| Miami-Dade Community College's (M-DCC's) InterAmerican Campus is located in the Little Havana community of Miami. The majority of M-DCC students, 90 percent of whom are Hispanic, live there as well. The majority of faculty also are Hispanic and many attended the local senior high school. Although 93 percent of Little Havana's population is Cuban, people from more than 20 countries in Central and South American, the Caribbean, and Spain, have settled there. Little Havana has the highest residential density, the largest Hispanic concentration, and the greatest amount of poverty of Miami's eight Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) target areas.
Most of Little Havana's residents arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs in a massive influx of legal and illegal immigrants, straining the resources of a city that is fourtth poorest in the nation (the poorest, if undocumented aliens are counted.) Thirty-seven percent of Little Havana's 70,000 residents live in poverty and 14 percent of its adults are unemployed. It has the highest percentage of people receiving public assistance or welfare-to-work money of any neighborhood in Dade County. Per capita income is $6,502, median household income is $12,820 (half that of the county), and 35.6 percent of Little Havana's families are single-female-headed.
The community has the highest rates in Dade County for infant mortality, lack of medical services to children, child protective investigations, children under protective supervision, teen births, and repeat teen births. There are more than 1,000 drug arrests yearly in Little Havana, which has the second highest rate of violent crimes of all eight CDBG target areas. The only high school in the area was given a "D" grade by the state and refers 54 percent of its students to drop-out prevention programs. There is a high incidence of truancy, gang membership, school suspensions, and crimes on school property.
M-DCC's InterAmerican Campus and the City of Miami are collaborating on a Community/Youth Center in José Marti Park, which covers 10 acres in east Little Havana. The Hispanic community considers the park to be the most important in the City and one of the most important in the county. Thousands of people throughout the county visit for special events. The center will offer social, educational, recreational, and cultural services for Little Havana's youth. Collaborators include the Parks and Recreation Department of Miami and three community-based organizations-Aspira (Puerto Rican), the Center of Information (Haitian), and Abriendo Puertas (Cuban).
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