Homelessness can be easy to overlook in a rural community. That doesn’t mean it isn’t here.
The Detroit Lakes Regional Chamber of Commerce and League of Women Voters recently brought community members together for Coffee & Our Community: Understanding Homelessness in Our Community to learn what homelessness and housing instability look like locally, why people experience it and how it affects our broader community.
In our region, homelessness may not always be visible. It can mean sleeping in a vehicle, living in a camper without heat or utilities, staying in an abandoned building, or moving from one friend or family member’s home to another. Local data reinforces that housing instability is here. The September Becker County priority list included 30 people in 11 households — 14 adults and 16 children. The 2026 Becker County profile from Minnesota Housing Partnership also identified a gap of 430 extremely low-income households without access to a home they can afford.
Panelists Ally Hefta with Detroit Lakes Public Schools, Sara Peterson with First Lutheran Church and Meagan Hernandez with MAHUBE-OTWA Community Action Partnership shared perspectives from their work with students, individuals and families experiencing housing instability. Their conversation challenged assumptions about what homelessness looks like and who experiences it. They also discussed the barriers people face in regaining stability and the local organizations working together to provide support.
The issue reaches beyond the individuals and families experiencing it. Housing instability can ripple through our schools, workplaces, healthcare system and public services. For employers, it can affect an employee’s ability to get to work, remain employed and be successful at work.
For the Chamber, these conversations are part of building a stronger community. A strong business community depends on people being able to live, work and build a life here — making housing an important part of our workforce, economic vitality and quality-of-life conversations.
Coffee & Our Community isn’t intended to solve complex issues in an hour. It is an opportunity to learn, listen and better understand what is happening in our community — because greater understanding helps all of us become part of the response.
Coffee & Our Community is a partnership between the Detroit Lakes Regional Chamber of Commerce and League of Women Voters. Thank you to Lake Region Builders Association for sponsoring the program, Homesweet Bake House for the coffee and pastries, Becker County Museum for hosting and Fundamental Technologies for recording the event. The program will be available on the Chamber’s YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOZdZhheV4o