Demographics of this city I believe are 30% minority and 70% white. Of the 10 Homes owners closest to me (and they are all home owners no rentals) 4 of them are black.

My employer has a much larger than 30% black workforce.

Homelessness is not a large problem here, however it is primarily white men that I see homeless. probably on the order of 70% matching demographics

I am tired of the false narrative that the midwest is racist.

I sometimes think about coming up with a guessing game where you put up a description of rural areas from HN and then a description of fallout and let people guess which is which.

To put it bluntly, the level of ignorance from city folks on this site is astounding. Many of them cannot fathom people with money who don't wear it on their sleeve.

No, We have a big problem with drugs that is true, but I would not call it a "wasteland"

AS far a homelessness, it is a problem like it is everywhere but I have never seen anything like what is seen in CA in my life. I would call that a wasteland of homelessness.

We have tons and charities, and lower cost of living making our homelessness problem generally transitory, meaning a person is homeless in crisis which is largely corrected by community out reach in a few months. Long Term homelessness is much less of a problem here

Most on HN cannot imagine just how ignorant they are. It borders on the Marie Antoinette quote 'let them eat cake' (I'm aware its apocryphal).

You're right that the problem exists everywhere, it's just they don't put themselves into positions to see many homeless, but read stories of the poor and homeless in the rural area and make the mistake of thinking they have some grasp.