From Advocacy to Impact

By Gus Hernandez

Power is what carries our community forward in uncertain times. As LGBTQ+ Californians navigate a shifting landscape marked by federal funding cuts, policy rollbacks, and growing threats to our health and safety, that power becomes essential. 

For decades, The San Diego LGBT Community Center has been helping to build LGBTQ+ power in our region and beyond. As a fierce and strategic advocate, as a trusted provider of lifesaving services, and as a place of gathering and belonging, The Center knows the power that results from community advocacy efforts.

Protecting LGBTQ+ Community Centers

Right now, The Center is in the midst of working alongside the LA LGBT Center, the Sacramento LGBT Center, other LGBTQ+ community centers in California for a $35 million LGBTQ+ Community Center Fund in the state budget. This investment would sustain centers across the state, ensuring continued access to mental health care, housing support, HIV services, youth and senior programs, workforce development, and violence prevention. For many LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly transgender people, youth, and seniors, community centers are not just resources, they are lifelines.

Through its Fierce Advocacy and Civic Engagement (FACE) Team, The San Diego LGBT Community Center has mobilized supporters across San Diego to take action, urging state leaders to fully fund this critical initiative. This advocacy is about safeguarding the infrastructure that allows LGBTQ+ Californians to live full, healthy lives. It’s about ensuring that demand for services is met with compassion, not scarcity.

The proposed LGBTQ+ Community Center Fund is a dedicated $35 million investment that would sustain community centers across California. These centers provide lifesaving services including mental health care, housing support, HIV services, youth and senior programs, legal aid, workforce development, violence prevention, and safe spaces for LGBTQ+ Californians. Without this investment, centers serving transgender people, LGBTQ+ youth, rural communities, and other underserved Californians will face severe financial strain at the exact moment demand for their services is rising.  California’s final budget decisions will be made by June 15, and lawmakers need to hear from constituents right now.

Take Action by filling out this form by June 15: https://bit.ly/fund-lgbtq-centers

Critical Services at The Center 

Locally, The Center has demonstrated the power of advocacy in securing resources that directly impact our community. Through strategic engagement with the City of San Diego, The Center successfully elevated the urgent need for behavioral health services, particularly around substance use disorder services. As a result, The Center’s substance use disorder services were included in the City’s May Revision budget proposal.

Substance use is a complex and deeply personal issue that affects individuals across all communities, including LGBTQ+ people who face disproportionately higher rates of substance use and substance use disorders. National data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows that LGBTQ+ adults are more than twice as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to use illicit drugs and nearly twice as likely to experience a substance use disorder.

Behind these statistics are real people, community members navigating stigma, trauma, and systemic barriers. The Center’s response to substance use support is rooted in empathy and affirmation.

Through Behavioral Health Services, The Center offers comprehensive, LGBTQ-affirming care: individual, couples, family, and group counseling; gender-affirming support; HIV services; and counseling for survivors of violence. Within this continuum, substance use disorder services provide nonjudgmental, accessible care for individuals exploring their relationship with substances, whether through harm reduction or abstinence-based approaches.

These services continue today because of advocacy. Last year, The Center successfully secured funding to sustain its substance use disorder services, ensuring that community members would not lose access to critical care at a time when need is rising. This year, that momentum continues.

Every dollar invested, every voice raised, every partnership built contributes to a larger vision, one where The Center is not only responding to crisis, but shaping a future where LGBTQ+ people thrive, and a future where San Diego leads with inclusion, innovation, and compassion.

Building LGBTQ+ Power in Our Region

The Center is, and continues to be, an institution in San Diego, serving not only LGBTQ+ individuals, but strengthening the fabric of our entire region. The Center’s reach is expansive, and its impact is profound.

But this work does not happen in isolation. It is powered by community, by people like you who believe in what is possible when we act together.

As we look ahead to critical state budget decisions and continue implementing local funding wins, one thing remains clear: the stakes are high, but so is our resolve.

Now is the time to stay engaged. To continue advocating. To invest in the systems and services that uplift our community. To ensure that The Center not only endures, but expands its impact for generations to come.