Agency - Pacific Center For Human Growth

The Pacific Center for Human Growth is an award winning, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community center working to foster and enhance the well-being and self-respect of LGBT individuals.

Description:
Pacific Center provides a comprehensive set of mental health and wellness services, which works to foster and enhance the well-being and self-respect for LGBT people. Services are designed to address a range of needs from isolation and loneliness to clinical depression. With no other LGBT competent services in the East Bay, Pacific Center is the only resource for low-income LGBT people to find safety, support, and information in a LGBT friendly and knowledgeable environment. The mental health and wellness services are divided into three main program areas including 1) Clinical Services 2) Youth Services, and 4) Community Services.

History:
Over the past 35 years, Pacific Center has worked with tens of thousands of diverse LGBT people providing mental health and wellness services. Pacific Center’s strong reputation and history is evidenced in its endurance, responsiveness, and growth for nearly thirty five years. Pacific Center has continually demonstrated innovation and leadership in responding to homophobia and the AIDS epidemic, and has consistently been conscious of the unique needs of overlooked and underserved lesbians, seniors, transgender, and LGBT people of color. For example, Pacific Center is one of the very few East Bay organizations to provide prevention to HIV positive men at risk for spreading the virus. Others focus exclusively on prevention for HIV negative men only. We have been a pioneer community center providing support groups and counseling for transgender people for many years now. We have also been one of the very few fiscal sponsors for small, but critical grassroots LGBT organization and neighborhood groups. Some of these have become large and influential community based organizations on both sides of the Bay including AIDS Project of the East Bay, Out and Equal Workplace Advocates, and many more. Finally, we are the only LGBT organization providing culturally competent, sliding scale LGBT counseling in the East Bay.

Contact people:

Leo Brown, Volunteer Coordinator, (phone), (email) Leslie Ewing, Executive Director, (phone), (email) Eddie Gesso, Operations Manager, (phone), (email)

Address:

2712 Telegraph Ave. Berkeley, CA 94705 (See a map)

Directions:

From I-80, take the Ashby Ave. exit. Follow Ashby Ave. for approximately 2 miles. Turn left at Telegraph Ave. The Pacific Center is near the corner of Telegraph and Derby near the Andronico's market.   Nearest Bus Stop: 1L - Telegraph and Derby, 0 minute walk