Spanish Speaking Unity Council (SSUC), Oakland, CA
Latinos in Oakland, California comprised a small but growing community in the 1950s. As a "minority of minorities" in a predominantly African-American city, one of their greatest challenges was getting attention and resources from the city's power structure to address their problems of poverty and lack of access to mainstream institutions. Although many Mexican Americans were legal residents who had been paying taxes for decades, they were often ineligible for basic public benefits. It was in this context that the Community Services Organization (CSO), a statewide Mexican-American coalition that was formed in 1952 with the help of community organizer Saul Alinsky, began to build a base of Latino leadership to deal with these issues. CSO's president Herman Gallegos and vice president Cesar Chavez were among the leaders who prepared the way for a tide of change in California in the 1960s. Drawing upon lessons from the civil rights movement, their strategies were to conduct house meetings aimed at mobilizing community residents, to organize major voter registration drives, and to fight for greater visibility of Latino issues. As Gallegos reflects, "You don't get change by just asking. You sometimes have to hit the streets. For Mexican Americans, this was a new experience - the idea of beginning to organize and assert your rights as residents and citizens."
Unifying Latino Leadership
One of the most significant outcomes of this process was the formation of a network of institutions whose aim was to unify Latino leadership and attract critical resources to the barrios. Among these groups was the Spanish Speaking Unity Council (SSUC; originally called the Mexican American Unity Council), which was formed in 1964 to enable Latino groups to exchange ideas, discuss common problems and collaborate on common goals. Its underlying mission was to empower Spanish-speaking groups to bring about social change, as well as to preserve and celebrate Latino culture and heritage. During its first three years as an unincorporated umbrella for Mexican, Puerto Rican, Filipino, Colombian, Peruvian and other Spanish-speaking groups, SSUC persuaded the city of Oakland and the state of California to make a significant number of investments in new services and institutions for Latinos. The organization compelled the city to create the first Latino library in the area, convinced the Department of Unemployment to station a counselor at SSUC, obtained funds for an adult education program that provided instruction in English as a Second Language, and participated in numerous advocacy coalitions that brought attention to such issues as the need to extend old age benefits to legal residents.
Bringing Resources to the Barrios
Once SSUC became officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 1967, it was able to hire its first executive director, Arabella Martinez, who had a background in social work and had helped launch and run the organization during its unincorporated stage. SSUC also began receiving grants from the Southwest Council of La Raza, an organization headed by Gallegos and funded by the Ford Foundation to provide support to emerging Latino groups throughout the Southwest. La Raza's grants enabled SSUC to provide "barrio sub-grants" to small, grassroots advocacy organizations in the Bay Area.
Under Martinez's leadership, SSUC became very successful in raising funds from sources outside of Oakland, where antipoverty grants were for the most part committed to groups serving the city's black population. One of SSUC's greatest early achievements was convincing the Bay Area United Way to include Latino groups among its grantees. This was significant because it not only benefited SSUC, but other Latino, African-American and Asian-American community organizations that were in constant search of funding. Rather than enter into competition with groups serving an African-American constituency, SSUC's strategy was to expand the pot of desperately needed resources for all low-income, disadvantaged groups.
The Move to "Hard Programs"
During its early years, SSUC established a solid reputation as a community advocate. In addition to bringing resources into the barrios, it contributed to reform efforts in Oakland's public school system. It helped to negotiate agreements with the city to increase the number of Latino teachers, to provide more support for bilingual education and to create a greater number of preschool slots for Latino children. But towards the end of the 1960s, changes in funding priorities at the national level began to have a significant impact on SSUC's direction. As a result of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which required private foundations to greatly restrict their funding of what Congress saw as political activity (particularly voter registration), many foundations felt compelled to rethink their support for community-based organizations whose sole mission was organizing and advocacy. At this point the Ford Foundation, among others, began to encourage what it termed "hard programs," which emphasized economic and physical development, along with the provision of social services. This focus on tangible products such as housing or jobs grew out of the foundation world's general concern about the need for measurable evaluation criteria.
The new emphasis on hard programs had immediate consequences for Latino organizations being funded by the Southwest Council of La Raza. Many of them felt that these programs would co-opt them into giving up their advocacy and social change mission. Martinez, however, saw the policy shift as a welcome opportunity. As she states, "For me, the issue of what the money was for wasn't that important. I liked the notion of housing and economic development because it essentially moved us from being another charitable organization to really being able to control economic resources." From her perspective, the most critical task for SSUC was to create job opportunities that would enable Latinos to develop leadership skills.
In pursuing its leadership development goals, SSUC realized that one of the greatest employment obstacles facing Oakland's youth was their lack of basic skills and education. Like many other cities across the country, Oakland was losing its base of blue collar manufacturing jobs. While literacy and other basic skills were becoming increasingly necessary in the changing job market, a growing number of Latino youth were graduating from Oakland's high schools without being able to read or write. To address this problem, SSUC launched a Neighborhood Youth Program in the summer of 1970. Within a couple of years, the program was serving over 1,000 youth of all races and ethnic groups. SSUC also launched a General Education Development (GED) program for high school dropouts, and continued to run adult education programs that provided instruction in English as a Second Language.
Pursuing Physical and Economic Development
In keeping with the idea that leadership development is most effective in the context of concrete programs, SSUC undertook numerous physical and economic development projects throughout the 1970s. Its first real estate development project was the renovation of a building in Fruitvale (its primary geographic target area) to house its adult education program. With the assistance of the Ford Foundation, SSUC also pursued several housing development projects, the first of which was Las Casitas, a 61-unit complex that was built in the neighboring area of Hayward. To ensure that its rents would be affordable to low-income families, the project made use of federal subsidies from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Although SSUC eventually experienced problems in operating the project because these subsidies were not adequate, it was able to build a track record as an efficient, resourceful developer of affordable housing. With increasing financial and technical proficiency, SSUC became adept at piecing together financing for major real estate projects, including a facility that would house its own headquarters and a community center. Now that it had begun to undertake these types of development projects, SSUC saw itself as a community development corporation (CDC).
While pursuing specific real estate development projects, SSUC also initiated several economic development programs. In the early 1970s, it began to provide technical assistance to entrepreneurs, to help create financial institutions for Latinos and to make direct business investments. One of its most successful technical assistance efforts resulted in the creation of a Latino federal savings and loan association. SSUC's biggest regret was that it did not take a direct stake in the institution, and was therefore not able to benefit from its financial growth.
From the Barrio to the Boardroom
During the 1970s, SSUC's programs and budget grew tremendously. Its ability to place Latinos in key leadership positions in the public and private sectors also became firmly established. Joe Coto, one of SSUC's board members, was the first Latino elected to Oakland's City Council, and eventually became Superintendent of the Oakland public school system. Not long after leaving SSUC in 1974, Arabella Martinez was appointed as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare under the Carter Administration. As Gallegos reflects, "here we were moving from the heels of protest - from the barrios to the boardroom, so to speak - and that's a very big transition to make."
The leadership transition that took place when Martinez left SSUC was fairly smooth, in part because she had been serving as a mentor to her deputy director, Henry Mestre, for several years. Mestre had first started at SSUC as a volunteer for its Neighborhood Youth Program, and had quickly gained skills and responsibility. Under Mestre's directorship between 1974 and 1981, SSUC continued to meet with success in a number of areas. It created a subsidiary, Paralto Services Corporation, to run a demonstration manpower program that provided opportunities for hard-to-employ workers such as ex-offenders and welfare mothers to gain skills on the job. Within five years, the program had attracted $5.3 million and had over 900 participants. Another one of SSUC's hard won achievements was the award of a planning grant in 1978 under the Title VII program of the federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), enabling it to expand its economic development programs. During this time, SSUC also built its first elderly housing complex and continued to run its Neighborhood Youth Program.
A Decade of Crisis
During the 1980s, SSUC experienced a series of crises that brought the CDC to the brink of disaster. When Mestre left the organization in 1981 to work for a new national intermediary, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the organization's problems began to escalate. It had started on a course of financial and organizational instability when its OEO-supported economic development ventures, among them a child care center and a car rental franchise, suffered great financial losses. These problems were compounded by the fact that its social development programs were losing large amounts of money and had to be heavily subsidized. Many of SSUC's board members were representatives of social service organizations and were very reluctant to recommend cutbacks to these types of sorely needed programs.
Throughout the 1980s, SSUC continued to undertake increasingly complex and risky development activities. A major factor in its subsequent organizational crisis was the board's lack of adequate information, time or technical expertise to monitor these activities. In fact, the board did not get a true picture of SSUC's managerial and financial dilemma until it was almost too late. By 1988, SSUC had $3 million in short-term debt, many of its programs were operating at a loss, and all of its properties were destined for foreclosure.
At this point, SSUC's current executive director was asked to leave, and the board was reorganized to include more representatives of the business and civic sectors. The community's confidence in the organization was at an all-time low. Mestre was asked to return as director on an interim basis, but after months of struggling to keep the organization afloat, the board considered filing for bankruptcy and closing down this critical Latino community institution.
Back on Track
During this tumultuous period, it became apparent that the greatest challenge in keeping SSUC alive was restoring confidence among funders and community members. SSUC's new director would have to be known to these groups, and would have to make a long-term commitment to the organization's survival. In 1990, after extensive debate among board members and in the community, Arabella Martinez was asked to return to SSUC. She agreed to either revive the CDC or shut it down with dignity. As she reflects, she was greatly concerned about seeing SSUC go into bankruptcy "because of the message it would send out to all kinds of people about whether Latino organizations could be trusted. Could they be managed properly? Was there any integrity?"
Since Martinez's return, SSUC has restructured its assets, reorganized its operations, and raised substantial amounts of money. To date, only one project has been lost to foreclosure, two have been sold to pay down debts and reduce monthly operating expenses, and one has been renegotiated as a limited partnership. After two years of hard work, SSUC once again had a positive fund balance in 1992.
More important, SSUC has renewed its commitment to its original mission of building community coalitions to bring about comprehensive social, economic and physical development. It helped found the Fruitvale Community Collaborative, a coalition of fifteen ethnically and racially diverse religious, social service, and business associations that involves community residents in efforts to address issues of crime, violence, graffiti and the need for positive youth activities. When the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) authorities proposed to develop a large commuter parking garage in the midst of a densely populated Fruitvale housing and commercial strip in 1990, SSUC saw a prime opportunity to mobilize residents to develop their own vision of the community's future. In collaboration with other groups, SSUC has helped the community to forge a plan to build a day care center, cultural center, health care facility and affordable housing at the site of the proposed parking garage. To encourage local business development, the plan includes a pedestrian plaza that would connect the BART station to a commercial strip.
With its organizational comeback well underway, there is now a great deal of optimism about SSUC's long-term viability as a community institution. By creating economic opportunities and providing essential social supports, SSUC is well equipped to continue nurturing the next generation of Latino leadership in its surrounding community.
Spanish Speaking Unity Council (SSUC)
1900 Fruitvale Avenue, Suite 2A
Oakland, CA 94601
(510) 535-6900
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