TransLatin@ Coalition Expands its Mission to Transform Youth Empowerment Center with $4.4 Million Loan
With a $4.4 million LISC acquisition loan, The TransLatin@ Coalition closed on a larger space in Los Angeles to create a site for the future permanent location to expand services and create opportunities for the community to gather. Once complete, TLC’s Empowerment Center will offer holistic social supportive services specifically designed for Transitional Age Youth (TAY) who identify as Trans, Gender Nonconforming and Intersex. The project will home private spaces for behavioral health counseling and treatment, legal services, employment counseling, life-skills coaching, and systems navigation.
A 2022 Pew Research study found that 61% of Americans have neutral or negative feelings towards greater acceptance of transgender people in our society. This translates to trans peoples’ access to services and jobs in ways that are hard to fathom as a cis-bodied person.
When over half the country doesn’t believe there is any need for trans peoples’ identities to be understood, recognized, or valued, they get pushed to the margins. For Bamby Salcedo, Trans leader, activist, and advocate in Los Angeles, this translated directly to her lived experience every day.
“Back in the ‘80s there weren’t any services related to us [Trans women],” Salcedo shared in a 2021 CNN interview. With such a dearth of services available for her and other Trans women, she added: “Anything we needed we got from the street, from our sisters. Participating in the street economy was the only way for us to live and survive.”
In 2009, Salcedo organized together with other Trans immigrant women and created a space they didn’t see around them in southern California. Today, The TransLatin@ Coalition (TLC) advocates for the specific needs of the TransLatin@ community in the US and plans strategies that improve the quality of life for the trans community. Today, the grassroots initiative serves over a thousand people each year, through direct services and constantly advocating for needs of trans women living in the US.
One of TLC’s primary focuses is to change the landscape of access to services for Trans, Gender Nonconforming and Intersex (TGI) people and provide access to comprehensive resources and services that will improve the quality of life of TGI people.
In 2015, The TransLatin@ Coalition identified an urgent need to provide direct services to empower TGI people in response to structural, institutional, and interpersonal violence. With the support of California and Los Angeles County governments, they established the Center for Violence Prevention and Transgender Wellness, which provides care and support to transgender people, for and by transgender individuals.
Each year, TLC serves over 200 trans youth individuals through case management, emergency care, and legal services, with nearly the same number on their waitlist. TLC approached LISC in 2022 to see if they provide support to for TLC to purchase a space that would fit their vision to expand their support for Trans Latin@ community in Los Angeles.
With a $4.4 LISC acquisition loan, TLC closed on a larger space in their neighborhood to create a site for the future permanent location to expand services and create opportunities for the community to gather. Once complete, TLC’s Empowerment Center will offer holistic social supportive services specifically designed for Transitional Age Youth (TAY) who identify as Trans, Gender Nonconforming and Intersex. The project will home private spaces for behavioral health counseling and treatment, legal services, employment counseling, life-skills coaching, and systems navigation.
The planned space also includes a café and workforce training opportunities to employ the trans community. With the opening of the new Transforming Youth Empowerment Center, the number of TGI TAY served annually is projected to increase to 500.
As Salcedo shared in TLC’s 2021 Impact Report, “From our inception in 2009 we have grown tremendously and simultaneously opened doors for other trans-led organizations… to have a voice and increase the visibility of our collective power as TGI people.” With the Transforming Youth Empowerment Center, TLC continues to expand this mission in action.