Ilsa Minor | Daily Press Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist speaks during a special luncheon Thursday at the Upper Peninsula State Fair. During the event, Gilchrist spoke about a number of topics and answered questions submitted by the audience.

ESCANABA — When Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist II — who is running for came to Escanaba for the U.P. State Fair this week and spoke with locals and other attendees of the special luncheon on honored citizens’ day, he said that there were a handful of key issues people keep voicing concerns about.

“I’ve been to all 83 counties in Michigan, like, three or more times, and in every single conversation — in the Upper Peninsula in particular — the question of how do we increase affordability and availability of housing comes up every single time,” Gilchrist said.

He pointed to some things that have been done — launched in 2024 was the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) Rate Relief Mortgage program, which lowers the mortgage interest rate for eligible first-time homebuyers by a full percentage point– creating “savings of $1,500 in a given month,” Gilchrist said.

There is also the Michigan Housing and Community Development Fund, which is administered by MSHDA to “develop and coordinate public and private resources to meet the affordable housing needs of low income, very low income, and extremely low income households and to revitalize downtown areas and adjacent neighborhoods in Michigan,” according to the State.

“Governor Whitmer and I have worked really closely with the legislature to accelerate more resources dedicated to bringing housing units online than have ever been deployed in the history of the state of Michigan,” Gilchrist said. “We brought on tens of thousands of new units just in the last three years. …But we need to bring more units online more quickly, and so I’m looking forward to focusing on how we can unlock that which stands in the way of more units, whether for rent or for purchase, to come online, so that we can help bring the cost of living down.”

One question submitted by attendees of Thursday’s luncheon and read aloud to the lieutenant governor by Bay College President Nerita Hughes was about an environmental concern — Enbridge’s Line 5, which runs under the Straits of Mackinac and has been a major source of contention as fears of a leak contaminating the Great Lakes plagues citizens. Though the pipelines themselves lay on the lakebed since 1953, current plans are to build a new tunnel underneath the lakebed — a decision that has not been accepted by all.

“I think making sure that we can keep energy costs down and keeping energy reliable and reliably supplied to the U.P. is super important. I also know that Yoopers care about our natural resources … care to make sure we’re being safe and good stewards,” Gilchrist acknowledged. “I had concerns about the line being in the water, and I think those have been addressed. And now there’s a project that is ongoing, and that process is going to continue to play out, and we’re going to watch it closely, but my goal is to make sure that people can afford their energy.”

Access to healthcare — emergency care and mental and behavioral health services — was discussed, too.

“The question should not be, ‘how much money is in your pocket,’ but the question is, ‘how can we work with you to get better?’ And that’s the principle that we will keep and strive,” Gilchrist said. “But I’m not going to lie to you — I’m worried about access to healthcare in the Upper Peninsula. I’m worried about it because of the change of the federal level,” he said, and referenced cuts to Medicaid. “We have work to do to make sure that our most vulnerable people … pregnant women, children, our seniors, people living with disabilities — We have to make sure that we can take care of them.”

When the topic of the danger of rural hospitals disappearing was broached, he mentioned the closure of Ontonagon’s hospital and shared that his grandmother recently had chest pains and needed to be rushed to a hospital.

“If my grandma had to drive an hour to get to the hospital, she would have died in the car. That is a reality that is facing Michigan families right now, especially those who are near Ontonagon, but it’s a reality that could face more … We have to work together at the state level to make sure we don’t leave people out of this future,” Gilchrist said.

He also discussed education, explaining that his three children are in public school in Detroit, and stated that teachers need to be equipped with resources that work and that Michigan needs to “accelerate outcomes” in literacy.

Gilchrist mentioned that opportunities after school are a concern for many, and we need to make investments so that people have job options available to them.

“Even in the face of those challenges, there are tremendous opportunities. I approach today, I approach problem-solving with the optimism of an engineer. I believe that problems are really solutions that we haven’t found yet,” the lieutenant governor declared. “Impossibility is not a fact. … It is an opinion of people who lack imagination, who lack work ethic and who lack the teamwork and ability to get something done that somebody else thought was hard. But I don’t think that’s our spirit — not here in the U.P., not anywhere in the State of Michigan. It is up to us to work together to make sure that we can create a Michigan where in every community, you can stay and succeed.”