Hmong Resettlement from Wat Tham Krabok, Thailand:

Date/Time: April 22, 2004: 9.30 - 11.00 a.m.

Location:
South East Asian Community Council (SEACC)
555 Girard Terrace, North Mpls.

Contact:
RSVP Cha Lee, SEACC: 612/342-1530, clee@seacc-mn.org.

You can also download this meeting minutes, as well as the housing group's roster and the health group's roster.

Minutes from the Meeting:

Welcome and Introductions: Cha Lee welcomed the group. A series of meetings have been organized to prepare for the new arrivals from Wat. David Zander directed the group to review information about these meetings which is on the Asian Media Access Website: www.amamedia.org. In addition, Lue Her at Ready 4 K is organizing a work group to deal with early childhood issues. See the website for more information about this effort as well.

Preparation for May 22 Resource Fair: The Resource Fair is scheduled from 10 am-1 pm at North High. The target audiences for the fair are potential sponsors and families of the new arrivals and anyone in the Hmong community wanting to obtain resource information. The Hmong from the Wat Camp will arrive as early as July and about 1600-3000 are expected to come to Minnesota. All will come with refugee status. More information will be forthcoming at a Wat Resettlement Working Group meeting scheduled for April 27, 10 am-12 noon at the Minnesota Department of Health, Snelling Office Park, 1645 Energy Park Drive, St. Paul. For directions, please click here for details.

For more information, contact: Chao Lee, Office of Congresswoman Betty McCollum Phone: (651) 224-9191

Promotion for Resource Fair: Volags (organizations such as Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities, etc.) have the contact information of potential sponsors. It would be important to obtain this information and directly invite these sponsors/families to attend the resource fair. In addition, word needs to get out through Hmong media channels. Agencies need to also promote this event.

Work Groups: meeting participants divided into the following groups and a group leader was selected to organize this group.
Education Work Group: Leader: Kia Yang, Minneapolis Public Schools
Housing Work Group: Leader: Chris Wilson, PPL
Health Work Group: Leader: Carol Berg, UCare Minnesota
Human Services: Vinnie Kutty, Hennepin Co. Office of Multicultural Services
There was also discussion about the possibility of a work group focused on legal issues. Cha Lee has invited Legal Aid to participate. In addition, the group felt that employment issues could be covered by the Human Services work group.

Each group discussed how various agencies would prepare for the new arrivals and answered the following questions:
   a. What do you have in place for the new Hmong arrivals?
   b. What do you need to do between now and the arrival?
   c. What are the gaps?

Each work group briefly reported on highlights from their discussion. Here are the notes from each small group discussion:

Education

New refugees –
   • 13,500 to U.S
   • 6,700 to Minnesota
   • 60% to Ramsey County/St Paul
   • 30% to Hennepin County/Minneapolis
   • 2,000 people, half of which are children of school age (14 and younger).
      • 0 – 4 y.o. 300
      • 5 – 14 y.o. 600 – 700
      • 14 – 20 y.o. 300/high teen parent numbers

Kenly Vang – YWCA will co-chair.

MPS will organize a list for communication, include county services i.e. Brooklyn Center.

MPS will coordinate their resources (Brooklyn Center as well). A list will be sent by email to entire workgroup – asking for descriptive blurb regarding each service. Need contact information for each service also.

Housing

Chris Wilson       PPL
Vu Tran            Inspections
Steve Boland       Housing Minnesota
Tanya Cruz         Mpls. Dept of Health & Family Support/Housing Advocate
Yulanda Blackmon   MPHA
David Zander       State of MN - Council of Asian Pacific Islanders

   • Large families
   • Codes
   • Inspections – one month pass
   • Waivers
   • Public housing – 18 or older and 50 and older; disabled and SSI; Section 8 is closed

Federal Assistance – like SSI/MFIP in amount

   • Interpreters at Resource Fair
   • Housing Link should come
   • Private market will need to be part
   • MN Multi-housing Association should come
   • Homeownership Center
   • Renters should discuss with landlords now
      • Something in writing
      • Long term solution problematic

Health

Summary:
1. Group identified Carol Berg as lead for health work group.
2. Created contact list of members to gather helpful health resources for community event. Carol will send out.
3. Identified resources in following categories:“Hook up”/Insurance Coverage: Neighborhood Health Care Network, New Family Center, Child & Teen Checkup Program

4. Agreed that organizations should arrange for staff person to attend event to explain information and answer questions.
5. Carol will find out from Kia Yang how many tables we could have for health resource materials.
6. Michelle Finstad can bring a VCR and TV to show videos. Carol will ask if our health resource tables can be close to an outlet.
7. Decided not to bring big table top displays but rather will suggest to the larger group that banners be made for each category of resources (e.g., “Health”, “Housing”, etc.) to hang above the tables for each area of information/assistance.
8. Should create health resource contact list for organizations participating at the event and have copies at the table. Also incorporate health resource contact information into county-wide resource list that Office of Multi-cultural Services is producing.
9. Organizations that are bringing resource information should bring 200 copies.
10. Carol will email notes from today to help organize who will bring which health resources on May 22. Members should fill in what they will bring and who will participate from their organization at the event. See draft table on next page.

Human Services

Teresa Schaffer (651) 662-1868
A.
Pilot Cities Neighborhood Services
   • Hmong receptionist intake
   • Referral to agencies
   • Enrollment

Greater Minneapolis Day Care Association
   • Outreach early childhood
   • Hmong case manager for childcare subsidy

Oasis of Love
   • Deal with family matters
   • Culturally appropriate food shelf

Hennepin County Economic Assistance
   • Medical program
   • Public Assistance program
   • Food – cash
   • Interpreter services

City of Minneapolis
   • Multi-cultural office services helps connect with City departments

Available assistance:
   • Cash/medical assistance (8 months)
   • Medicaid and TANF for qualified families (60 months)
   • State formula social service allocations
   • Matching grants for volunteer agencies
   • Targeted-assistance
   • Discretionary grants administered by ORR are available to impacted states and counties

B.
“ Get Educated”
   • What is everybody doing? –
   • What steps are we taking to be prepared?
   • Need to be treated as any other client.
   **Internal assessment – environmental scan – Vinnie

C.
   • Funding Sources
   • Private social service agencies
   • Faith community
   • Local food shelf
   • Interpreters
   • Address communications

Additional comments: Hennepin County Office of Multicultural Services has created a resource packet which might be a good model/resource to distribute at the Resource Fair. In addition, the Minnesota Dept. of Health has a resources on refugee health that would be useful for sponsor families. This resource can be found on MDH’s website: www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc/refugee.

Next Meeting: May 6, 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM at the Southeast Asian Community Council, (SEACC) 555 Girard Terrace, North Mpls. For more information, please contact: Cha Lee, SEACC: 612/342-1530, clee@seacc-mn.org.

The meeting was adjourned.

 

Click here to see previous meeting summery.

Download meeting minutes (MS Word, 48k)
Housing group roster (MS Word, 32k)
Health group roster (MS Word, 52K)

 

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