La Familia Receives a $2M Kickstart to Build the Opportunity Center

La Familia Counseling Center has received a $2M allocation from the City of Sacramento to propel the center’s mission of providing multicultural services to the South Sacramento community and beyond. This allocation, part of the city’s midyear budget review, will directly kickstart the development of La Familia Counseling Center’s latest community project – the Opportunity Center.

“We are incredibly thankful for the support we have received from the City of Sacramento, Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the community, which will allow us to move forward in the development of this new community hub,” said Rachel Rios, Executive Director at La Familia Counseling Center. “We envision the Opportunity Center as a center of hope for those living in the most disadvantaged and marginalized communities throughout the Sacramento region.”

The Opportunity Center is part of a larger neighborhood collaborative plan that seeks to connect the Franklin neighborhood with Sacramento’s inclusive economic development initiatives and to funnel more opportunities to individuals and families in underserved communities.

The $2M allocation will help La Familia pay off the property on Franklin Boulevard and construct the necessary infrastructure for the first phase of this development. When completed, the center will have the physical space to offer a wide range of services including a fully-equipped career center and computer lab, parenting classes and support, health and mental health resources, employment services and collaborative spaces for community partners and administration.

“La Familia continues to be an important partner as we elevate how the city invests back into our community,’ said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. “This opportunity center will be more than a community hub; it will catalyze our economy and provide a powerful resource that will train, connect, and support residents for successful careers.”

Some of the Center’s training programs will be on electric vehicle repair, a service that will have a growing need over the next decade as the country transitions to low-emission vehicles. The Center also has plans to focus on health care and mental health, which the pandemic showed is lacking in underserved neighborhoods.

To commemorate the significant financial contribution from the City of Sacramento, Mayor Darrell Steinberg and other VIPs held a check distribution presentation today at the site which will be the Opportunity Center.

La Familia hopes to break ground on the project by the end of 2022.