ADDRESSING IMMEDIATE NEEDS 
Shelter, Healthcare, and Transportation 
What if your paycheck wouldn’t cover these basic necessities and food for your family? In Hennepin County, more than 131,000 people are living this reality every day. And nearly a quarter of people living below poverty level are children under 18 years old.

Community Action Partnership of Hennepin County’s (CAP-HC’s) suite of services address the specific factors that cause and reinforce poverty in our community. For many of our clients, help from CAP-HC is the only thing preventing an eviction, homelessness, a utility disconnection, or even bankruptcy. At CAP-HC, we help our clients navigate crisis situations and become self-sufficient.

Energy & Water Services 
The average energy burden, the proportion of household income spent on energy, is two percent in Minnesota. Households with low income average an energy burden of eight percent with some facing energy burdens over thirty percent.* 

CAP-HC is one of the largest providers of energy assistance in Minnesota. Our Energy & Water Services reduce energy burden so that families don’t have to choose between buying food and medicine or paying bills. It also ensures families have safe, warm homes through the coldest months of the year. And in some cases, the assistance prevents eviction due to disconnection.

Programs include Energy Assistance, Crisis Assistance, Energy-Related Repair, and Water Assistance. 
 

Housing Stability 
Having safe, stable housing is one of the most important basic needs for families. Those with stable housing experience less stress and improved mental and physical health than families without stable housing. Additionally, stable housing reduces exposure to domestic violence and food insecurity. Being in a stable home also supports educational opportunities for students and job opportunities for adults. Families who have these connections in their communities are more engaged, which leads to neighborhood stability and even lower crime rates. 

These are only a few of the positive benefits the foundation of stable housing provides. However, more than 145,000 households in Hennepin County are housing burdened,* meaning more than 30% of their income goes toward housing. Housing burdened households often have difficulty affording necessities like food and health care as they teeter on the edge of becoming unhoused. Through our housing stability programs, CAP-HC helps hundreds of families avoid eviction and stay in their homes each year. 

Programs include Emergency Rental Assistance, Renter's Rights Workshops, and Rental Counseling. 

Healthcare 
To help families with low income afford the healthcare they need, while also keeping up with their bills and other basic needs, CAP-HC has a MNsure Application Assistance Program. Trained staff members help eligible households determine their eligibility for low-cost health insurance, explore potential tax credits, and provide support throughout the application process.

Tax Assistance  
For over 50 years, the IRS’ Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program has operated through partners like CAP-HC. This program helps volunteers become IRS tax-law certified. Then certified volunteers provide eligible families with free preparation and filing for federal, state, and property taxes. The program serves people with disabilities, low income, limited English-speaking abilities, and seniors.

In addition to minimizing tax expenses and maximizing tax credits, families often share that the program reduced their stress levels and gave them a sense of relief.

Vehicle Repair 
Established in 2015, CAP-HC’s Vehicle Repair Program ensures that families have safe, reliable transportation to work, healthcare appointments, getting children to school, and more. Vehicle Repair clients also complete Financial Wellness Workshops to help them create a budget (including vehicle maintenance) and manage their money efficiently and effectively. 

BUILDING TOWARD PROSPERITY
Bridging Opportunity Gaps
Everyone’s journey out of poverty is different. Sometimes, people need help stabilizing before they can become self-sufficient. Others may have stabilized but lack opportunities to learn skills to lift themselves out of poverty. CAP-HC helps families increase economic stability and build toward prosperity through programming that addresses opportunity gaps in Hennepin County. As community needs change, one of the ways we ensure responsive program design is by conducting a Community Needs Assessment every three years.

In our most recent Community Needs Assessment, community members talked about their desire to break the cycle of revisiting services to make ends meet, acknowledging that systemic barriers impede their progress toward financial stability. To break this cycle, economic instability must be uprooted through long-term wealth building. CAP-HC’s prosperity services break the poverty cycle by providing educational and skills-building opportunities that help people build wealth and pave their path to prosperity.

Financial Services
Through CAP-HC’s Financial Services, individuals and families learn important skills such as debt management, how to make a budget, and balancing expenses with asset building. With this knowledge, our clients can achieve economic stability and lift themselves out of poverty. 

Programs include Financial Wellness Workshops and Financial Wellness Counseling. 

Homebuyer Services
Homeownership continues to be one of the best ways for families with low income to build wealth. Not only does homeownership bring all the benefits of housing stability, it also builds good credit, can result in lower taxes, and builds generational wealth as homes typically increase in value over time. 

Through CAP-HC’s Homebuyer Counseling program, clients receive free, personalized guidance from HUD- certified* Housing Counselors to help them reach their homeownership goals. Counseling is based on each client’s needs and may include developing a budget, creating a credit improvement plan, walking through the mortgage process, identifying mortgage loans and down payment assistance programs, and more.

Programs include Homebuyer Workshops and Homebuyer Counseling.

Employment Services 
CAP-HC’s newest area of focus is Employment Services. Launched in November 2021 in response to input from the community, our employment programming focuses on helping people find and keep living-wage jobs as well as building their skills for job advancement. 

Programs include Job Readiness Workshops, Employment Readiness Counseling, and Getting Ahead. 

Empowering Communities in Hennepin County
In July of 2023, CAP-HC received a $5.7 million grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). This grant is part of a transformative initiative aimed at addressing multiple community needs—such as employment, education, and social equity—across the Twin Cities and surrounding counties. Over the two-year grant period, CAP-HC is expanding its reach and impact by partnering with two North Minneapolis-based organizations to support an array of programs that promote community development and empowerment, including pre-employment readiness training, certificate training, career exploration, financial wellness, community outreach, and more. The two grassroots organizations, A Mother’s Love and Salem, Inc., were chosen as subgrantees for this initiative by the Minnesota Legislature. Both organizations have close ties to their communities and proven track records of positively impacting residents most in need, especially at-risk youth and African Americans.

While it is early to quantify the impact of this initiative, the programs and people it supports have the potential to make significant strides in building a stronger, more equitable community in Hennepin County and beyond.

Read the full 2023 Annual Report, including client stories and more about our positive impact in Hennepin County. 

CAP-HC helps Hennepin County families with low income stabilize and build toward prosperity. Learn more about our programs and services.

If you're able, support CAP-HC with a donation in any amount to help people with low income stabilize and build toward prosperity.

*Source: Minnesota Energy Data Dashboard, May 2022, Department of Commerce