Sterling event to unveil regional report on community well-being

Logan County’s shrinking population and tight housing market will be front and center when regional leaders gather in Sterling to unveil a report built from more than a year of community input across northeast Colorado. The Northeast Colorado Intersections Report, Pursuing Community Well-Being, points to workforce housing as the biggest barrier to economic development in the six-county region, a finding that lands close to home in Logan County, where the population estimate dipped to 20,654 in 2025 from 21,528 in the 2020 census.

The report will be presented Thursday, April 30, from 8 to 10:30 a.m. at Northeastern Junior College. It draws on surveys, focus groups, community meetings and one-on-one conversations in Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington and Yuma counties, along with hundreds of data points analyzed by Colorado State University’s Institute for the Built Environment. Organizers say the goal is to create a common language, common data and a baseline of information that local officials, nonprofits and residents can use when the conversation turns to housing, jobs and access to services.

That focus matters in Logan County, where the 2020-2024 median household income was $51,829, the median gross rent was $1,013 and the median value of owner-occupied housing was $245,300. The county also is older than the state as a whole, with 20.6 percent of residents age 65 or older, and more than one in 10 residents under 65 living with a disability. Another 9.2 percent lacked health insurance. Those numbers help explain why housing, transportation and health care access are not separate issues in Sterling and across the county, but part of the same pressure point for families, employers and service providers.

The event is designed as a working session, not a one-way presentation. CSU President Amy Parsons and NoCo Foundation President and CEO Kristin Todd are scheduled to speak, followed by a panel moderated by Northeastern Junior College President Mike White. The panel includes Don Brown, Margo Ebersole of the Rural Community Resource Center, Trisha Herman of the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority, Logan County Commissioner Jim Yahn, Josh Sonnenberg, aide to State Representative Dusty Johnson, and Gillian Laycock, town manager for Akron. Tickets are listed at $20 and include a light breakfast.

The setting is fitting. Northeastern Junior College opened in 1941 with 60 students from 17 northeastern Colorado communities, and the college describes Sterling as a trade, education and health center for a population of more than 50,000. As the region prepares to hear the report, the real question is whether the data and the discussion will translate into action on housing, services and the workforce gaps that have slowed growth across northeast Colorado.