Dear Eastside Community, Friends and Supporters:

Welcome to the East LA Community Corporation’s newly redesigned website!   This site has been created in honor of our 10th Anniversary celebration, and we have worked hard to make it reflect where ELACC has been, and where we are going. 

What an incredible decade it has been for ELACC and the Eastside community, one marked by considerable struggle and some amazing triumphs.  As I look back on the last ten years, I am struck by the fact that ELACC has come of age during a difficult period of time for the affordable housing industry. Many people believed that there were not enough development opportunities to support an Eastside focused community development corporation, especially one that wanted to do both community organizing and housing development. Despite many challenges (and one or two skeptics), ELACC has successfully pioneered its unique model of community development into a series of hard-won achievements.

Working in coalition with the community and other organizations, ELACC has organized and mobilized local residents to demand economic and social justice, educational equity and accountable development.  We have made homeownership possible for very-low income families that would have otherwise been denied access to this life-altering opportunity to invest in their own community.  We are incredibly proud of the fact that ELACC has leveraged over $50 million in housing resources into Boyle Heights and Unincorporated East Los Angeles.

The Boyle Heights and East LA landscape has changed over the last ten years. Downtown development pressures are beginning to be felt locally, including a wave of market rate development.  There is an increase in illegal evictions and in the displacement of long-term Boyle Heights residents. Home prices on the open market are far out of reach for ELACC clients. Land prices and competition from for-profit developers have made it difficult to identify new homeownership and rental development sites.  These obstacles are considerable, however, as ELACC prepares to look to the future, we take strength from our past.  We have faced a decade of struggle as an organization, but our response to that struggle has been growth, leadership and excellence.  While the challenges ahead are great, ELACC’s capacity to meet these challenges head on is even greater.

We are so grateful for all the support we have received over the years, from public officials like Supervisor Gloria Molina and Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard who helped us realize our vision, to generous funders like the California Community Foundation, the Bank of America Foundation, and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation who saw ELACC’s potential and gave their support, to the sister organizations like Union de Vecinos, Homeboy Industries and Inner City Struggle who worked beside us to realize meaningful change in East LA – we thank you all.

But our fight is not over.  The challenges I have described are just beginning. We are committed to standing strong in this community, but we can’t do it alone.  We need YOUR help to continue our work, work that helps so many people. 

Please click the Donate Now button on any page and make a generous donation in support of ELACC.  Help ELACC continue to BUILD… neighborhood assets…empowered families…strong and healthy communities.

I look forward to working with all of you on our next decade of community change!