Meeting the Needs of Rural New Yorkers
Summary
The majority of New York State’s residents live and work in large cities, but most of the land in the Empire State is considered rural. Although the social problems that exist in urban and suburban areas of the state of New York also exist in rural areas, rural New Yorkers have needs that are unique.
Conference Position
The Catholic Conference supports public policies that meet the special needs of individuals and families in rural areas when they attempt to access social services, housing, employment, transportation, health care, childcare and education.
Rationale
New York State is largely rural in nature: 44 of the state’s 62 counties are classified as rural. Over 3 million of the state’s residents live in rural areas. With legislative representation based upon population, less than 15% of the state’s 211 legislators represent rural areas.
Individuals and families in rural areas encounter many barriers in accessing services for substance abuse, domestic violence, shelter, poverty, or aging. This requires the development of innovative programs and partnerships between the public and private sector, to facilitate service delivery and economic development.
In nearly all areas of rural New York State, transportation is a major barrier to accessing a wide variety of services. People of low income often cannot afford a vehicle of their own, and public transportation in rural areas is frequently limited or essentially non-existent. Without easy and affordable access to public transportation, people are limited to what they can get to within walking distance for housing, employment, shopping, etc.
The Catholic Conference strongly advocates for the equitable distribution of federal and state transportation dollars, specifically targeted at developing and/or enhancing public transportation services in rural areas of the state, as well as innovative and creative solutions to the lack of personal transportation, such as support of ongoing funding for the Wheels to Work program.
Rural counties often locate services in county seats, or at single site-locations, which may not be accessible to residents of far-flung towns and villages. The Catholic Conference urges the development of mobile social service and health care clinics, scattered-site satellite offices, and the co-location of public services in existing facilities. Partnering between public and not for profit agencies around co-location of services makes good economic and management sense.
Quality, affordable housing in rural areas is a major need. In general, new housing development seeks a “critical mass” of people in order to make new construction practical, as well as return on investment.
Lacking the “critical mass” of suburban and urban communities, rural areas are routinely passed over for new development.
The housing issue is further compounded by the fact that much rental housing in small towns and villages throughout the state consists of older housing stock. Often owner-occupied, or owned by absentee landlords, the quality and condition varies widely. Enforcement of housing codes is often spotty, as towns and villages rely upon part-time housing inspectors.
Substandard housing has a multiplier effect: the more there is, the more it spreads. As deteriorated housing is more affordable than higher quality housing, over time concentrations of poor quality housing come to dominate certain neighborhoods and communities.
The Catholic Conference supports legislation to provide or increase funding for low-cost loan programs for housing rehabilitation in rural areas, as well as financial incentives for quality housing development in rural areas, for both low income persons, as well as seniors who wish to remain in or as close as possible to home communities.
Access to health care is made all the more difficult by the long distances to be traveled by persons with no private transportation, or who lack easy access to public transportation services. The national Centers for Disease Control note that people in rural areas do not receive as much preventive and medical treatment as their suburban and urban counterparts, due to distance to providers, and to inadequacy of health care insurance.
Residents in rural areas have higher incidences of dental problems, often due to the scarcity or total absence of dentists willing to take historically low Medicaid reimbursement rates for their services.
The Catholic Conference supports simplifying the reimbursement process, as well as a restructuring of Medicaid reimbursement rates for dentists, as an incentive for them to provide services to children and adults of low income, available in their communities.
New York’s agricultural industry has a long and proud tradition of helping to feed the nation. However, local taxes, utility costs, and stagnant prices for commodities have resulted in the loss of many small farms. New York’s surviving farms and farm families require special attention from the legislature.
Additionally, economic development has often focused on enticing manufacturers and developers to build facilities near cities. Often these developments provide no benefit to rural towns and villages. The Catholic Conference advocates for the investment of economic development funds and activities targeted to developing small businesses and rural revitalization activities.
Immigrants often provide much of the farm labor in New York. The biblical concept of justice underlines the notion that in God’s eyes the justice of a nation is measured by how it treats the powerless and the vulnerable. In rural America this is especially pertinent to farm workers, especially migrant, and the rural poor farmers and non-farmers who constitute a disproportionate number of the Americans who live at or below the poverty line.
Congregate services, which may be provided in larger, cost-effective institutions in urban areas, frequently are neither accessible nor available in rural areas of New York State. State policies that implement one-size-fits-all approaches in the delivery of social services and health care often fail the rural area. The Catholic Conference urges the Legislature to provide rural flexibility for the financing and delivery of services, while protecting the integrity of statewide standards that ensure access to quality care.
You can download this document, Meeting the Needs of Rural New Yorkers, in PDF form.
