See the ADC timeline, 2002-present
Minnesota, like the nation, is struggling to deal with the economic pressures and opportunities of immigration. ADC’s role in this big picture is to create answers on the opportunity side. Our work has corroborated studies showing that increasing the rates of self-employment and home ownership among “new Minnesotans” contributes to the revitalization of neglected neighborhoods and links mainstream businesses with the state’s estimated $6 billion ethnic economy.
According to a recent report by The Minneapolis Foundation, 13 percent of Minnesota’s foreign born residents in the 2000 Census were from Africa – a higher percentage than any other state in the country. Most Africans have come to Minnesota over the past generation as refugees fleeing civil strife in Somalia, Liberia and the Sudan. Other relatively large African populations recently arrived include Nigerians, Ethiopians, and Eritreans. This influx will likely continue. Minnesota offers immigrants an established African population, a strong economy, a good quality of life, educational opportunities, and unskilled jobs that don’t require fluency or literacy in English.
Unfortunately, Minnesota’s economic development community is ill-prepared to help African immigrants and refugees. This is unintentional. In an era of budget cuts at every level of government, mainstream community development corporations lack the funds to expand their services to meet the complex needs of African immigrants. They also lack the motivation to seek out non-traditional clients: Minnesota’s down-payment assistance funds already cannot keep up with existing demand from mainstream clients.
ADC was created to fill this gap, and we have achieved spectacular early success. Both in providing services and building capacity, our hard-working staff and diverse board have transformed ADC from a one-person, half-time operation just three years ago to a precedent-setting, highly networked corporation. We’re well known in the Twin Cities as an effective partner to public and private community development, and we are on the verge of providing expanded services to cities in greater Minnesota.
