Collection Guide
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Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center records,
1975-1992
LSC.2204
LSC.2204
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Table of contents
Title: Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center records.
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.2204
Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
1.2 linear feet
(3 document boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1975-1992
Abstract: The Los Angeles LGBT Center is a community services center serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community of
Los Angeles. Its former name was the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center. The collection contains institutional documents
as well as programming and event information from 1975-1992.
Physical location: COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library Special
Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Creator:
Gay/Lesbian Community Services Center.
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library Special
Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Conditions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright, are
retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
[Identification of item], Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center Records (Collection 2204). UCLA Library Special Collections,
Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Provenance unknown.
This collection is part of an outreach and collection-building partnership between the
June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives , the
UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) and the
UCLA Library .
Processed by Stacy Wood, 2013. Description enhanced and further physical processing completed by Sabrina Ponce in 2016.
The
June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive at UCLA is an outreach and collection-building partnership between the
June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives , the
UCLA Center for the Study of Women (CSW) and the
UCLA Library . These collections expand the pool of primary source materials available to researchers and to the community at large. This
partnership was initiated by CSW and is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to inventory, organize,
preserve, and digitize more than eighty Mazer collections pertaining to lesbian and feminist activism and writings.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
7381450
In Spring 1971, a group of activists from the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) held
a series of meetings at the home of GLF activist John Platania, to create an organization to provide social services for members
of the gay and lesbian community, many of whom were marginalized and on the street, in the Hollywood/Silverlake area of the
city of Los Angeles, and in the adjoining unincorporated area of West Hollywood, in Los Angeles County. Platania, who had
worked for the Los Angeles Community Development Agency, drew up a detailed development plan for a nonprofit organization
to offer services via a hot line and services for people living on the street, instituted by the MCC and the Liberation House,
a crisis housing facility at 1168 North Edgemont, in Hollywood, opened by the GLF's Survival Committee. The formal proposal,
prepared by GLF activist Don Kilhefner, was submitted on July 14, 1971, and the articles of incorporation were signed by Morris
Kight, June Herrle, James Kepner, and John Platania on July 22, 1971. The articles were filed in the office of the California
Secretary of State on January 4, 1972.
The Gay Community Services Center opened its doors in October 1971, in a run-down Victorian house designed by William Eastlake,
at 1614 Wilshire Boulevard. A second Liberation House, at 1322 North Van Ness Avenue (formerly a residence of filmmaker Jack
Warner) and a Gaywill Funky Thrift Shoppe, at 1519-1521 Griffith Park Boulevard, were already in operation. Kilhefner was
appointed as the Center's first Executive Director.
The Center initially provided hotline, information, referral, counseling, housing, education, and employment services; a venereal
disease clinic was opened in October 1972. Services were provided free of charge, with the exception of housing for which
a nominal per diem fee was charged. In accordance with the founders' concept of "community," the Center was staffed entirely
by gays and lesbians. In addition, most of the staff, including professionals and paraprofessionals, were volunteers, although
a small number of full-time core staff members received minimal "survival stipends." The Internal Revenue Service refused
to grant the Center non-profit status until April 1974, and as the Center was unable to obtain government funding without
this certification, it was forced to depend entirely upon donations for the first year of its existence. In 1972, the Center
served approximately 75,000 persons with a staff of 85 full-time and part-time volunteers; its income was reported at $41,678.
In November 1972, the Center received its first grant, of approximately $20,000, for a drug education program, from the National
Free Clinic Council (NFCC). Kilhefner and Center Administrative Director Ken Bartley also served as co-directors of a similar
grant awarded the Los Angeles Consortium of Free Clinics. The granting of non-profit status by the Internal Revenue Service
in April 1974 enabled the Center to apply for public funding, and between August and November the Center received federal
and local government grants totaling $410,281, to fund its medical and alcohol and drug abuse programs. The three-year grant
from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) to fund the Center's Women's Alcohol Program (WAP) was
worth $1 million, a windfall unprecedented for any gay group in the world, and the Center thereby became the first institution
with the word "gay" in its name to receive federal funding.
Early in 1975, the building at 1614 Wilshire Boulevard was condemned, and the Center, which had been searching since late
1974 for new quarters, obtained a lease, with option to purchase, on a building at 1213 North Highland Avenue. In April 1975,
on the eve of the Center's move to its new home, two events nearly destroyed the Center. An attempt by Center management to
divert some of the NIAAA funds to other Center programs was vigorously protested by the WAP program director, Brenda Weathers,
and resulted in the transfer of the grant from the Center to a newly incorporated, independent Alcoholism Center for Women,
which remains in existence today. At the same time, a conflict arose between lesbian feminist members of the staff and what
they perceived to be the Center's patriarchal male-dominated hierarchy. The controversy resulted in the firing of eleven staff
members, who in return picketed the Center's new facility on Highland Avenue. The issue, which resulted in the alienation
of many donors as well as a significant portion of the lesbian community, was not resolved until 1978. Nevertheless, a number
of lesbian activists, including Lillene Fifield, who had been instrumental in obtaining the NIAAA grant, remained with the
Center on the grounds that the Center's work in helping the marginalized members of the gay and lesbian community outweighed
the sexism evidenced in some quarters.
The Center's programs, in particular the Venereal Disease Control Program, which by providing a safe space for testing was
able to identify and treat sexually transmitted diseases earlier than the Los Angeles County Health Department, thus saving
the county money, had earned the Center the support of local politicians, in particular county supervisor Ed Edelman and city
councilwoman Peggy Stevenson. Thus, despite the controversies of early 1975 the Center continued to expand: annual income
for 1975 was $527,050, and for 1976 was $645,306. By this time the number of professional and nonprofessional volunteers had
grown to 250, and the salaried staff to 44.
The rapid growth of the Center in the mid 1970s was made possible by the generosity of the Democratic administration of President
Jimmy Carter: in particular, by 1981, CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) funds totaled nearly $500,000, (approximately
one-third of the Center's $1.8 million budget, and provided the salaries of 41 of the Center's 85 paid staff. The Reagan administration,
however, eliminated many social service funding programs, and slashed the budgets of those that remained. Anticipating the
end of federal funding for the Center, the Center Board of Directors instituted a robust private donor program to free the
Center from the vicissitudes of government funding. Steve Schulte, Executive Director of the Center from 1979 to 1983, who
had earned a political science degree from Yale and had worked for the Los Angeles City Council, recast the Center, which
had retained the "casualness about dress and rules" of its founders, as a serious, "respectable" institution that would appeal
to mainstream donors.
The Center currently goes by the name of Los Angeles LGBT Center.
This historical note was taken from the Finding Aid for the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center Records at the ONE National Gay and
Lesbian Archives.
This collection includes promotional materials, correspondence and organizational documents regarding the programming, campaigns
and activities of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center from 1975-1992.
Organized alphabetically by type, therein chronologically.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Gay/Lesbian Community Services Center. -- Archives
Bisexuals--Services for--California--Los Angeles.
Community centers--California--Los Angeles--Archives.
Gays--Services for--California--Los Angeles.
June L. Mazer Lesbian Archive at UCLA.
June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives.
Lesbians--Services for--California--Los Angeles.
Transgender people--Services for--California--Los Angeles.