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New Latino Network community center nears fundraising finish line

The community and early learning center aims to take on disproportionate impacts of gun violence and negative health outcomes on underserved populations.

MULTNOMAH COUNTY, Ore. — The nonprofit Latino Network is working toward building a new community and early learning center in Gresham, near the border of Southeast Portland.

It recently received a $1.5 million grant, on the condition it completes another $4.5 million fundraising goal to begin construction in the Rockwood neighborhood.

"This is a place of joy for our community," said executive director Tony DeFalco. 

The new community center will be called 'La Plaza Esperanza.'

It will include a preschool and hub for social services that will be culturally specific to the area's growing Latinx population.

According to Latino Network, about 50,000 Latinx people live within five miles of its Rockwood office on Southeast 165th Avenue, where the new facility is planned.

"You belong as a member of the Latinx community," DeFalco said. "This space is yours."

Throughout the pandemic, Latino Network was one of several local organizations that provided culturally specific outreach to give Latinx communities better access to COVID information, testing and vaccines.

RELATED: 'This is unacceptable': Latinx community leaders criticize Oregon over inequitable vaccine rollout

Data in 2020-2021 showed a disproportionate impact from COVID on Latinx Oregonians, who made up only about 13% of the state population, while accounting for 27-40% of positive cases.

The Latinx community and other communities of color are now also feeling the disproportionate impact of rising gun violence across the Portland metropolitan area.

"There was a shooting at the intersection of 162nd and Stark, three blocks from our new facility," DeFalco said. "It exposed yet again the need for places of safety, places where youth can access services and be off the street."

RELATED: 17-year-old David Douglas student shot and killed in Southeast Portland identified

So far, Latino Network has raised about $10.8 million toward the new La Plaza Esperanza. It said it needs another $4.5 million to reach the minimum it requires to begin construction.

If all goes well with fundraising, La Plaza Esperanza is planned for 2024, and organizers say it will live up to its name.

"A place of hope in a time of often hopelessness for many members of our community right now," DeFalco said.

RELATED: In the past decade, Oregon's Latino population grew three times faster than the rest of the state

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