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| National CAPACD E-Newsletter October 2007 |
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Contents:
1) Asian American Community Development Conference: The State of Asian New Yorkers
2) National CAPACD Welcomes 5 New Board Members!
3) National CAPACD Works to Defeat Restrictive Identification Amendments
[back to the top]
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1) Asian American Community Development Conference: The State of Asian New Yorkers
National CAPACD is proud to be partnering with Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) to bring you the Asian American Community Development Conference on Friday, October 26 in New York City!
Join us in this first Asian American housing and community development
conference in New York! We hope to break down stereotypes and dispel
the model minority myth, and present concrete approaches to overcome
cultural and language barriers in order to better serve this diverse
and expanding market.
The conference will engage private and public sectors to examine a wide range of community development topics, such as:
• Savings patterns and banking needs of the Asian immigrant markets
• Integration of community development efforts through Asian American philanthropy
• The nature and role of ethnic media in the Asian American community
• Economic contributions of Asian Americans
• Cultural norms and expectation of the recent Asian American homebuyers
For more information about the conference, call 212-979-8381 x126 or email: Helen_romero@aafe.org
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2) National CAPACD Welcomes 5 New Board Members!
We are excited to welcome five leaders in the APA Community Development
movement to the National CAPACD Board of Directors. These
individuals truly reflect our goal to promote ethnic and regional
diversity and bring leaders with vital knowledge together to enhance
and strengthen our networks.
Joni Byun is Senior
Vice President of Nakatomi & Associates in Los Angeles,
California. She serves as the strategic manager for social
marketing and communications campaigns reaching diverse
audiences. She plays an active role in several community service
organizations and provides pro-bono public relations services to a wide
variety of community-based organizations.
Michelle Kauhane is
the Executive Director of Hawaiian Community Assets (HCA) in Honolulu,
Hawai'i. She joined HCA as a loan officer trainee in May 2003 at
Hawai'i Community Lending, the mortgage broker arm of HCA. In
2004, Michelle was promoted as the Assistant Manager for Hawai'i
Community Lending and then promoted as Associate Director of HCA in
mid-2005.
Dean Matsubayashi is
the Director of Economic Development for the Little Tokyo Service
Center in Los Angeles, California. Dean has worked in the
community development field since 1996 in low-income communities in
Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles. Dean has overseen a
statewide API youth advocacy collective as well as the development of a
community health clinic, a community performing arts center, and more
than 125 units of low-income housing.
Tim K. Otani is the
First Vice President for Washington Mutual's Corporate & Employee
Giving Department and is based in Seattle, Washington. He is a
member of the Low Income Housing Institute's New Decade Planning
Committee, and is also on the Board of Trustees for the National
Housing Conference. Tim has served on the Washington State
Housing Finance Commission since being appointed in October 2002.
Annetta Seecharran,
a native of Guyana, is the Executive Director of South Asian Youth
Action (SAYA!), a community based organization dedicated to creating
social change and opportunities for South Asian youth. Prior to
joining SAYA!, Annetta spent five years at the International Youth
Foundation where she served as Program Manager for YouthNet
International, a best practices network of youth development
organizations in over 30 countries.
We also would like to take this moment to thank Bill Watanabe and Daphne Kwok for their years of service on the National CAPACD Board. You will be missed!
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3) National CAPACD Works to Defeat Restrictive Identification Amendments
Over the past few months National CAPACD has been
working with the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the
National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) to defeat a series of
amendments that would require each adult member of a household
receiving housing assistance to have a particular type of
identification. The amendments, offered by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA)
mandates that each adult show a REAL-ID compliant driver’s
license or identification card, a Social Security card accompanied by
state-issued photo identification or a U.S. passport. If any voucher
family member can not produce such identification, the entire family
will lose its assistance. The amendment is potentially harmful for many
voucher-eligible U.S. citizens who, for whatever reason, do not have
one of these types of identification.
This amendment was passed by a 233-186 margin when the Section 8
Voucher Reform Act (HR 1851) was voted on in the House of
Representatives on July 13. The bill would fix the voucher
funding formula problems that have plagued the program since 2004,
authorize 20,000 new vouchers each year for the next five years and
simplify the calculation of rents while maintaining the Brooke
Amendment, which caps resident rents at 30% of adjusted income, in
addition to other improvements.
Rep. Price also offered the amendment during the floor vote of H.R.
1852, the Expanding American Homeownership Act of 2007. H.R. 1852
would modernize the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and creates a
dedicated source of funding for the National Affordable Housing Trust
Fund. The Price amendment would require households receiving
money from the Trust Fund to present verification of legal residency by
a secure identification document.
National CAPACD has gathered stories form our members of how such
identification requirements would affect AAPI communities. We
worked with Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus’ Housing
Task Force to educate members of Congress on the impact of the ID
amendments on AAPIs and to mobilize the housing community to defeat the
amendments.
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