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Salisbury Rowan Community Action Agency, Inc. The Board, Executive Director and Program Director are working with staff to increase recruitment to the Hispanic community to attain minimum 10% Hispanic families in all of the programs offered. With the hiring of a Multicultural Specialist for the program, we expect to enroll at least 12 of the 50 recruited families by the end of PY2014 -2015. UnemploymentlUnderemployment In the last year, no significant jab growth has occurred in Rowan or but in this year in Cabarrus county Gordon Foods is coming to Kannapolis, Amazon has come to Concord and the old Phillip Morris plant in Concord has been bought by a manufacturing company that is expecting to bring 2500 new jobs. This continues to impact our service area tremendously and high unemployment rates keep our waiting lists fluctuating around 30 families at any given time in each county. The long waits to receive services have forced SRCAA to be more strategic about our intake strategy, We have found that constituents in need of self- sufficiency services do not want to wait six months to a year to receive them. Therefore we have attempted to send letters of interest first to persons on the wait list and found that many have moved or are difficult or unable to contact. There are some distinguishable differences anecdotally, between the counties and the services requested. In Rowan more of the applicants need additional training and jobs. In Cabarrus, people have had jobs, lost them due to a variety of factors and are seeking re- employment. On some levels, Cabarrus residents have had higher educational attainment prior to applying. However people still come to SRCAA affected by mill closings, Phillip Morris closing and in. Rowan a possible outsourcing by Westinghouse will add to more job elimination. As of October 30, 2014 the current unemployment rate for Rowan County is 7% or four thousand, six hundred and seventy, (4,670). People unemployed in Cabarrus County are 6.3% or five thousand eight hundred and twenty -six (5,826). Cabarrus has more opportunities for growth and is adjacent to Mecklenburg County (Charlotte). Although Charlotte is about 45 miles from Rowan, more participants are choosing to look for jobs there. For lower paying jobs, transportation costs are cost prohibitive and severely impact the participants' personal budgets. Education /Vocation The 2012 Closing the Gap Skills Survey of NC conducted by the Centralina Workforce Development Board Report states that "National trends continue to indicate that communities throughout the country are facing current or imminent shortage of skilled workers to meet the demands of local employers ". This fact adds to the continued high unemployment rate and requires service providers to discuss alternative education /vocation options to attain the skills that employers want. Families are at risk due to the lack of jobs, not enough or the right education and skills for the jobs available. According to the census bureau North Carolina's High school graduation rate for persons over 25 Is 85 %. In Cabarrus County, the graduation rate for this same group is 86% and persons with Bachelor's Degrees or higher is 24.2% compared to the states 27 %. In Rowan County, there is a marked difference. High school graduates over 25 years of age, is only 80.4 % and those with Bachelor's degrees or higher dips to 16.7% This explains why more requests in Rowan are for education /skills training. Persons who are unemployed or underemployed are at risk for related social factors like mental health disorders, depression, drug and alcohol use, and anxiety and can experience compromised decision making regarding meeting the basic needs for their family, SRCAA provides more support for educational/vocational attainment than any other service request. Although in FY 2013 =2014 SRCAA did not attain the outcome for school and vocation completion, the staffs are approaching approvals for school differently. They are helping families determine if school full -time is the most efficient way to help them or if some work part -time and some school will help them succeed faster by infusing some income into the families while they learn to secure and maintain employment. Fiscal Year 2015-16 Community Services Block Grant Application Attachment number 1 Page 15 of 44 F -13 Page 188