i. A New Beginning – Standing on Our Own Feet within Minnesota Communities Over the past decade, HAMAA has placed hundreds of people on the job to bring enough income to put food on the table for the children. We have demonstrated that once the welfare recipient lands a job they will no longer qualify for some or many of the economic supports identified above. But we know that we can let parts of this support structure fall away by family circumstance if we carefully construct the family finances on an annual basis solidly founded on the bedrock of education and job training. First, we must recognize that a worker for whom we found a regular job has, thanks to our American pay as you go tax structure, become an instantaneous taxpayer. For example, if HAMAA Employment Counselors assist a Client, let us say the father of a family of ten, locate a job promising an annual income of $20,000 (circa $10.00/hour for a forty hour week), that Client pays roughly 15 percent tax across the board as all lower income bracket workers. In our case our Client would pay about $3,000 per year in taxes. This is not only feasible for the first individual but can be done on a regular basis for both individual families and the Hmong Community. In aggregate employment placements, numbering over 450 adults in the past four years, we have attained hourly placement wages of $9.62. Carrying this financial equation of employment to logical ends, if only our HAMAA Agency maintains a minimum average of 132 placements per year, we would foresee for the tax rolls a savings of $2,640,000 in terminated payouts per year while receiving $396,000 in new tax revenue from the newly employed, now economically self-sufficient Hmong Minneapolis families. And this only counts the father. We have been hard at work making special placements for our Hmong mothers who are on MFIP and are locating a job at the same time they are entering our courses for ISO-ESL as will be described hereunder.

ii. Housing and Family Homes

Continuing the economic model discussion, housing, at one time for our Hmong almost entirely the realm of the Public Housing Agency, now most often is unsubsidized, owner occupied and maintained. This is generally true in the Frogtown and Summit neighborhoods of St. Paul and especially so for the area of North Minneapolis and the northern suburbs of Hennepin County (Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park) where lower cost, older and somewhat rundown housing still exists to which our families moved as the Minneapolis Hollman Housing Site was demolished. Maintenance costs and the knowledge of home ownership activities to complete on an annual basis remains a long-term concern, especially given the advanced age of many of the units and the excessive costs incurred in the housing rush of 1999-2000 to obtain a home. Mortgages, obtained in a rush, at relatively high rates or at premiums through non-traditional lenders pose a much greater concern in the near term as so many new buyers exhausted all savings of the extended family to purchase the houses. In many cases these units are older (averaging 50 years to 33 years as one travels north from our Glenwood-Lyndale site) and often require a substantial repair such as roof, furnace or other structural work. But many of our Hmong Community are now homeowners in every right.

iii. Strengthening our Hmong Communities through Education

Governor Ventura convened in 1999 an Interagency Workforce Development “Mini-Cabinet” to examine the way state government supports workforce development. Among the many issues, solutions and recommendations submitted was “Principle 3: : The state affirms its commitment to assist the unemployed and economically distressed but emphasizes the importance of education and training for achieving self-sufficiency.” As we work through the employment and housing issues, we arrive at the recognition that there are essentially only a few methods to resolve the career development and unemployment problem of the limited English proficiency of our Hmong New Americans:
1. Find for our Hmong adults essentially manual labor jobs to resolve the crises of welfare reform, enabling them to provide food for the children and a proper home for the family, and;
2. Establish English Classes for adults to improve their English after work so that some day they can change their lives to work in step with the new technology age;
3. Establish English Classes for our young Hmong commencing at age six years and continuing with a strong emphasis on teens who arrived late in the immigration cycle and are suffering a difficult time in gaining English language skills that interferes with their education;
4. Conduct activity to engage and bring in the HAMAA Center those young Hmong who have previously failed in school then dropped out and assist them through dedicated English and Hmong-based classes to come in from the streets and restart their education process.

To support our Hmong Community within the spirit of the new path, we adopt the goals of the Governor’s Workforce Development Plan for 2000.

GOVERNOR’S WORKFORCE GOALS	HAMAA ACTIVITY RESPONSE
Recommendations:
1. Consolidate employment and training programs	[Support]
2. Establish an Emerging Worker Program	Family Empowerment Network HAMAA Employment Network Youth Empowerment Partners (ages 11-21 yrs)
3. Suspend the Workforce Development Tax, disburse the unobligated funds to programs as recommended in this report, then trigger the tax back on [sic] based on future need	[Support]
4. Promote career information and exploration for youth and adults	Family Empowerment Network HAMAA Employment Network Youth Empowerment Partners (ages 11-21 yrs)
5. Increase the alignment of public educational resources with the marketplace, including the needs of critical obligations and industries	[Support]
6. Measure outcomes to ensure accountability	Family Empowerment Network HAMAA Employment Network Youth Empowerment Partners (ages 11-21 yrs)
7. Increase efforts to bring new workers into the workforce	Family Empowerment Network HAMAA Employment Network Youth Empowerment Partners (ages 11-21 yrs)

Our young Hmong know the value of the advanced education degrees as they observe their friends succeed. They can obtain the education their parents sacrificed so much to provide for them. Yet many of the youth become frustration at their inability to keep up in class work. For them it is too easy to dropout. As discussed in the Citizens League report, A Failing Grade for School Completion: We Must Increase School Completion in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, we must engage our youth and their parents at the school site and gather them at the HAMAA Center after school for enhanced tutoring and learning sessions. Their future ability to gain substantially from the American network, and their ability to function within it demand no less.

Nowhere is this more important than in the pursuit of community activities through our Minneapolis Public School system. We are engaging at various points with MPS through the Twelve Point Plan goals.

MPS GOALS	HAMAA ACTIVITY RESPONSE
Schools Will:
1. Use Student Data to Direct Action Steps	Academic Barriers Challengers (ages 5-10 yrs) Youth Empowerment Partners (ages 11-21 yrs)
2. Ensure Quality Teaching and Focused Professional Development	[Support]
3. Create a More Diverse Workforce	HAMAA Employment Activity
4. Target Resources to Needy Schools
5. Restructure Secondary Experience to Increase Graduation and Transition to Post Secondary	[Youth Empowerment Partners (ages11-21 yrs)]
6. Reduce Over-Referral to Special Education	[Support]
Families and students will:
7. Improve Student Attendance	Academic Barriers Challengers (ages 5-10 yrs) Youth Empowerment Partners (ages 11-21 yrs) Center for Hmong Adolescent Development
8. Strengthen Family-School Partnerships. Foster Positive Peer Influence	Family Empowerment Network Kev Kawm Txuj Parent Education
9. Leverage Community Partnerships	HAMAA Community Center Programs
Together we – the Community -- will:
10. Increase School Readiness	Academic Barriers Challengers (ages 5-10 yrs) Youth Empowerment Partners (ages 11-21 yrs) HAMAA Health Outreach Activity
11. Give Students More Time and Greater Opportunities	Academic Barriers Challengers (ages 5-10 yrs) Youth Empowerment Partners (ages 11-21 yrs)
12. Increase Support for Students with Behavior Related Issues	Center for Hmong Adolescent Development

In so doing we reinforce one of the most important requirements, the ability to join not only with our Hmong neighbors but the greater Minneapolis neighborhood as well. As homeowners, we have purchased houses interspersed among neighbors of many cultures. It is important that we develop the ability to fully communicate and work closely with our neighbors. Where once, in the early years just after arrival and as we started our new families it was accepted practice for the men to obtain language skills for work as the women stayed at home with the children, time has now changed that formula. Many, if not a majority of our Hmong women are now entering the workplace as a result of either the high cost of housing and paying for a new mortgage, or, regrettably, as a result of becoming a single parent and meeting or exiting MFIP at least through a partial work week. The workplace and the neighborhood both require strong English language skills and becoming a good neighbor includes taking the American Citizenship examination.

For all of these needs, HAMAA hosts an intensive array of English and math classes, with computer skills through our ISO-ESL Language Center. The demand for language support is high and certain to go higher. Sufficient teachers and classroom space for classes for students of all ages, teens to veterans must be available to conduct daily courses up to twelve in number.

iv. Hmong Minneapolis Health Initiative

Here we broach a problem at once compelling and nearly without solution. Our Hmong Community as new Americans not possessing a cultural medical/health background not predominantly European-based must contend with the clashes of advice, services and procedures available. When understood, the choice may be a very rational combination of methods. But therein lies the rub: with limited English language capability and virtually non-existent health network prior to arrival in America, we must start at the bottom rung in every medical and health field. Many of our people are suffering from some level of traumatic stress syndrome if for no other reason than the loss of everything they grew to know and love. How much we do not know, since a survey of published health-related research studies indicates that Hmong-specific studies have never been conducted on even the more basic health issues including youth sexual relations and STD. True enough the people can function on a daily basis as long as all actions are as anticipated, without great problem and according to a basic time schedule. But changes even as simple to mainstream Americans as changing shifts at a job creates tremendous stress. Our young people know this through their own experience, but only now after the initial new American generation selected social work to assist with the system are our young people of generation two beginning to look into medical and health practice as their avocation. We are looking at twenty years or more to build an adequate health support infrastructure. We could count upon local resources such as Hennepin County or City of Minneapolis Health agencies to assist. But until most recently the solution adopted in the face of limited language and culturally competent personnel was to redirect all clients to the nascent health network in St. Paul/Ramsey County. This might work well for those who live in those areas, but left our Minneapolis residents with even less direct support. Added to this have been the reports issued for years from federal, state and county agencies identifying the shortfall in health services outreach to communities of color and limited income, which shortfall we can most certainly confirm. Discussions and programs, at the same time, have been directed in large part to the two-thirds majority of our Hmong Community residing in St. Paul while leaving our Minneapolis Community high and dry as usual from anti-smoking campaigns to such basic community needs as a culturally relevant funeral home. Clearly we must get past the period of hand wringing and shortfall reports and locate health professionals as team members with whom we may build a comprehensive health outreach program for our city members.

v. Fostering Small Business Development in Minneapolis

Even as we enhance the minds and circumstances of our Hmong residents through education and job skills development, we must also harness the individual spirit of our people. Nowhere is this spirit more alive and charged than in the hearts of our Hmong entrepreneurs. Having struggled through the resettlement process, attained English language skills, and often having participated as an employee in a firm similar to their personal driving interest, they are ready to commit to establishing their small business in Minneapolis. We know that they will be successful in large part as we look to the earlier business developments of the Summit and Frogtown areas of St. Paul. With experienced Hmong business and Community leaders now arriving in Minneapolis fresh from their successes in St. Paul and directly entering such activities as the Minneapolis Empowerment Zone, HousingMinnesota, and the Northway Action Plan, we can expect similar business stimulation in the very near term. Our eyes are focused on our traditional corridors of Glenwood-Lyndale and Lowry Avenue, heretofore not readily developed by such small shops as hardware and electrical goods stores, clothing and accessories boutiques, law offices, insurance agencies, hair salons/barbershops and numerous family support shops. Our goal must be to enhance the ability of our Hmong newcomers to surmount the remaining language problems and learn the rules of paper-driven business enterprises including tax and financial planning and reporting methodologies as they approach banks and business partners within the mainstream communities.

vi. Safety and Security for All Residents of our Neighborhoods

As we gain additional ground in education it is certain that our young people who stray from the path into the arms of the local police will drop in numbers. But the problem of safety and security within neighborhoods remains at two levels: ? Our senior citizens and those shut in for any reason must receive regular home visits to assure health, diet and physical safety in older, drafty homes; ? Crisis response to family conflict and battered spouse incidents, and; ? Businesses too require security from the prowlers who would inflict damage through theft, vandalism or graffiti. Once there were Community Liaison representatives drawn from our Hmong Community to assist in making the connections between languages and cultures. We were oftentimes successful in averting family conflicts and tragedies through quick response of dedicated staff members remaining vigilant for the calls late at night. Those days and many of the original Block Watch Captains are gone. We look to a period when we have a central figure guiding the activities side by side with our Minneapolis Police Department, coordinating our emergency response to crises and working with the Hmong Sub-Clan Leaders Network to re-energize the Black Watch throughout our North Minneapolis Hmong Community.

vii. Planning Hmong Communities in Greater Minnesota

To a large extent unlike other primary resettlement states such as California, North Carolina or Wisconsin, our Hmong Community in Minnesota has remained fixed largely in the Twin Cities, very concentrated in select sectors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. We originally adopted this approach in the 1980s with the knowledge that housing, either agency public housing or starter affordable housing was relatively plentiful and cost effective for our limited budgets. Education was made available through agencies and schools for basic English. We never really looked at alternatives nor expanded from this base with the exception of a few isolated families and a small branch established in western Minnesota at the call and supported by the local poultry businesses. We intend to explore possibilities of supporting extension of our Hmong Twin Cities Community into Greater Minnesota even as we all work our way out of the current economic downturn. Our desire will be to meet with city planners from towns throughout Minnesota that would be searching for strong families with good adult employees and homeowners who would bring their children to stay and grow in that community.