VIDEO: Caring for Hopkins Streets, Struggling Residents is Tough Balance

Continuing to maintain city resources amid widespread economic hardship is never easy.

The stories were as heartbreaking as they were predictable after four years of tough economic times. Homeowner after homeowner stepped before the City Council on Tuesday to request that next year's street project be postponed. Each person detailed how business had stopped, how they’d lost their jobs, how they just didn’t have anything left. “I’ve never seen the economy this bad,” a Harrison Avenue man said. “I’ve lost everything. I’ve lost my savings. I’ve lost my retirement. I’m just trying to hang on keeping this building. I can’t afford another penny more. I mean I’m just bled out right now. This is not a good time to be doing this.” The City of Hopkins has remained relatively unscathed despite the economic hardships swirling around the…

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An Empty Shoebox, A Bare Christmas

Utility bills wiped out the money one unemployed mother had been saving to give her 12-year-old son a Christmas.

There’s a shoebox tucked away in Sheryl Martinson’s home. The shoebox itself isn’t anything special, but its contents promised a holiday reprieve from the daily struggles that plague this unemployed single mother. Martinson had squirreled away $500 in that little box. To her, the money was about more than greenbacks and the toys it could buy. It was about carving out a harbor of tranquility that could shield her 12-year-old son from the full storm of their financial difficulties. Martinson graduates from college next fall. If she could just make it through this Christmas, she thought, she’d have a good job by the time the holiday rolls around next year. But in the spring, Martinson’s financial difficulties overcame her ability keep up with…

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James Warden

5:02 pm on Wednesday, December 14, 2011

If you're interested in helping Ms. Martinson, shoot me an e-mail with your real name and a phone number where I can reach you.   more ›

Amid High Unemployment, Some Hopkins Companies Are Hiring

Businesses in the city have a variety of job openings.

As of this morning, Cargill had more than 80 job openings in its Hopkins location alone. Supervalu is hiring for a half dozen positions at its Hopkins location. Concord—a rapidly growing Hopkins consulting company that provides business and technical solutions—“is always looking for good people,” according to the company. On the heels of Pres. Barack Obama’s rollout of the American Jobs Act last week, and amid an ongoing stalled hiring scene, some jobs are available right here in Hopkins. Hopkins is helped because the Hennepin County jobs situation is a bit brighter than many other parts of the country. In June, the county had 6.9 percent unemployment compared to the national average of 9.3 percent, according to Department of Employment …

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Hopkins Financial Advisor Urges Calm Amid Stock Market Storm

Ron Evans encourages residents to match their investment plan to their retirement timeline.

“Don’t panic.” That’s the advice Ron Evans, co-owner of Hopkins Financial Advisors, has for investors spooked by the Dow’s biggest one-day drop since 2008. True, the drop can have real effects on retirement accounts and other investments, he said. But investors should be able to weather the storm as long as they’ve matched their investment strategy to their retirement timeline—with conservative investments for those who plan to retire soon. “If that’s where you’re at, then that’s where you should ride it out,” Evans said. The takeaway? Of course, Investments are just one reason for the worry over Thursday’s freefall. Wall Street is widely perceived to have been reacting to fears that an economic slowdown is intensifying. But Evans doesn’t …

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The Ellison Report

(VIDEO) The Ellison Report: Shifting Focus to Jobs

A new feature spotlighting coverage of Hopkins' congressional representative.

Rep. Keith Ellison continued a flurry of appearances on television and radio with an interview Tuesday on Bloomberg Television'sTaking Stock program (see YouTube video), where he pivoted from the debt-ceiling debate to a push for jobs:  Ellison is now as much as ever before "out there" on the national political scene, drawing praise from liberal bloggers and derision at conservative blogs. At CounterPunch, Vijay Prashad called for more from Ellison as co-leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus:

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Hennepin County's Unemployment Rate Rises

The local jobless rate equals that of the state, but is much lower than the national figure.

About 2,000 fewer Hennepin County residents were working in June than in May.   The county's unemployment rate was 6.9 percent last month, the latest figures available, according to the Department of Employment and Economic Development. That's a 0.2 percent drop from June 2010 and up 0.7 percent from May of this year. The local unemployment rate is the same as the state rate, and both are much better than the national unemployment rate of 9.3 percent. None of these figures are seasonally adjusted. Labor changes in different employment areas only are available by region. In the entire Twin Cities metro area, the sectors that gained the most jobs from May to June are: amusement, gambling and recreation (up 18.3 percent), fast-food …

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Apartments Help Hopkins Fend off Worst of Housing Crisis

Fewer available homes mean fewer foreclosures, which in turn signify an underlying strength of the Hopkins real estate market.

Look around Hopkins and you'll find plenty of apartments. High-rise, low-rise, senior housing, assisted-living — all available. Then there are the condos, duplexes, fourplexes and all the other ways families gather under one roof. On the surface, this might seem as another dreary marketplace example of supply exceeding demand. But all those apartments may have helped Hopkins weather the housing crash a bit better than other communities did. The city's foreclosure rate is less than half that of Hennepin County, as a whole, and a little more than a third of the national average, according to data from RealtyTrac, which monitors foreclosure rates across the country. Beneath this is another telling statistic: Just 30 percent of Hopkins' …

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ResourceWest's Programs

The non-profit organization helps west metro residents in six ways.

ResourceWest has six main programs to help residents across the west metro. Here they are: Information referral: ResourceWest, a non-profit organization, connects people across the west metro to an array of programs and services – the local food shelf, childcare, help with utility bill, among many others. The organization makes more than 9,000 referrals each year. Project Starfish: The program, which delivers more personal help, is named after a fable. A young man came upon an elderly man who was throwing starfish back into the ocean. "What difference is that going to do when there are thousands of starfish in the sea?" the young man asked. The old man threw another starfish in the water and said, "It made a difference to that one." At …

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