Nonprofit's magazine in Michigan explores rural hardships such as poverty and homelessness

Bridge, a magazine published by The Center for Michigan, has been running a series exploring the hardships facing rural Michigan residents. "The statistics are sobering, with many rural communities struggling with moribund economies, mediocre schools and searing poverty, as well as difficulty accessing basic services like medical specialists, public transportation and broadband Internet access," writes Editor David Zeman. "Compounding these challenges is a decline in political clout in Lansing, as more people move to metropolitan areas." (Map: Poverty-rate ranges by county) 

One story takes a look at a rural charter school that closed its doors. "When fourth grader Ian Matthews heard his school would close the end of the last academic year, he said he asked his principal, 'Why do they want to break people’s hearts?'," Pat Shellenbarger writes. "For Ian and more than 150 other students, Threshold Academy, a charter in rural Ionia County, had been a refuge from the constant reminders in other schools that they were different because their families were poor. More than 90 percent of Threshold students qualified for a free or reduced-price lunch."

Another story looks at Lake County, one of the poorest regions in the state. "Robert Traviss’s house, if you can call it that, is an old camper trailer he shares with two Chihuahuas named Spaz and Boots," Shellenbarger writes. "The trailer is parked in the side yard of the home, now rotting away, where he grew up. A second camper trailer, even older, is in the front yard and is filled with the tools he used before a stroke left him disabled. From the camper’s door, Traviss, 55, can look across fields, where deer graze. If he steps outside with his walker and surveys the neighborhood, he sees poverty – rural poverty, the kind that is little noticed by much of the nation. He used to be a machinist and a tool and die maker, but now, since the stroke, his only income is from Social Security disability."

Other stories focus on a 22-year-old panhandler who has been on his own since he was 14, communities trying to craft restrictions on panhandling, being poor in the state’s most affluent county (Livingston) and homeless students in Montcalm, Ionia, Isabella and Gratiot counties – four largely rural regions in Central Michigan. (Read more) The center, a nonprofit, says its objective is "to make Michigan a better place by by encouraging greater understanding and involvement in policy issues among the state’s citizens and making sure their voices are regularly heard."