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<br />Orozco, Norma <br />From:Hatefas Yop <hatefasy@cambodianfamily.org> <br />Sent:Tuesday, June 01, 2021 5:12 PM <br />To:eComment <br />Subject:Public Comment <br />Hello City Council of Santa Ana, <br /> <br />My name is Hatefas Yop, I am a Community Organizer at The Cambodian Family Community Center based in <br />Santa Ana. I am also a resident in Santa Ana, CA. <br /> <br />Please see my public comment below in regards to asking the City Budget to approve the Revive Santa Ana <br />Spending Priorities to include funding for a Vietnamese Community Liaison. <br /> <br />Thank you very much for the opportunity to share our support. <br /> <br /> <br />The Cambodian Family Community Center is in support of asking the City Budget to approve the Revive Santa <br />Ana Spending Priorities to include allocated funding for a Vietnamese Community Liaison. The staff report <br />indicates a potential part time position with an annual salary of $60k. However, TCF understands as a <br />predominately API/ Refugee Serving organization founded under the umbrella of Southeast Asian diasporic <br />history-- which includes not only Vietnamese but also Khmer, Cham, Laotians refugee resettlement, that there <br />is an increase in need for this continued community bridge. Under the pandemic, TCF has worked extensively <br />with the County of Orange API Task Force which includes various API serving organizations such as <br />Southland Integrated Services and Korean Community Services to name of few. The API Task Force came <br />together to address health disparities within the monolingual speaking API communities. With our involvement <br />in this work, the API Task force became a trusted entity for community members especially when it came to <br />addressing Race-Based Hate among API. As an organization that is founded on the foundation to improve the <br />social, mental, and physical well being of our communities, TCF fully emphasizes the need for the City of <br />Santa Ana to have a Vietnamese community Liaison. Only west of Santa Ana's Riverbed resides a large <br />number of Vietnamese speaking communities who, like our Cambodian refugee clients, arrived fleeing war and <br />trauma in their homelands. Surpassing 4 decades since the Refugee Resettlement Act of 1980, many <br />Southeast Asian community members, in the City of Santa Ana, which is predominately Latinx, still are facing <br />disparities accessing basic needs such as access to quality healthcare in their native language, housing <br />insecurities with many living in multi-family homes, mental health resources to address PTSD. These listed <br />disparities are one of many that pertain to the Southeast Asian community here in Santa Ana, therefore TCF <br />emphasizes and understands the work within the community cannot be limited to part-time allocated hours. <br />TCF understands the hours it requires to build trusted relationships with community members and community <br />partners. <br /> <br />-- <br />Hatefas Yop <br />Community Organizer, <br />Youth & Civic Engagement <br /> <br />The Cambodian Family Community Center <br />1626 East 4th Street, Santa Ana, CA 92701 <br />E-mail: hatefasy@cambodianfamily.org <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />www.cambodianfamily.org <br />1 <br /> <br />