A City In Minnesota Is Actually Willing To Pay People To Move There

Many cities and towns through out the United States see a fluctuation of residents leaving and moving in, but sometimes you have to think outside the box to attract people to want to move there in the first place.  Duluth has always struggled to hold on to new graduates to stay and work here when they are done with school and also to attract younger working professionals.

So what do you do as a smaller town in Minnesota that attracts tourists and is also a college town, to make people want to pack up and move there. One incentive that this particular city came up with is to offer money. This could be enticing in that moving can be awfully expensive and this might soften the blow, but you also need a good housing market as well.

On February 1 of 2020 the city of Bemidji launched the Greater Bemidji 218 Relocate Incentive Package, to try and attract telecommuters and people who work from home to move there. The program pays people up to $2,500 for moving expenses and a one year membership to the LaunchPad co-working space.

So far more than 20 individuals and families have moved to the area. By the end of October of this year that number is believed to be between 22 and 24 people. The grants for this program are issued on a monthly basis.

Erin Echternach, the assistant director of 218 Relocate said to Bring Me The News:

People are coming from across the U.S. to move to Bemidji,  new residents include people from the Twin Cities metro, Colorado,  North Dakota, Oregon, Iowa, Arizona and Kansas.

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The program is an incentive for people with higher earning potentials to come from other cities and states to work remotely which will also help drive the economy in Bemidji.  So with good internet access and affordable housing with beautiful surroundings this can seem like a very attractive place to relocate.

Since the pandemic hit and more and more people were forced to work from home this can seem like a real opportunity for many cities and towns to try as well. Especially if it is a place that draws a high amount of tourists to the area. This might be a great idea for Duluth, but guaranteed anyone who moves here will get a bit of sticker shock when it comes to rent. Even though they most likely could afford a more high end place to live, you would assume especially coming from a bigger city that the rent would be cheaper here which is not always the case.