Tri-Valley Opportunity Council held a public forum Wednesday morning during which they shared numbers from their 2017 study in which The Heartland Express bus, which is funded primarily through grants totaling 80 percent of its operating cost, provided 185,433 rides. Recent discussions in town have included whether T.H.E. Bus could be expanded for third shift workers in Crookston’s manufacturing sector. Tri-Valley CEO Jason Carlson said that Tri-Valley has shared comments and had Xavier Davis, who has been compiling signatures on a petition, speak with MnDOT consultants about the possible need for later bus routes. The consultants are working on a five-year plan that Carlson hopes will include a plan for evening transportation.
Carlson also shared Tri-Valley’s top four priorities determined by its Board of Directors for the next two-year cycle. The first is to work on increasing the availability of quality childcare slots in the area. “There’s a critical need all over our service area,” said Carlson. “We have opportunities to help positively impact that. We have the childcare aware program that provides technical assistance and training to potential providers and existing providers. Through Head Start, we have opportunities to utilize our licensed space for additional childcare options in some cases. We’re also working with the public to develop that early childhood workforce. There is space available in some cases, but there just isn’t staff for space.”
Another one of Tri-Valley’s focuses is keeping seniors in their home and avoiding premature nursing home placements. “We want folks that are able, to stay in their homes as long as they can,” said Carlson. “We’ve got programming in place to keep folks engaged and active. We’ve got a caring companion program that helps with socialization, but we need to do more. The population is aging so we’re going to work on promoting the existing resources, not all of which are offered by Tri-Valley itself. We want to level our partnerships and use of communication infrastructure to make sure that folks in need of services or who know someone who needs services can make that connection.”
Housing continues to be an area Tri-Valley wants to prioritize but with an education and rehabbing focus. “In terms of housing, a lot of that is going to revolve around housing rehab making sure potential homeowners are really educated on what it means to be a homeowner or a renter. And just bringing additional resources to bear that can rehab some of the existing housing stock versus continually focusing on new development.”
The final priority Carlson talked about was wanting their communication and marketing to focus on education or assisting multiple generations. “It seems like a fairly simple concept and it really is, but in practice, it hasn’t really happened like maybe it should’ve,” said Carlson. “What I’m speaking of is focusing on a two-generation or whole family approach to any barrier to success in employment or education. A core element to Head Start is parent involvement but in some of our other programs, we don’t necessarily look at it through that lens. We treat the people who present to us with case management trying to figure out why they got into the predicament they got into and helping them through that. But this is applying a little bit of different focus through an agency campaign saying – Head Start, Transportation, Community Services, Senior Programs – we’re all going to work on this and dig into it together.”
