The first LGBTQ+ center has opened its doors in the San Fernando Valley.
The center run by the nonprofit Somos Familia Valle, which opened June 6, offers services and programs to LGBTQ+ Valley residents from underrepresented communities.
“We’ve been advocating for all the resources and we’re finally getting them,” said Somos Familia Valle President Kevin Al Perez, who grew up in the Valley and founded the nonprofit about 10 years ago. “It’s exciting,” he added.
The center at 12411 Sheldon St. in Sun Valley became a reality thanks to a grant from the Justice, Care and Opportunity Department, a Los Angeles County agency established in 2022 that unified the county’s efforts to serve communities of color.
Somos Familia Valle, a 10-year-old LGBTQ+ nonprofit, recently opened a center in a Sun Valley mini mall. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
The department was created after L.A. County voters approved Measure J in 2020, which required that at least 10% of locally controlled revenue be invested in low-income communities, providing up to $1 billion for investments in programs that focused on public health, housing and youth services.
The grant allowed Somos Familia Valle to lease the Sun Valley space for the next three years. The new center will address needs in the community, Al Perez added, including offering LGBTQ+ support groups, dance and yoga classes, counseling, youth programming and civic engagement work.
One of the pressing issues the group is planning to address is the shortage of housing for homeless LGBTQ+ youth and families.
“We would love to do a housing program and get a property where we could house folks who sometimes have issues with their families or run away,” Al Perez said.
President and cofounder Kevin Perez, of the nonprofit Somos Familia Valle, poses on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 with ribbon from the LGBTQ+ center’s recent ribbon cutting in a Sun Valley mini-mall (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
State Senator Caroline Menjivar, elected in 2022, called the opening of the Valley’s first LGBTQ+ center “phenomenal and historic.”
“If you want to break the barriers we need to build things where people are,” said Menjivar, the first LGBTQ+ member representing San Fernando Valley in the state legislature. “When you look at L.A., they have a lot of services in Hollywood. Where does the 818 community go? They have nowhere to go.”
Menjivar added that she planned to focus on building housing for LGBTQ+ youth, seniors and families.
“Once (the) budget gets better in California — hopefully in the next two to three years — my goal is to bring some state funding so that we can open the first-ever LGBTQ+ housing in the Valley.”