2022 Community Needs Assessment

Community Action Partnership of Hennepin County (CAP-HC) is pleased to share insights from its 2022 Community Needs Assessment with the broader community.

Every three years, CAP-HC conducts a comprehensive Community Needs Assessment (CNA). By listening to the community, we ensure our programming is responsive to the changing needs of Hennepin County residents with lower incomes. Major themes from the CNA are outlined below:

• Behind us is a Village - When seeking support, community members tap into their social networks (family, religious institutions, and community service organizations).
• Improving Information Accessibility - Community members are calling for a wider array of access points to information about services and how to navigate eligibility requirements.
• Compounding Factors Influence Economic Instability - Participants talked openly about interrelated factors influencing their economic stability. Economic instability was often a symptom of a deeper issue such as living with a chronic condition or becoming unhoused—issues which are exacerbated by systemic barriers like inadequate access to affordable housing, quality mental and physical healthcare, or reliable transportation. 
• Uproot Economic Instability through Long-Term Wealth Building - Participants want to break the cycle of revisiting services to make ends meet, but systemic barriers impede their progress toward financial stability.
• More Choice & Autonomy: Reclaiming Time & Livelihood - Community members are trying to survive while simultaneously spending a lot of time overcoming barriers to programmatic support. They want service providers to see them as more than people with lower incomes. They are people who have dreams to be entrepreneurs, activists, and more. 

Read the summary or full report to learn more about how we engaged with community members, and what we learned from them.

Thank you to Imagine Deliver and to all the community members, partners, and service organizations that helped with the 2022 CNA. We look forward to incorporating what we learned into our anti-poverty work in Hennepin County.