Noel Sons working at a standing desk at The Mill in Bloomington.
(Devan Ridgway/WTIU News)
Noel Sons said the pandemic taught him the value of community, something living in San Diego wasn’t providing.
So when Sons, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL, had the opportunity to go anywhere as a fully remote employee of a technology company, he and his family wanted a smaller town. They looked at Astoria, Oregon; Kalispell, Montana; Greensboro, N.C., and Asheville, N.C.
They settled on another option: Bloomington.
“We visited a lot of them, and my kids actually had the final vote,” Sons said. “And we sat down and decided, where are we going to go? And they picked Bloomington. We got here July 15 this year.”
Noel Sons enjoying the weather outside of The Mill. (Devan Ridgway/WTIU News)
Noel is an example of a remote worker taking advantage of offers from communities in southern Indiana to relocate. In his case, the website MakeMyMove facilitated the deal for moving from a city of 1.4 million people to one with a population of 77,000.
Noel received a three-year membership to the Mill, a shared workspace, in return for moving to Bloomington. Other southern Indiana communities offer more.
“It's a form of economic development where communities can promote themselves on the (MakeMyMove) platform, recruit workers, and those workers bring all of their economic benefits with them,” said Evan Hock, co-founder of MakeMyMove
Hock said Indiana has been a model for courting remote workers to move.
With funding from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, and Radius, a regional economic partnership, communities including Crawford, Daviess, Greene, and Martin counties have listed benefits packages on the website.
The counties covered by Radius Indiana, a group that promotes the area for workforce and economic development. (From the Radius Indiana website)
Most include a stipend of up to $5,000 and additional benefits such as annual passes to visit state parks and free checking accounts through local banks.
Hock highlighted Jasper, Indiana, as one of the success stories.
“It's really gone gangbusters,” he said. “They've moved 70 households so far. And you know, it's really not surprising when you go visit that area, it's beautiful. The people are amazing. And that's exactly the type of thing that our users are looking for.”
The state has welcomed more than 1,200 new residents through remote worker relocation programs.
More than half relocated to rural communities experiencing population decline.
These population bumps can help spur economic growth, especially considering the income required to qualify for relocation packages.
“It's really up to the individual communities to kind of set those bars,” Hock said. “In most places, it's around $50,000, though it might be a little bit higher for more competitive communities.”
Choose Southern Indiana, promoted by eight southern Indiana counties, has talent attraction programs for hands-on workers as well as remote workers, said director Kristal Painter.
“We have a defense sector program where we're helping recruit a qualified workforce for the defense contractors outside of Crane,” she said. “We've got a health care program, where we're looking for nurses, and that's currently focused on two of our counties.”
The listings to areas in Southern Indiana promoting opportunities on MakeMyMove.com. (From the MakeMyMove website)
In the future, Painter wants to see placement programs focus more on attracting and retaining healthcare and teaching professionals while also encouraging graduating students to stay in the state after college.
“If we can use this program to keep kids that are graduating from our local colleges, IU, Purdue, Ball State, ones that are within the state of Indiana, and have them come down to southern Indiana and enter the workforce using our population incentive, then I think that would be a win,” she said.
But Painter said movers aren’t choosing to move to Indiana for incentive packages.
She said many people who made the move to Indiana cited the state’s natural beauty and lower cost of living.
“What we hear from the majority of them, is that they just enjoy the pace of life here and that they can own some property in smaller school systems, smaller communities,” she said. “And where we're situated, you have access to those bigger city markets within, you know, an hour or less.”
Sons said his family is happy with the decision to move to Bloomington from San Diego.
People, he said, have been welcoming and they’ve made friends quickly.
“I don't want to be stereotypical, but it's just Midwestern nice,” he said. “There's something to it.”
