The Somali community of Minnesota has drawn attention in recent weeks as dozens of Somali immigrants have been arrested in relation to welfare-rip off scams worth upwards of a billion dollars. The funding so far is related to federally subsidized state spending through COVID-19 emergency funds intended to help hungry children during the government shut down, and through Medicaid fraud.

As it turns out, immigrants from Somalia are a major constituency to serve and keep happy in Minnesota, but they’re not only drawing federal dollars through state programs that bill CMS. They’re also named beneficiaries in millions of dollars’ worth of federal grants, and those dollars are aimed in part at helping them preserve a distinct culture through “culturally relevant” programming and services.

So how many federal grants directly fund the Somali community in Minnesota? Open the Books research shows there were $27 million worth since FY 2021.

Grants either directly address the Somali community in Minnesota or include the Somali community in other minority outreach or research efforts.

Most funding ($14.3 million) was spent on various projects with the University of Minnesota. The university seems to have profited handsomely from initiatives addressing assimilation issues within the Somali community. Those projects include:

• $416,664 to get 30 “Somali American teenagers” involved in an after school art and science program. The grant states “the arts empowers youth to preserve Somali culture through performing arts, cultural arts and spoken word.” Several field trips throughout the year will also “infuse in youth a sense of hope and expectation for their futures.”
• $467,000 for a project stating that “structural barriers, like anti-Muslim racism, rural social isolation, and deficit-based interventions negatively impact Somali youths’ educational outcomes.” The solution is a program that will “not solely focus on building skills and changing behavior of youth, but [cultivate] positive environmental contexts within youths’ families, schools, and potential places of work.”
• $773,154 for a project called “Training Research Educators in Minnesota Whilst Increasing Diversity” which has an immediate goal to “tap into the diversity currently in our community colleges, whilst preparing superlative future faculty.”

An additional $2.6 million was spent on Autism Spectrum Disorder research which claims “support needs of children with ASD range considerably, and disparities in identification and service receipt persist.” The researchers are particularly concerned with Somali children, who “ have a higher prevalence and severity of ASD than other groups.”

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