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Collaboration Builds AAPI Capacity in Los Angeles |
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"The perception of some policymakers and funders is that the local Asian community does not have any economic problems," states Erich Nakano, deputy director of the Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC). "This leads to Asian groups being caught in a cycle of not getting funding for projects, and not building a track record, which in turn hurts competitiveness for future funding. Our goal is to break into that cycle." Through HUD and local fundraising, the Los Angeles Asian and Asian Pacific Islander (AAPI) community has developed an effective, decentralized, collaborative model to achieve its goal. Assisting small business. Asian businesses represent 40 percent of minority-owned businesses in Los Angeles, and this number is increasing quickly, according to Nakano. However, very few small-business programs—state, local, or federal—have AAPI language capacity or expertise. "Most Asian businesses do not know about existing small business programs," says Nakano, and many of them struggle at the margin. Countywide, the average number of employees per firm is 17. For Asian businesses, the number is four. "These are mom and pop businesses where family members work about 80 hours per week, but they do not know how to grow," explains Nakano. Working with Chinatown Service Center, Korean Youth and Community Center, Search to Involve Filipino Americans, and Thai Community Development Center, LTSC created the AAPI Small Business Program in 1999 to respond to this situation. Support came from three corporate foundations—Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo—along with assistance from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Community Services. The model helps expanding businesses overcome the difficulties posed by diversity, language, unfamiliarity with business regulations, and lack of knowledge about available assistance. Situating a business counselor within each longstanding, well-known, ethnic-serving community organization in the collaborative—representing Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Chinese, and Thai communities—ensures access to training, coordination, and troubleshooting services for all groups. "There was no model to base this new organization on, so we created our own—a decentralized one," says Nakano. LTSC acts as a clearinghouse, training and coordinating business counselors employed at each of the five organizations in the program. Counselors literally go out on the street to do one-on-one outreach. "If a counselor runs across a restaurant owner [who] received a health citation, the counselor can call the main office for technical assistance [TA] to resolve the problem," he says. Since its inception, the business support program has served more than 160 clients from the 5 participating ethnic communities. Services include business plan development, loan packaging, and instruction on regulatory issues such as building permits and health code compliance. "Recently we are seeing a growing interest in e-commerce, developing Web sites, and light manufacturing businesses," states Nakano. Small business expansion supported by assistance from the AAPI program has helped to create 70 new jobs. Housing services. "It takes an organization that is well known to make people comfortable with services," Nakano says. LTSC provides TA and develops partnerships with well-known groups in a community that lack real estate experience to build senior, multifamily, special needs, and assisted housing projects. "These projects are designed and geared for cultural and language appropriate services," he relates. Bilingual management and services to residents are available in these projects to limited English-speaking residents. Some AAPI affordable housing projects, recognizing the cultural importance of the extended family, include units large enough to house grandparents with families. Combined funding supports development. In 1993, as the result of an initiative to improve community development and increase community-building efforts, HUD officials met with AAPI leaders from the greater Los Angeles region to discuss their housing and economic development concerns. In 1995 HUD awarded a 3-year capacity-building grant to the Housing and Economic Development Committee of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council in the Los Angeles area. In 1999 HUD awarded a second 3-year grant under the Community and Housing Development Organization (CHDO)-TA and HOME-TA programs. LTSC administers HUD TA funds and funds from other support sources and coordinates the AAPI community's housing development and small business support programs. Other sources of support include the Supportive Housing Program, HOME, the Community Development Block Grant program, and local tax credits—all of which assist in achieving the collaborative's goals of a strong AAPI community in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Through their business and community development collaborations, AAPI organizations have become a strong force in the Los Angeles region. "Trust that grew from the ability to understand each other's weaknesses and share our strengths is providing a broader range of programs than any of us could do separately," Nakano says. For more information, contact: Cooke Sunoo, AAPI Small Business Program Director, or Josh Ishimatsu, AAPI Housing Collaborative Manager, Little Tokyo Service Center Community Development Corporation, 231 East Third Street, Suite G106, Los Angeles, CA 90013, (213) 473–1680.
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