and excluded those who were pregnant, veterans, experiencing homelessness, or youth aged out of foster care. The new law expands these requirements. Now, non-disabled adults aged 55 to 64 without dependent children and non-disabled adults ages 18 to 64 whose youngest dependent is between the ages of 14 and 15 must meet the work requirement. In addition, the current law removes previous exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and youth who aged out of foster care.

Beyond work requirements, the law also changes how states are held accountable for SNAP benefit distribution. SNAP defines the payment error rate as “the measurement of the accuracy of active case review.” In simple terms, the rate reflects the percentage of SNAP benefits that states issued incorrectly, including both overpayments and underpayments. In the past, states with high payment error rates were required to implement corrective action plans and could face financial penalties only after sustained high error rates over multiple years. Under the new law, states with payment error rates exceeding six percent will be required to absorb a portion of their SNAP benefit costs.

However, past data suggests that this threshold is set too low. In 2024, only seven states reported payment error rates below six percent. Additionally, in an effort to increase cost-sharing, the federal government has reduced the percentage of administrative costs it will cover, lowering the federal share from 50 percent to 25 percent. Administrative costs include staffing, case management, eligibility verification, IT systems, and customer service infrastructure. Cutting federal support in half places a higher burden on state budgets and makes it difficult for states to reduce payment error rates and properly enforce SNAP eligibility requirements.

Consequently, this cost-sharing structure will likely impose the greatest hardships on under-resourced states. For example, based on Ohio’s previous error rates, the state could potentially be on the hook for $318 million in SNAP benefit costs.

In addition to restructuring how SNAP operates, policymakers have also pushed to change what participants can purchase with their benefits. The MAHA movement has pushed to restrict the types of food that can be purchased with SNAP benefits. For decades, federal policy allowed SNAP benefits to be used to purchase any food item except alcohol and ready-to-eat hot foods. States wishing to impose any additional restrictions were required to obtain a waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). While these federal rules remain in place several states encouraged by the current administration, have applied for waivers that would prevent SNAP benefits from being used to purchase “junk foods.” Beginning January 1, 2026, a number of states, including Utah, West Virginia, Nebraska, Iowa, and Indiana, implemented restrictions preventing SNAP participants from using their benefits to purchase soda.

Supporters of the MAHA movement frame these changes as necessary to combat a national health crisis, critics disagree. Opponents highlight the barriers that many rural communities already face when trying to access food. In some areas, residents may only have access to gas stations or small convenience markets as their primary food sources. Additional restriction on eligible food purchases could leave SNAP participants with few practical options for using their benefits. Furthermore, health policy experts note that limiting choices does not guarantee that individuals will make “healthier” decisions. Instead, these restrictions that limit food purchasing options may undermine participants’ autonomy and dignity.

Taken together, these changes represent a significant shift in the federal approach to SNAP. Expanded work requirements, increased state cost burdens, and new restrictions on eligible food purchases may share how participants access and use benefits. These changes will be felt strongly in many rural communities with limited food access. One in seven rural households rely on SNAP. For these Americans, limited job opportunities, seasonal or unstable employment, and long distances to workplaces make it significantly harder to consistently meet work requirements, especially when reliable transportation and childcare options remain scarce.

Black lung spreads to younger miners due to complications from silica

Kate Morgan reports from the New York Times from a trip across Appalachia to learn about black lung disease's newest manifestation, which implicates silica and is affecting younger miners.  Some key excerpts follow:

Modern miners are contracting [black lung disease] at younger ages and at rates not seen since the 1970s. For 20th-century miners, it could take decades to develop severe black lung. For men of Aundra Brock’s generation, just a few years can be enough. Nationwide, one in 10 working miners is now estimated to have black lung. In the heart of the central Appalachian coal fields, it’s one in five. Often, their disease is more severe, the progression faster. Doctors are seeing larger masses and more scarring in the lungs. Transplants, disability claims and deaths are all on the rise.

* * *  

In an old industry, the reasons are modern. Centuries of extraction have altered the landscape, making the mountains more dangerous to mine, researchers say, and the men beneath them vulnerable not just to black lung, but to another lung disease called silicosis.

* * * 

Silicosis is caused by inhaling a mineral called crystalline silica that is typically found in sand, stone and concrete. It is a building block of the Appalachians. But in the air, it is dangerous, able to create much worse scarring in the lungs than coal dust alone. Breathing the coal and silica dust together can create a kind of hybrid disease that quickly leads to progressive massive fibrosis.

Scientists and miners alike have long understood the dangers of the rock dust. “You can tell there’s silica when you see the flicker in it,” said Charles Thacker, a 69-year-old former miner from Norton, Va., who now has black lung. “It looks like bits of glass flashing in the light. It’s almost pretty. But that’s what gets in your lungs and cuts you up.”

Don't miss the rest of the story, which is chock full of human interest context.   Also, I want to mention that the ravages of silica on miners was a topic of discussion at this event at West Virginia University College of Law this spring.  (See the panel at 11:00 am).

Death of the American Dream for rural America

Is the American Dream ("the Dream") dead? The Dream posits that success results from work and sacrifice rather than the circumstances in which one is born. However, in recent years, some have argued that the so-called Dream is illusory, used only as a "strategic and intricate device crafted to keep you where you are." Antagonists propose that the Dream only adds wealth to the rich while keeping dream-chasers on the hamster wheel. 

The Dream can be measured by analyzing generational mobility, which refers to whether an individual's social and economic opportunities depend upon their parents' income or social status. Less generational mobility suggests that the Dream is dead or dying, and more mobility indicates the opposite. Upward mobility means that an individual was born to parents in the bottom 25% of income earners and that they later fall within the top 25% of income earners in America. 

According to most data, residents of rural counties are more likely to be persistently poor, with at least a 20 percent poverty rate persisting for at least 30 years. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, "In terms of poverty, college attainment, teenage births, divorce, death rates from heart disease and cancer, reliance on federal disability insurance and male labor-force participation, rural counties now rank the worst."

According to some researchers, five factors directly correlate with generational mobility: (1) residential segregation, (2) income inequality, (3) school quality, (4) social capital, and (5) family structure. Rural counties have lower incomes, levels of educational attainment, life expectancies, and limited access to health insurance and healthcare providers than their urban counterparts. Why, then, do some rural counties have the highest upward mobility rates in the country but also some of the lowest? 

Perhaps another factor—the ease of migration from rural communities to urban ones—can explain this seeming disparity. Is the solution to "attaining" the Dream to be born into a rural community and leave as soon as possible for an urban one? If leaving is the only answer, should the Dream even be considered a dream?

Supposing that achieving the Dream for rural people is premised on leaving their community, each pursuit diminishes the Dream for those left behind. If the best and brightest pursue education or economic opportunities elsewhere, growth remains stagnant for the home community. Published by The Sun, a U.C. Davis law student references Fresno's inability to attract educated professionals, a phenomenon called "brain drain," the migration of educated and skilled individuals away from their home region. His solution to attract young professionals includes increasing career opportunities, housing, arts, entertainment, and sports.

While stagnant growth may be one side effect of the Dream, one more insidious issue is the Dream's tarnishing effect. If everyone can succeed, why do unsuccessful people exist? Like Vice President J.D. Vance, proponents of the Dream argue that lack of success results from laziness. However, those proponents forget what the evidence proves—a lack of resources impacts the likelihood of success. Often, proponents of the Dream ignore their privilege to bolster their ego and achievements.

Like most things, the Dream may be aspirational in most parts of America. Nevertheless, it seemingly impedes and damages rural America's vitality. It is okay to recognize that dreams vary between people and places. Arguably, for rural America, the question is not whether the Dream is dead but whether it should be.

Despite renaming efforts, Indigenous slurs persist in rural jurisdictions

 In January 2023, the federal government removed a common slur that is both racist and sexist towards Indigenous women in nearly 650 locations nationwide. A few months earlier, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill removing the word sq**w  from public spaces in California. 

One of these uses was in Yokuts Valley in Fresno County, California. Yokuts Valley, population 3,511, is a small community located at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains on State Route 180, just south of Kings Canyon National Park. According to the USDA's definition, the Yokuts Valley is rural. 

The federal name-change movement was led by Roman Rain Tree. Rain Tree is a member of the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians and Choinumni People and is the founder of the Rename Squ**w Valley Coalition. 

In January of 2022, Rain Tree filed a petition with the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, saying that the region "deserved a respectable name, one that, at the very least, does not degrade the people indigenous to the Sierra Nevada foothills." This petition ultimately resulted in the January 2023 federal name change. 

Before we look at this rural place's decision in refusing to comply with these changes, we should dive into the history of the term first. 

History of the S-Word

The term sq**w (now referred to as the "S-Word") has been historically problematic. It is understood by Indigenous peoples (like the Nimíipuu community) as "an alien non-Indian term." The term does not have an indigenous linguistic equivalence, and was never translated into the Nez Perce language.

Moreover, the phase was created by Lewis and Clark in 1805 and was later used by early fur traders and trappers who came to Idaho. The University of Idaho's Lewis & Clark rediscovery project studied the word's significance and found that while Lewis and Clark attached a neutral meaning to the term, it is still derogatory: 

Lewis and Clark perhaps attached a more neutral meaning to the term's use in their day, not deliberately intending it to be offensive. In daily verbal discourse today Indians generally understand the term in a highly negative fashion, referring to a range of derogatory and demeaning significances.

Scholars have historically debated the origins of the term. In 2000, linguist William Bright at the University of Colorado published a research paper in A Journal of Onomastics called "The Sociolinguistics of the “S–Word”: Squaw in American Placenames" where he defines the S-Word and its origins in the paper's abstract (NOTE: quote has been edited for political correctness): 

Placenames containing the word [“sq**w”] are numerous throughout the United States, but have recently become controversial. American Indian groups and individuals have presented three kinds of argument against the use of the term. The first argument is that it is derived from an Mohawk word for the female genitalia. Linguistic data show, however, that it is actually a New England Massachusett word for ‘woman'. [sic] A second argument presented is that “sq**w” has been, and is still, used derogatorily by whites toward Indian women. This argument is supported only weakly by literary documents, but more strongly by frontier memoirs and journalistic writing. The third argument is that [“sq***w”] is offensive to Indians, in the same way that [“n****r”] is offensive to African Americans.

Regardless of its origins, the term is considered universally offensive by Indigenous peoples in America and Canada. It is considered to be so offensive that even prior to 2023, businesses have been renaming things that mention S-Word an effort to condemn America's colonial and oppressive history. In June of 2020, Palisades Tahoe (a ski resort formerly known as S-Word Valley) committed to changing its name and stopped using the derogatory term in September of 2021.

Rural Places Hesitancy to Correct Our Problematic Past via Renaming

This month, Fresnoland published an article detailing how Fresno County is refusing to acknowledge both the S-Word's offensive history and even the existence of the name change in general. 

While the majority of these places honor the name change, Fresno County has refused to accept and comply with this name change. In an interview with Fresnoland, County Supervisor Nathan Magsig said that: "“Fresno County recognizes [Sq**w] Valley as [Sq**w] Valley.” In a Facebook video, Magsig can be seen using the derogatory term. 

Unfortunately, Magsig and Fresno County do not have to comply with the federal name change mandate regarding the S-Word because the federal 2023 removal of the S-Word applies only to federal jurisdictions, even though the petition was started by a member living in the Yokuts Valley. 

Magsig and Fresno County continue to fight to keep the S-Word around. The Fresno County Board of Supervisors’ rebuked the federal name-change mandate, and refuse to acknowledge the change ever existed. 

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors also voted in March to sue the state of California based on the bill Newsom signed. The lawsuit claims that the County "never intended [the term]. . . to be derogatory or racist in its intent or cultural meaning in that Community" and should remain because of the First Amendment. 

My question is: why are local governments so committed to opposing name changes that correct offensive nomenclature? More broadly, why are rural places more hesitant to embrace social change?

One reason could be political orientations. A 2018 Pew Research Center poll found that rural voters are increasingly tilting Republican, with 54 percent of survey rural respondents surveyed identifying as "Republican or Republican-leaning" and 36 percent identifying as "Democrat or Democrat-leaning." 

Among the Republican respondents, the study found that rural Republicans had more favorable views of former President Donald Trump than urban or suburban Republicans. 

Former president Donald Trump certaintly does not stand for political correctness. In a 2016 article, NPR quoted Trump who denounced political correctness:

I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct," Trump tells the moderator, Fox News' Megyn Kelly. "I've been challenged by so many people and I don't, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn't have time, either. 

Trump has also been known to be an offensive name-caller. He has called Senator Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas," U.S. representative Adam Schiff "Pencil Neck," and even made fun of the appearance of Senator Ted Cruz's wife, comparing her to his wife Melania.

Polls also show that Republicans are more likely to oppose changes that make place names politically correct.  Last year, the Washington R*dsk*ns changed their name to the Washington Commanders because the team name was "offensive to many Indigenous people who viewed the name and branding as both a slur and a disparaging stereotype grounded in America's history of violence against Native peoples," according to NPR. 

While many people praised the Commander's name change, 90 percent of Republicans surveyed in a 2014 study said a name change was unnecessary. While that survey was almost ten years old, not much had changed by the time the switch to Commanders was made. In 2021, Native groups demanded that the Atlanta Braves eliminate the "Tomahawk chop" symbol on the team's logo, saying that it perpetuates racist stereotypes. As of today, the MLB team logo remains. 

One reason besides political affiliations as to why rural communities could be adverse to name changes is because they are more focused on what they see as greater, more significant problems. To use a rural colloquialism, they have "bigger fish to fry." 

A 2022 Pew Research Study found that rural Americans are more worried about drug addiction compared to their urban and suburban counterparts. The poll found that 44 percent of rural Americans believe drug overdose is a major problem in their communities compared to 33 percent of suburban folks and 34 percent of urban folks surveyed. 

Further, rural Americans are less likely to have reliable health care services compared to their counterparts. They also have higher rates of poverty than those in metropolitan areas. The incidence of disability is also greater in rural areas than metropolitan areas.

Regardless, both rural and urban governments should prioritize the renaming of landmarks, sports teams, and rivers. This is a great first step toward denouncing America's racist and oppressive past. 

As a society, we have a large responsibility to do better to honor Indigenous peoples and denounce the injustice associated with the founding of this country. A recent Australian ballot initiative that would have given Indigenous People greater political rights failed. While this is disappointing, it is hard to imagine a comparable initiative even appearing on a ballot in the United States. Unfortunately, some local governments won't even rename things that are offensive, let alone give Indigenous People more political rights. 

You can read more about Indigenous issues in rural places here, here and here. 

Census Bureau reports rural residents more likely to experience disability

The U.S. Census Bureau reported last week on rural-urban differences in disability.  Here is the introductory material:   

Where people live may impact their ability to access health care services and for those with disabilities or who require specialized care that entails more frequent attention and medical visits, location can play an even more significant role.

It is important to understand how regional and urban/rural differences in disability contribute to the unique challenge of addressing health disparities in the United States. Identifying where people with disabilities are concentrated can help inform where there may be shortages of specialized providers or limited transportation options.

Examining disability rates across geography reveals notable differences between urban and rural areas, and regions.

In 2021, nearly 42.5 million people (13%) among the civilian noninstitutionalized population in the United States had a disability, according to the American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates.

And here are the key findings re: rural-urban difference:

In 2021, the U.S. population was primarily urban, with 80.2% living in urban areas; 12.6% of them reported a disability in 2021.

Rural residents — less than 20% of the U.S. population — were more likely (14.7%) than their urban counterparts to experience disability.

Rural communities may be more geographically isolated and typically have more limited transportation and access to clinics and hospitals than urban areas. As a result, coordination of care for those with disabilities may be more difficult for rural residents due to these geographic and transportation barriers.

And here is what the report had to say about regional differences: 

In 2021, the South had the nation’s highest rates of disability (13.8%), followed by the Midwest (13.1%), the Northeast (12.3%), and the West (12.1%) (Figure 2).

Regional disability rates may differ for a variety of reasons. For example, disability is often associated with age, so regions that contain states with a higher proportion of the population age 65 and over may be more likely to report higher rates of disability.

Many states in the South are part of what is known as the Stroke Belt, defined by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute as a cluster of states (including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia) that have a higher incidence of stroke than the rest of the country.

Rural legal scholarship: Rurality as intersectional factor in access-to-justice

Kathryne M. Young and Katie Billings published an article last week in the Utah Law Review, "An Intersectional Examination of U.S. Civil Justice Problems."  The abstract follows:   

Millions of Americans face civil justice problems each year, and most of these problems never make it to court, let alone to a legal expert. Although research has established that race and class are associated with a person's chance of experiencing a civil justice problem, detailed intersectional examinations of everyday people's justice experiences are largely absent. A more in-depth empirical understanding of the access to justice crisis can equip lawyers, policymakers, and other designers of justice interventions to create higher-impact, more efficient, and better-targeted programs to meet the justice needs of everyday people.

This Article fills a critical gap in the access to justice research. Using data from a representative sample of over 3,600 Americans, we conduct a granular analysis of the factors associated with the most common civil justice problems in the United States. We illuminate the scope of inequities in everyday legal experiences, point to key paths of legal and policy intervention, and show the importance of intersectional factors in understanding diverse needs for access to justice solutions.

In addition to investigating how gender, race, age, and class shape people's chances of facing a civil justice problem, we investigate several less-examined characteristics: queerness, disability, rurality, parental status, and experiences of trauma. These identities turn out to be significantly correlated with civil justice needs as well--independent from, and in addition to, race, class, and gender. We show that the kinds of civil justice problems vulnerable populations face are not always intuitive and often transcend people's status as members of a particular population.

We also use predicted probabilities to reveal enormous disparities in civil justice problems within groups that extant research has generally treated as monolithic--for example, showing that accounting for other identities and experiences can predict whether a low-income Black American has a 6% chance or a 45% chance of facing a family structure problem in the past year.

To shrink the U.S. civil justice gap, we need a more detailed picture of the landscape of civil justice problems experienced by everyday Americans. This Article provides that picture and is intended to serve as a springboard for access to justice policy reform.

And here is the part about the difference rurality makes as an intersectional factor.

Rural Americans are 43.6% more likely than non-rural dwellers to experience a family structure problem in the past year (p = .005). Previous work also shows that compared to suburbanites, rural Americans have the most subjectively serious justice problems and are less likely to resolve them. Differences in resolution rates are due partly to rural places' dearth of resources, such as legal aid clinics and public transportation. Additionally, cultural norms tied to rurality, such as self-efficacy, privacy, and a sense of dignity, may help explain the disparity. The top-cited reason low-income rural residents do not seek legal help for their justice problems is because they decide they prefer to deal with the problem on their own.

Beyond norms and values, the realities of rural spaces can render resources inaccessible. Imagine a rural resident without a car who must travel 50 miles to reach a legal aid clinic. Without public transportation, the trip may be impossible. Moreover, the intersection of location and other rural characteristics can exacerbate justice problem severity and decrease a person's chances of resolving a problem. Consider the intersection of rurality and poverty. Seventy-five percent of low-income rural households experienced a civil legal problem in the past year and 23% experienced six or more problems. Low-income rural residents receive either no professional legal help, or inadequate professional legal help, for 86% of their civil legal problems.

Because rurality increases people's likelihood of experiencing a civil justice problem and shapes their experience of the problem itself, researchers must further investigate the rural civil justice landscape and develop culturally appropriate resources. As Michele Statz adroitly notes about the rural access to justice crisis: “Not only are A2J ‘solutions' intrinsically insufficient in rural areas, but they compound existing stress and are even experienced as humiliating by many low-income rural residents.” We echo Statz's call to design justice initiatives that *531 acknowledge the structural realities of rural spaces, as well as the meanings and values that determine how rural residents define justice. Given the rural legal desert, rural areas may be well-suited for nonlawyer legal services--and given our results, family-related civil justice problems offer an important starting point.  (citations omitted)

Literary ruralism (Part XXXVII): An interview with Barbara Kingsolver

The Guardian interviewed Barbara Kingsolver, winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for her 2022 novel Demon Copperhead, on the occasion of the author also being awarded the Women's Prize for literature (previously the Orange Prize).  (I've featured excerpts from the Demon Copperhead in prior Legal Ruralism posts here and here).

Writer Lisa Allardice characterizes Kingsolver as "angry" and then provides this quote from the author as Exhibit A: 

I understand why rural people are so mad they want to blow up the system. That contempt of urban culture for half the country. I feel like I’m an ambassador between these worlds, trying to explain that if you want to have a conversation you don’t start it with the words, "You idiot."

Then there's this background on Kingsolver and the project:, which is set in Appalachia amidst the opioid epidemic: 

With its deep-rooted evocation of place, epic scope and powerful moral purpose, Demon Copperhead is undoubtedly the defining novel of an already distinguished career.

* * * 

“Now that it’s finished, I understand that my whole life I’ve been wanting to write the great Appalachian novel,” she says. For years she had been thinking of this big story she wanted to write “but that nobody wanted to hear”, not just about the prescription drugs crisis, but the generations of exploitation and institutional poverty, the plundering of the region for timber, coal and tobacco leading up to it. “Then Purdue Pharma targeting us saying, ‘OK, the last thing that we can make money off is the pain and the disability of the people who were injured in the previous industries’”, she says. 

 And this, which is about a part of the novel I excerpted in a prior post: 

Part of the block in writing her Appalachian novel, she realises, is that she had “internalised the shame” of her rural upbringing. Now she feels she has not “just the right but the duty” to represent her community. “The news, the movies, TV, it’s all manufactured in cities about city people. We’re nothing. We don’t see ourselves at all. And if we do show up, it’s as a joke, the hillbillies. We are the last demographic that progressive people still mock with impunity.”

In one memorable passage, Demon lists off all the insults thrown at them: “Hillbilly, rednecks, moonshiners, ridge runners, hicks. Deplorables.” The last alludes to a comment by Hillary Clinton, referring to Trump supporters as “a basket of deplorables”. Now Kingsolver often spots bumper stickers proudly declaring “I’m a deplorable” in her neighbourhood. But her agent and editor, both based in New York, questioned whether she should include it. “I decided, yes, I’m leaving it in because I want this to make the reader uncomfortable.”

One of my earliest blog posts, from 2008, is about Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007), and this one from earlier that year references the book.  This post from 2014 is about her novel Flight Behavior.

Crisis close to home: Nevada's failing mental health services

Over the past three months I've been reflecting on my time here at UC Davis Law as a first generation student with a person history in a flurry of rural towns across Nevada and California. I wound up in law school as the result of what I tend to refer to as a line of "self-sabotaging matriarchs." From my great-grandmother to my mother and eldest sister, my family's intergenerational poverty can be chalked up in large part to the codependency of its women on men who were steeped in drug and alcohol abuse. The chaos and poverty were inflamed by my family confining itself to rural places, where the domestic violence and drug abuse were hidden behind the walls of single or double-wide mobile homes.

For me, the chaos peaked when my mom tried to force me to leave our destitute life in the "Cowboy Capital of the World," Oakdale, California to return with her to Winnemucca. She was running back to what was known: a rural town where she could indulge and conceal her addictions to substances and men. But to preserve my chance at a better life, I knew I couldn't go with her. So, after a turbulent back-and-forth, she told me simply: "you can [sic] stay here then." Those words caused us to be estranged for the past decade. 

But on the brink of graduation, I can't help myself from looking back. Through everything, there is still and will always be a part of me that loves the woman who brought me into this world and raised me as best she could. So, about two weeks ago, I called her on video chat. She was living with her boyfriend in a trailer park on the outskirts of Winnemucca. I wasn't sure which version of her I was going to get. She suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (the latter being the one I inherited), and when you add substance abuse on that, it forms different personalities that for her varied from the woman I called my mother to the woman who abandoned me. 

But this time it was neither. She could barely look at me, and I knew that meant something was awry. I tried lightening the mood by asking her positive questions: what are some great traits you gave your son? What things you are looking forward to over the next few years? It was the latter question that caused a pause and a tear. I called her again the following week and she told me she was going to check herself in to rehab. I asked what prompted the decision and she said, she couldn't say aloud because her boyfriend was in the trailer. She did say, however, "I couldn't give you an answer to where I want to be in the next few years," and when I asked her want she wanted to be, she cried and held up a note: "free."

My mom's journey to freedom could only begin by taking an Amtrak from Winnemucca to Reno - a 165-mile journey that would otherwise take two and half hours by car. And so I thought: "what mental health resources are available in remote, rural places like northern Nevada?" As it turns out, close to none. Nevada is in the bottom five states with the lowest ratio of licensed psychologists to population, just 12: 100,000. Humboldt County (the county seated in Winnemucca) doesn't have any licensed psychologists. Consequently, Nevada is in the top three U.S. territories with the highest rate of unmet needs for illicit drug use and alcohol disorders (closely behind Colorado and the District of Columbia) that often exacerbate preexisting mental disorders. 

Overall, the state only has 460 licensed psychologists. Each county in Nevada meets the federal definition of a professional mental health provider shortage. As a result, many psychologists in the state have waitlists for assessments for about two months, while the waitlists for treatment are often a year long. The largest medical provider in Humboldt County is the Humboldt General Hospital and where there is only one licensed "clinical social worker" and one psychiatric nurse practitioner. But one nurse practitioner cannot begin to meet the needs of a county with 17,600 people. 

Another part of the problem is the lack of public transportation. As noted above, people like my mother who live in northern rural counties that are hundreds of miles from Reno where many of the licensed physicians are located face transportation barriers. Because there are no "long range" transportation services in these parts of the state, it is harder for people in those counties to seek proper treatment for their mental health disorders -- or any other services for that matter. 

But there have been movements to address these issues. One solution relates to accessibility of housing for people who suffer from debilitating mental health disorders. A Nevada Senate Bill is trying to increase the real property transfer tax by 20 cents for every $500 of value to build affordable housing for Nevadans with mental health conditions, disabilities, and those who are lower income. The bill seeks to address the problem that one woman characterized as people having no place between "'the hospital and the streets.'" But the bill has been met with resistance by the corporate community in the state. The Nevada Realtors and Vegas Chamber testified against the bill, arguing that a new tax increase would harm first-time homeowners. On the opposite end, Reno + Sparks Chamber of Commerce, Nevada Rural Hospital Partners and other organizations dedicated to serving rural community mental health needs argue that the legislation is critical to support people in the state who already face insurmountable obstacles to getting proper care. 

These issues are only the tip of the iceberg, as insurance companies add fuel to the fire by denying benefits to people for mental health services as well as denying mental and behavioral health specialists into their networks. For people like my mother, who rely on a mix of public health benefits including Medicare and Social Security Disability, getting care for serious mental disorders is almost impossible in rural communities. As a result, millions of people living in rural areas across the country fall into hopelessness. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the problem of inadequate mental health care has received widespread attention but stakeholders have taken little action to meet the needs of people who suffer from mental and physical isolation. 

As for my mother, when I last spoke to her she hadn't been able to make the trip to Reno because the Amtrak was not running given the recent snowstorms battering northern Nevada. When I reached out to her again to see if she had made it to her intake appointment she didn't answer and hasn't since. I can only hope she made it. And for people in circumstances like mine (higher education students with no income other than financial aid) who have relatives living in rural areas trying to seek treatment for mental disorders, that's about all we can do for them: hope. 

Are findings of disability in rural areas on the decline?

The headline in the Athens (Georgia) News Courier is, "Disability claims challenging in rural areas; data shows low approval rates."  The story is from last October, though it just showed up in my Twitter timeline yesterday.  Here's an excerpt:  

Getting approved for disability payments from the Social Security Administration isn't easy, but depending on where you live, it could be even harder.

In North Alabama, for example, three of the judges who hear disability claims have the lowest approval record of any administrative law judge in the state; two of them also have among the lowest approval rate of any of the 12,000 judges nationwide.

In 2020, 39% of initial disability applications were approved nationwide, according to SSA data. August 2021 data shows that Alabama has the fourth lowest disability claim approval rating — 32.3% — while nationwide data shows a 41.7% approval rate.

Receiving disability payments isn't easy to begin with and that's by design. In the past decade, the Social Security Administration has changed the regulations to make it harder to get disability claims approved.

Social Security has a tight definition of disability: "the inability to engage in substantial gainful activity (work) due to a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that has lasted or is expected to last at least one year or to result in death," said Patti Patterson, regional communications director for the Atlanta region Social Security office, which represents Alabama and seven other Southern states.

The Social Security Disability website lists a range of impairments and disorders that could qualify for disability including mental, respiratory system, immune system and cardiovascular system if it is deemed through medical records to be severe enough to prevent one from working. 

Many disability applicants think they'll only need a letter from their doctor saying that they need to be on disability. Not only has it never been that simple, but in 2017, the Social Security Administration made it even easier to dismiss the recommendation of doctors by allowing denial due to the doctor's specialty, and length of treatment and type of treatment, among other factors.

Rachael Henderson of Georgia Legal Services Program, which represents disability clients in 155 counties outside of metro Atlanta, said access to transportation has been a longstanding barrier in rural counties where its clients have tried to get disability.

“In rural areas you will frequently not have any physicians. Over the last few years in some of our rural areas, in one or two counties, they lost the hospitals,” she explained. “You have to get to a city of significant size in order to get to a physician."

You'll find lots of other posts about disability determinations in rural places, and associated issues, here.  Certainly, this article flies in the face of the assumption that it is easier to get adjudicated as disabled in rural America than in urban America.  Specifically, here is a post focused on disability and transportation, in the context of New York.  And this is from a Washington Post series in 2017.  

Aging and disability services unequally distributed along rural-urban axis

Here's the policy brief from Syracuse University's Lerner Center for Public Health, authored by Claire Pendergrast (Syracuse) and Danielle Rhubart (Penn State):  

As the U.S. population ages, demand for aging and disability services will increase, but 15% of U.S. counties have no aging and disability services organizations. This brief shows that rural counties and counties with the highest rates of poverty, highest shares of older adults, and highest shares of non-Hispanic Blacks are most likely to be aging and disability services deserts. To support healthy aging across the country, policymakers should invest in aging services infrastructure and should prioritize resources for places that are aging and disability services deserts.

And here is a related paper, also about aging and rurality, just published in the Journal of Rural Social Sciences, "Support from Adult Children and Parental Health in Rural America," by Shelley Clark, Elizabeth M. Lawrence, and Shannon M. Monnat.  The abstract follows:  

Adult children are a primary source of care for their aging parents. Parents in rural areas, however, live further from their adult children than parents in urban areas, potentially limiting the support they receive and compromising their health and ability to age in place. We use two waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (2013 and 2017) to investigate the relationships among geographic proximity, adult children’s instrumental and financial support, and parental health. Rural parents live further from their adult children and receive less financial support, but they are more likely to receive instrumental assistance. In addition, rural parents have worse health and more functional limitations than urban parents, and these differences persist after controlling for proximity to and support from adult children. Our findings indicate that factors beyond proximity influence the complex relationships between spatial and social boundaries and their consequences for older adults’ health and well-being.

Another angle on the rural housing crisis: living "unsheltered" on one's own property

NPR reported yesterday from Park County, Colorado, between Denver and Aspen, on the struggle to stay housed in rural Colorado, where some are able to buy a piece of land but not also able to afford to build on it a licensed/permitted dwelling structure.  Here's an excerpt from the story that illustrates the problem, leading with a query/intro by Dan Boyce, the journalist reporting, about Jim McKinney, formerly homeless in Denver:  

BOYCE: He's been sober for a decade now, but a life roughly lived left him all broken up. He's too disabled to work. There's no way he could afford living in the city. So a few years ago, he scraped together $13,000 with help from his parents and bought five acres way up in the mountains, about 120 miles from Denver.

MCKINNEY: I can flip this on first thing in the morning, and it'll take the chill out of the air because I don't run the heat all night.

BOYCE: His house, if you can call it that, is a dirt pit dug into a hillside fronted by two walls of sun-bleached aspen logs.

MCKINNEY: I've got aspens right on the other side of the hill here.

BOYCE: The roof is nothing but canvas tarps and blankets. He has little windows cut into the logs, a wood burning stove inside. It looks surprisingly similar to a 19th century Western homestead, with the life style to match.

MCKINNEY: I mean, honestly, yeah, I'm definitely scratching out a living.

BOYCE: McKinney's income consists of $800 a month in disability payments from the federal government. And many of his neighbors have it much worse.

TOM MCGRAW: A lot of people are out here solely because of the fact that they're broke.

BOYCE: Park County Sheriff Tom McGraw sees a lot of that. He patrols this rugged and empty country. It's about 9,000 feet above sea level. Housing in his jurisdiction is a tale of extremes. Existing homes are very expensive. Construction costs are some of the highest in the state. But there are many small, remote plots of land that are extraordinarily cheap.

MCGRAW: Out here where we're going to, you can probably buy an acre of property for $5,000 to $10,000.

BOYCE: Not far from McKinney's homestead, McGraw points out places people try to shelter themselves.

MCGRAW: See - over here you got pallets set up. This was probably some sort of a campsite at one time.

BOYCE: We see across the landscape rusted RVs, teepees, shipping containers and unfinished one-room shacks. McGraw says desperate people are pulling together whatever they have, buying these cheap, barren plots of dry grass without understanding what it is they now own.

MCGRAW: When people move out here to this area and they're not totally prepared, they're not going to make it.

BOYCE: Miles from cell phone service or utilities, no electricity, no running water, no sewer.

MCGRAW: We've had so many examples, so many cases where we go out to these places, and they've got 5-gallon buckets sitting all over, and they're filled full of human waste - or 55-gallon drums filled with it.

BOYCE: McGraw says it's not only disturbing and unsanitary. It can be really dangerous. This time of year, temperatures regularly drop into the double digits below zero. His deputies responded to a call of a woman beaten by her husband last winter. They found him living in a garden shed from Home Depot.

MCGRAW: When we got there to arrest him, there was two babies, you know, sitting in cribs right next to the fireplace. I mean, he was keeping them warm, but the conditions were just horrible.

BOYCE: None of this is legal, even if the property is legally owned. County ordinance prohibits living any longer than a couple weeks on private land without a residence that meets basic building codes, in the colder months anyway. But Park County is far too cash-strapped itself to keep up with the violations out here. Jim McKinney is still not taking any chances. Inside that homestead, in that hole dug into the hill, right by the front door, he keeps a stack of papers, signed permits and schematics for the small, permanent home he's slowly building on his land.

MCKINNEY: You know, this comes from the engineer here with his stamp.

BOYCE: He looks for the best deals he can find on materials. He works on the house for as many hours as his back will allow, finishes the day in a plastic lawn chair on the hill.

MCKINNEY: It's peaceful and quiet and - I mean, the sun sets right between the - that’s the divide, all these peaks way out there. I mean, it's just beautiful.

The inability of local authorities to enforce the relevant laws and regulations reminds me of my earlier work on the barrier that spatiality represents to such enforcement efforts.  

Looking out for the rural disabled in the midst of natural disasters

The New York Times published a big story today on the challenges of protecting people with disabilities amidst natural disasters like the recent wildfires in California.  Amanda Morris reports from the Dixie Fire, including Plumas County.  

As wildfires burn with greater size and intensity across the American West, forcing thousands of people to evacuate their homes each year, communities in the danger zone are struggling to protect their disabled and older residents.

This is a particular problem in Northern California, where some of the biggest blazes are now burning, including the Dixie fire, the second largest in state history. The region is home to a significant population of people with disabilities — the percentage in the area is roughly twice the state average — many of whom live in largely rural areas that lack the critical infrastructure and resources needed to support them during disasters.

The Camp fire wiped out the town of Paradise in 2018, killing at least 85 people — the majority of whom were older or disabled, according to Butte County data. The next year, a state audit found that the county, which includes Paradise, had not adequately prepared to protect people with “access and functional needs,” and that the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services had not provided enough guidance to local officials about how to develop emergency plans for them.

Since then, a growing number of California communities have partnered with local disability organizations to develop better plans to alert, evacuate and shelter vulnerable populations. But plenty of weak spots remain, and officials acknowledge that many people could still find themselves in danger. 

Other posts about the Dixie Fire are here, and other posts about disability issues are here.   

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part CXXX): Federal regulation of rural polling places

(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2010
Murray Community Center, Newton County, Arkansas 
The sign on the post, facing the other direction, marks handicapped parking 

The June 9, 2021 issue of the Newton County Times features the headline, "Access to polls need addressed."  The story is about the interface of federal law and local government, specifically with regard to federal disability law, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  In the course of reporting the matter, the writer tells us something about how elections are financed and run in a small, rural county in Arkansas, i.e., the state provided "new voting machines and other equipment" last year; the number of polling places shrunk in the last election, amidst the pandemic.  The story also tells us that the county does have a legal adviser to assist it in responding to a federal communication regarding compliance with federal law.    

The Newton County Quorum Court [like a County Board of Supervisors] met almost a week earlier than normal to take care of some important business Tuesday night, June 1. The items on the agenda were a resolution and an ordinance required to answer a US Department of Justice (DOJ) warning that deficiencies under the Americans with Disabilities Act existed at some voting locations in the county.

Brad Brown, the county's legal adviser, said the DOJ sent a list of deficiencies to the county election commission, but the election panel does not have budgeted funds to address the problems. Most of them concern adequate parking, level pads and specified ramps necessary to provide wheelchair-bound voters unimpeded access to the polls. Corrections have to be made by the next regular election in 2022. The county is also required to appoint an ADA coordinator to make sure polling locations are accessible under the law.

Last year, the county received new voting machines and other equipment from the state. The election commission consolidated the more than 20 polling locations into 11 voting centers. Voters could vote at any of the centers even if they're not located in their home precincts. Some of those locations were new and weren't selected until shortly before the election.

Brown said he spoke with DOJ officials and they are willing to work with the county and election commission to ensure changes are made by the next election.

County Clerk Donnie Davis told the justices of the peace [the five elected officials who make up the the Quorum Court) that the election commission doesn't want to close any more polling sites. If locations can not be brought into compliance other locations would have to be found.

County Judge Warren Campbell said a bonded contractor should be hired by the county to ensure that the ramps and other facility updates are built to exact ADA specifications. He did not know what the cost would be for the work, but added that it has to be done. Money would have to be appropriated from the county general fund. It would be transferred into an election commission line item. Davis did not know if the state would assist in the work's funding.

The quorum court then passed the resolution agreeing to meet the DOJ directions and meet the ADA mandates.

It also voted to amend the county's 2021 budget ordinance regarding employees and compensation adding an ADA coordinator position that will pay $12 per hour.

Here is a fall, 2020 story about the county's voting plan, using "voting centers."  

In somewhat related news, the New York Times reported today that the Arkansas legislature, like that of various other states, is making moves to assert greater control over local elections.  It's not clear what impact this would have in a place like Newton County, which has minimal bureaucracy (election board?) but plenty of concentrated power. 

P.S. I've belatedly been made aware of this June 17, 2021 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story about the Newton County voting matter.  It's written by Bill Bowden, who provides some helpful background not in the Newton County Times coverage, as well as an update on events:  The U.S. Department of Justice has reached a settlement with the county under Title II of the ADA:    

During election day on March 3, 2020, and early voting the previous day, inspectors from the federal government surveyed the county courthouse in Jasper, used during early voting, and all 18 of the county's polling places.

The settlement states: 

All of the polling places surveyed contained architectural barriers that rendered the facilities inaccessible to voters with disabilities, such as a lack of accessible parking areas and accessible routes due to gravel and grass ground surfaces; excessively sloped ramps, some without handrails and edge protection; numerous gaps and level changes along exterior routes; and protruding objects.

Bowden's story notes another important infirmity not noted in the local paper's story:  

Also, there was a lack of access to working voting machines at all polling places, according to the settlement.

[County Clerk Donnie] Davis said federal inspectors also determined that a wheelchair ramp at the county courthouse was too steep. He said they checked it with a level.

Here's a blog post I wrote 11 years ago about voting in Newton County.  Its focus was the rather more exciting topic of vote buying, which has a long history in Newton County.  Makes me wonder if that's what brought the DOJ inspectors to the county in March, 2020.  If so, I'm relieved that they found only ADA violations and no vote buying, though the malfunctioning voting machines are concerning, especially if they were new and recently provided by the State.  

More rural neglect in civil access to justice literature

 The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is just out with a new report on civil access to justice, "Civil Justice for All:  A Report and Recommendations from the Making Justice Accessible for All Initiative."  This is a 

The dean of my law faculty brought this report to our community's attention yesterday, on the heels of our chancellor having brought it to the dean's attention.  I had a quick look, of course, to see what it said about rural issues.  As you'll see if you have a look, the word "rural" appears eleven times.  Three of those times are in the context of showing spatial inclusivity, such as this on page 26: 

Civil justice must be fairer, more open, and more accessible, whether in a rural, urban, or suburban area, no matter which state.

A few talk about veterans issues in rural contexts, and one is a gesture to rural poverty--again as the contrast with urban poverty.   Here are the relevant excerpts:

Legal services organizations serving poor rural areas, whether in West Virginia, Montana, or Alaska, face special difficulties in attracting, hiring, and retaining lawyers. They also struggle to help people across a wide geographic area. (p. 13)

* * *  

Also in 2018, about one in four people in rural areas, where people tend to be poorer than other Americans, said that getting access to the Internet was a major problem; in urban areas the rate was about one in seven, and in the suburbs it was one in 11. (p. 23).

* * * 

People at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder will suffer the gravest consequences of this failure: family separations, poor health outcomes, substandard housing and evictions, homelessness, and veterans living on dangerous city streets and in downtrodden rural corners, feeling betrayed and abandoned by the nation they defended. (p. 29)

* * * 

The incidence of health-related problems varies by the type of poor and low-income household—from about 50 percent where people with a disability live; to about 40 percent in rural areas or in households where veterans live; to about 30 percent where seniors (that is, people 65 or older) live. (p. 32)

* * *

Some VA medical-legal partnerships use VA’s “telehealth” system to connect legal services providers by phone or videoconference with veterans in rural areas, who receive online healthcare consultations at community-based outpatient centers. This approach is valuable in all rural areas but especially in parts of states where limited broadband service means veterans are unable to access online civil justice resources from home. (p. 38).

The other uses of the word "rural" are in citations/footnotes.   Overall, I'm very disappointed that this high-profile report gave short shrift to rural access-to-justice issues--and to the scholars who have dedicated significant attention to exploring, analyzing and publicizing them.  I'll concede that this report's gesture to rural is better than no mention of rural at all--which has often been the norm--but the nod here is very superficial. 

Rural poverty and disability as peril in the California wildfires

The Los Angeles Times today ran a feature story about the three civilians (by that I means not fire fighters or PG & E employees) killed in the LNU Complex Fire spanning Solano, Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties as fires have raged there for the past 8 days.  This is the fire that's been declared the second largest in California history.

The dateline for this story is Lake Berryessa, but that is not even a Census Designated Place.  It is just a lake.  The lake is, however, surrounded by some settlements, not all even Census Designated Places, including Spanish Flat, one of the communities hardest hit by the recent wildfire.  That is where this iconic photo was taken, and here's an excerpt from the New York Times description of what happened to the folks who live there:

Much of the lakefront community of retirees and young families who commute to landscaping, winery and service jobs in wealthier corners of Napa County had been reduced to a thicket of tangled steel and ash.

In any event, the LA Times story by Anita Chabria (formerly of the Sacramento Bee) features, compassionately, these rural fire victims, their precautions and their demise.  (They are also named but described in much less detail in the New York Times coverage.)  What I also see here, though, is a depiction of rural vulnerability intersecting with other vulnerabilities:  disability, low-income, elderly, spatial isolation.  Here's an excerpt from Chabria's story:

Normally, there is no cellphone signal in these parched hills that form the basin for Lake Berryessa, a reservoir that runs 15 miles across Napa County’s Vaca Mountains. But that evening, [70-year old Mary Hintemeyer] was able to reach her oldest child, Robert McNeal, who lives 13 miles away in the closest town, Winters. He told her to get out. 

As they spoke, she turned back toward the mobile home where she lived with her disabled boyfriend, Leo McDermott, and his son, Thomas. Behind it, on the ridge that loomed above her, she saw smoke — another fire coming out of nearby Wragg Canyon, which she thought had been contained. 

“She said, ‘Oh my God, it’s coming over the other side toward me,’” said McNeal, remembering his last conversation with his mother. “‘I have to go.’”

Among other things, this story is a reminder that places thought of as rich in the national imaginary--Napa Valley, for example--are also home to low-income folks, sometimes eking out a living in their own little slice of the American dream.   Hintemeyer had worked the customer service desk at the Vallejo Times Herald, but also cleaning homes.  Belly dancing was a hobby.  Her 71-year-old boyfriend, Leo McDermott, was wheelchair bound.

As for many rural residents in California, there was no effective system to warn them of the wildfire danger.  These are also the themes from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires in, among other places, Mendocino, Butte, and Sonoma counties. 

On access to transportation and health (and jobs, poverty and disability) in rural America

NPR reports today from upstate New York on the intersection of disability, rurality, poverty, and employment, with something of a focus on transportation as another feature of that cycle of poverty.  Here's the excerpt I wish to highlight: 

Having good access to transportation — or not — has a huge impact on the health of people living in rural parts of the country, says Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco who studies the health of vulnerable populations. 

The story, by Selena Simmons-Duffin, quotes Bibbins-Domingo: 

If you go to less populated areas — rural areas — access to a car that functions well [and] the costs for gas becomes such an essential element.  Both to drive to seek medical care, as well as to drive to access the other resources that are necessary to pursue good health. 

Simmons-Duffin goes on to quote Bill Erickson of Cornell re: employability of people with disabilities.

Since the Great Recession, rural counties really haven't seen as much employment growth as urban counties. Also just the types of jobs that are available to those sorts of communities may be tending toward, you know, requiring people to be able to move things physically or whatever. 

And the limitations that the individual with disabilities may have may be preventing them from being able to do those particular types of jobs — or employers can't provide the accommodations that may be necessary.

On that latter point, see this excellent NPR story from 2013.