At the January 2025 meeting of the New England City Council, City Commissioner Chris Fitterer asked the question, “What are the Grant Programs available to the City of New England for Housing?”

I waited and watched for the responses from the other City Commissioners. I wanted to answer this question myself, because I had looked this up not long ago. I raised my hand to receive acknowledgement to speak, but everyone seemed to be irritated that I wanted to chime-in, even Chris Fitterer.

In hindsight, I think that Chris Fitterer might have been angry about me wanting to answer this question, because Chris Fitterer wanted and expected the other City Commissioners to answer this question, especially the City Commissioner who is responsible for searching for Grant Funding opportunities for the City of New England. This subject had been brought up and discussed from time-to-time at New England City Council meetings for at least a year.

My recollection is that in late 2023, the City Auditor brought to the attention of the New England City Council that there was this Grant Program called “North Dakota Rural Workforce Housing Initiative, Community Grant Program For Removal Of Blight Housing”. In order to keep things simple, I’ll explain it like this, the City of Mott, and the City of Bowman each did receive Grant Money from this Grant Program to pay for the demolition and removal of existing condemned housing in Mott and Bowman.

In doing my own reading about this “North Dakota Rural Workforce Housing Initiative” back at the end of 2023, I understood the gist of what the stated purpose was, “To provide Affordable Housing in small population Rural Communities.” The first stages of this Grant Program funding were to clear away “Blight Housing” in order to make that cleared physical land available for the second stages of this Grant Program to build Affordable Housing on it.

In my own mind, I was suspicious. To me, this Grant Program seemed to have its origin with the United State Federal Government. One of the reasons why I thought this, was because there were other identical programs at the same time in other states such as the “North Carolina Rural Workforce Housing Initiative”.

I was also suspicious, because at that time I owned a house in a small rural agricultural town in Idaho, not that much different than New England, North Dakota. In 2020-2022 in and around this small rural agricultural Idaho town, there had been constructed several huge, gigantic apartment communities. I couldn’t understand why these huge apartment communities were built, there weren’t enough jobs and industries to support this many new people.

A friend of mine asked me out-of-the-blue back in 2023, “Are there a lot of new apartments being built back in Idaho where your house is?” I answered, it’s funny you should ask that question, yes there are, and I can’t really understand why. There aren’t enough jobs and industries there to support that many new people.

My friend said to me, that he had read that there is a Federal Government Initiative to get people to move from cities in California, and cities like Portland, Seattle, and Chicago into rural areas of the Mid-West in order to change the Demographics and Voting. In other words, to turn the Red States, Blue.

Just as an aside here, the readers might be thinking, “What good would it do to get all these people from the cities relocated to these newly created apartments in the rural agricultural Mid-West states where there isn’t enough employment for them to survive?” The answer is, the Federal Government would have created a situation causing the need for “Universal Basic Income” in order for there not to be riots and looting across the U.S., not just the cities, but in rural Idaho and rural North Dakota too. Finally, the necessity for the mother-of-all Welfare Programs, Universal Basic Income.

But getting back to the New England City Council Meetings, somewhere in early 2024 I was able to make a brief statement at a New England City Council meeting that was something like, “Be suspicious of these North Dakota Rural Workforce Housing Initiative Programs. They are probably a Federal Government Program with a catch, with strings attached. If you take that Federal Grant Money, you may be obligated to accept a bunch of city-dwellers into New England from places like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago. Do you want that?”

A couple of New England City Council members replied in disbelief, “Huh? What?” I won’t say his name, but a Commissioner replied to me, “We don’t care where they come from.”

At the time, I couldn’t understand why this New England City Commissioner said to me, “We don’t care where they come from.” But I thought about it, and thought about it, and together with everything else that was said and done at the City Of New England Council meetings over the next several months, I realized the answer. Whether the newer City Commissioners know it or not, the behind-the-scenes, hidden “Shadow Government” of the City of New England is very concerned with keeping the population numbers up, especially with enrollment in the New England Public School. How better to accomplish this than the importation of a couple dozen Breeders from Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis.

Here is another way of looking at this. The City of New England does have a fairly nice, modern Public K-12 School. However, the general population in New England is not having very many children. There are many old people in New England that are past the age of having children, and many of the child-bearing age people are choosing not to have children, especially because of the cost. If things keep going like this, people in New England not having children, the New England Public School could close.

If the New England Public School were to close, it would be so very hard to ever get it back. If the New England Public School did close, then people with children couldn’t move here, even if they wanted to. The highest household incomes in New England currently come from a wife working at the New England Public School while her husband works in the Trades. The worst financial hit that New England could experience would be if the New England Public School closed.

But who breeds children like there’s no tomorrow? That’s right, the kind of low-income people who live in apartments. The kind of apartments that the “North Dakota Rural Workforce Housing Initiative Grant Programs” seek to create. So, I do see the benefit, perhaps even the necessity of getting some low-income apartment buildings, duplexes, or townhomes constructed in New England.

I tried to email Chris Fitterer these two internet links, but I don’t know if he received them or not: https://northdakotamonitor.com/2024/11/12/burgum-proposes-96-million-housing-initiative-for-north-dakota/ https://bnd.nd.gov/industrial-commission-approves-workforce-housing-pilot/

These two internet links above describe two different Workforce Housing Initiative programs in North Dakota. These two very detailed press-release articles are too lengthy for me to summarize here, but I think that they are exactly what Chris Fitterer was asking for, sources of funding for housing development here in New England.