About Needs in Our Community

THe Bay Area is home to half of California's Asian population, and more than one in four Bay Area residents is Asian. Although the Asian American community is the fastest growing and most diverse segment of the U.S. population, its needs and concerns are often overlooked or completely hidden from view.

The Asian Pacific Fund makes grants in the Bay Area to support essential services and programs for all segments of the Asian American community in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Solano counties. The Fund works with more than 90 affiliate agencies that provide services to address current needs like the ones below: 

• Asian Americans represent half of all tuberculosis cases; subgroups of the Asian population suffer disproportionately high rates of diabetes, lung cancer and heart disease.
• One in five Asians lacks health insurance. Nearly 18 percent of Asians in the U.S. lacked health insurance coverage, as of 2005. 
• An alarming 20 percent of Asian immigrant children grow up in poverty.
• Some Asian ethnic groups have deeper levels of poverty than others. Nearly 58 percent of Cambodians and 30 percent of Vietnamese in the Bay Area live in poverty, compared to 17 percent of all Bay Area Asians.
• Twenty-six percent of Bay Area Asian households have no one over the age of 14 who speaks English well, and almost four in 10 Chinese and Korean households are linguistically isolated which means the parents will have great difficulty dealing with the health care system or being involved in their child’s education.
• Asians and Pacific Islanders have per capita incomes below average in all counties in the Bay Area. 
• Asians make up the largest number of those in poverty in San Francisco County (27,110). There are more Asians in poverty in San Francisco COunty than any other racial group. 

By supporting the Fund and relying on our expertise, donors not only learn about the pressing issues facing Asians today but also help address these problems. A contribution to the Asian Pacific Fund is an investment in the future as we built an institution that can respond to the emerging needs of tomorrow.