A rural angle on the mortgage crisis

Listen here to Scott Finn's story, "Rural America Facing More Foreclosures," for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

"'Going green' hits rural resistance"

That is a front-page headline in today's Sacramento Bee (which features a different headline in its online edition: "Prominent power lines dim green enthusiasm for some"). The story focuses on rural opposition to high-voltage lines that would transport wind, solar, and geothermal power from places like rural Lassen County, which could become home to a generating facility, to the state's urban centers. The report notes opposition in rural Shasta, Yolo, and Colusa counties, which would become host to the new transmission infrastructure.

Read Ed Fletcher's full story here.

Rural (or Western) self-reliance in the face of the recession?

A front-page story in today's New York Times reports on the rates at which residents of different states are availing themselves of the various federal assistance programs for which they are eligible. While it is difficult to generalize too much about the data in Jason DeParle's report, it appears that residents in Western states, including several sparsely populated Great Plains and inter-mountain states, are currently less likely to receive aid.

The article is accompanied by various graphics, which depict at a glance the 10 states with the highest rate of aid receipt and the 10 states with the lowest rate of aid receipt for six different categories of federal assistance: welfare, unemployment, housing assistance, food stamps, health insurance for poor adults, and health insurance for poor children. It reveals inconsistencies: Western states are occasionally at both extremes--sometimes home to the highest percentages of those receiving benefits, but more often home to the the lowest percentages of recipients.

Experiences in South Dakota, Idaho, and Wyoming are illustrative of the contradiction. The rate of receipt of unemployment benefits in South Dakota is the lowest in the nation, at 19%, while the rate of receipt for housing assistance there is the highest, at 45%. For the prior designation, South Dakota is accompanied by its similarly sparsely populated neighbor, North Dakota, but also by Colorado, which has grown rapidly in recent years. At the high end for receipt of unemployment benefits, on the other hand, are Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska, along with Arkansas and states widely known to be hard hit during this recession: Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Housing assistance, on the other hand, is highest in South Dakota and Wyoming in the West, but lowest in 9 other Western states and Florida. Other states with high rates of housing assistance are mostly in South and Appalachia, areas widely associated with poverty: Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Wyoming and Idaho are in the bottom 10 states for receipt of both welfare and food stamps. But many in Idaho get unemployment benefits, and Wyoming is one of the top states for residents' receipt of housing assistance.

U.S. Postmaster reverses decision to stop serving back-country Idaho

Howard Berkes of NPR filed an updated report yesterday on the U.S. Postmaster General's plan to cancel weekly mail deliveries by a small plane into the central Idaho wilderness. Listen to the story here, and read my post about his prior report on the planned cancellation of service here.

It seems that the Postmaster General was swayed by lobbying from Idaho's congressional delegation. Among other points they made: $46K in savings from canceling this service won't make much of a dent in the $6 billion budget deficit the postal service is facing.

Berkes quotes one resident of the Idaho area whose mail delivery has been saved as pointing out, "If Idaho was canceled, who was next? What about all of the nonprofitable rural mail delivery in America?"

Four rural states declare their sovereignty in the face of the federal stimulus

Read William Yardley's story from the New York Times here. An excerpt follows:

When legislatures convened this year, lawmakers in more than 30 states set out to send Washington a blunt message: back off. Frustrated by federal policies like the bank bailout and rules allowing wolves to prowl the West, they drafted so-called sovereignty resolutions, aggressive interpretations of states’ rights outlined in the Tenth Amendment.

But as state legislative sessions are coming to a close, only four have passed sovereignty measures: Alaska, Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota. All are rural by many measures.

Here's a great quote from an Idaho legislator about the catch-22 in which such states found themselves in the current economic climate, with stimulus dollars at stake:

“The stimulus money created a problem for us with the sovereignty thing,” said JoAn Wood, a Republican who is chairwoman of the House Transportation and Defense Committee in Idaho, which has overseen some legislative action on the stimulus money. “We’d like to stand on principle.”

Law and Order in the Ozarks (Part XXIII): Bonds issued to finance new jail

The April 23, 2009 issue of my hometown weekly newspaper, The Newton County Times, reports that the county is going ahead with a bond issue to finance construction of a new jail and law enforcement center. The necessity for this jail has been the topic of numerous posts, for example here, here, and here. The urgency associated with the jail project has increased in recent months as the State of Arkansas condemned the existing century-old structure.

Voters in November approved a 1/2 cent sales tax increase for the construction of the jail, but they did not approve a companion increase for the cost of maintaining the facility. Nevertheless, the Newton County Quorum Court has adopted a resolution authorizing the issues of $1.5 million in capital improvement bonds to finance all or part of the construction costs. The sales tax to re-pay the bonds, with interest, went into effect on May 1, 2009. Initially, the county envisaged raising $2.7 million to construct the jail, and the reports cites "state law and the current economy are factors" as reasons for the reduction.

In unrelated news, a glossy 4-color insert in this week's paper promotes Arkansas tourism. The prior two issues of the paper have featured an insert (also 4-color but on newsprint) promoting tourism in Newton County.

The Daily Yonder responds to Brokaw re: local government costs

Read Bill Bishop's thoughtful response here.

My post about Brokaw's piece is here.

There's lots of other good stuff on the Yonder this week, including this story about both political parties' responses to the recession's impact on rural places and their proposals regarding what government should do about it.

I note in particular this action by the GOP:

Last week House Republicans announced a new group composed of 15 Republican House members that will address rural issues. The Rural America Solutions Group will “focus on solutions that create jobs and economic opportunities as well as address the unique challenges rural communities face,” according to a press release.

The group is taking President Obama to task for failing to deliver on a campaign promise to hold a rural issues summit in the first 100 days of his administration.

An earlier post about the Democrats' efforts on behalf of rural communities is here.

Rural sociology programs in jeopardy: another sign that rural folks don't matter much anymore?

I learned today that the Department of Community and Rural Sociology at Washington State University in Pullman is likely to be terminated, leaving half a dozen or so rural sociology professors out of work, among other unfortunate consequences. Read the WSU press release here.

I suppose you could say it is in good company, as the other WSU programs that will likely be cut are theatre and dance, German, and sports management.

The Dept. of Community Studies at UC Santa Cruz is apparently also on the chopping block. As one rural sociologist commented in an email relaying this news, it is somewhat shocking that even long-standing and prestigious rural sociology programs are so vulnerable.

Racial injustice in rural Hearne, Texas

That's the topic of a just released move, "American Violet." Listen to the NPR story about it here. An excerpt from Wade Goodwyn's NPR report follows:

The movie is based on the story of Regina Kelley, a woman caught up in a misguided drug raid that took place in Hearne, Texas, about 120 miles north of Houston. More than two dozen public housing residents — most of them black — were arrested and charged with selling cocaine.

As national civil rights organizations got involved, it became clear that the arrests were based on tips from an unreliable informant — a drug addict. Most of the charges were dropped. A civil-rights lawsuit followed.

After viewing the film, one African-American resident of Hearne commented, "Maybe now, people will open their eyes to what's going on in these smaller towns."

Hearne's population is 4,690. It is in Robertson County, which has a population of16,000.

Justice Souter and the rural life

Abby Goodnough reports in today's New York Times from Weare, New Hampshire, population 7,776, where Justice David Souter has maintained a home for years. This is where he lives when the Supreme Court is not in session. The headline, "A No-Frills Embrace for a Low-Key Justice" suggests something about rural culture, at least as manifest in New England, as do many of the story's descriptions of Weare and environs. Goodnough speculates that for Souther, this "rural" place is "heaven." She writes:

Most of all, friends say, Justice Souter can be an ordinary guy here, amid others who are not besotted with the fast track, the high life or material goods. In New Hampshire, where reticence is a virtue, he can blend back into the citizenry without a hitch.

Goodnough quotes a lawyer friend of Souter's, who hikes with him: “But David has got a real love for the people and the land and the simple things here. I’m not sure I know a lot of people who are more connected to a place than he is. It’s a very strong, kind of visceral feeling that he has.”

This quote certainly suggests the sort of attachment to place often associated with rurality, though Souter was born in neighboring Massachusetts and moved here at the age of 11. Not only has he lived off and on in Washington, DC, since he was elevated to the Supreme Court almost two decades ago, he lived in the city while attending Harvard University for both his undergraduate and law studies. Nevertheless, by all accounts Souters much prefers this corner of New Hampshire, whether because it's rural, because it's New England, because it's home--or all of the above.

Criminal justice in Indian country complicated by jurisdiction, rural realities

I made the point a few days ago that this NPR story about the Chickasaw had an unexpressed rural angle. Today, another NPR story similarly left the rural-urban difference angle unacknowledged. The story is about crime--in particular, rape--in Indian country and the jurisdictional complications when the perpetrator is non-Indian. The gist of the problem is that, as a practical matter, a jurisdictional void often exists because U.S. federal courts have jurisdiction under these circumstances, but they do not prioritize the cases. Thus the crimes go unpunished, indeed, are not even investigated in many instances. One federal study reports that U.S. attorneys fail to prosecute about three-quarters of the rape cases involving Indian complainants and non-native perpetrators.

But the story is not only about the complexities of jurisdiction. It is also a window into law enforcement challenges in rural contexts. By way of illustration of the paucity of law enforcement in Indian country, the story notes that "the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which straddles North and South Dakota, had five Bureau of Indian Affairs officers to patrol an area the size of Connecticut." It also reports that tribes are increasingly using revenues raised from casino operations to establish and enhance their own criminal justice systems, e.g., police, prosecutors, courts. In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs helps finance such tribal law enforcement efforts, most recently with $85 million in a March, 2009, appropriations bill. (Another $500 million in the February, 2009, stimulus bill went to Indian Health Services, which will pay for, among other things, rape kits). Nevertheless, what tribal law enforcement can accomplish is limited by the jurisdiction accorded them, and the ability of tribal police to do their job is sometimes complicated because of a lack of certainty over where Indian country ends and U.S. territory begins, particularly in rural locales.

This brings me to the principal point of the NPR story--that Congress is considering a law that would permit tribal police to arrest anyone who commits a crime on Indian land. The Tribal Law and Order Act would also give police departments and sheriff's offices grants for cooperating with tribal police and cross-deputizing officers.

Read an earlier related post about jurisdiction and sexual assaults against American Indian women here. Read my article, "Place Matters: Domestic Violence and Rural Difference" here. The latter includes a section on the particular issues confronting American Indian victims of intimate abuse.