Santa Clara County will open the first Vietnamese American Service Center in the nation on Saturday.

Opening ceremony: The county will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Oct. 23 at 5 p.m. to celebrate the opening of the center at 2410 Senter Road, near Little Saigon in San Jose.

• San Jose is home to over 100,000 people of Vietnamese origin, and the city is considered to have the largest Vietnamese population in the U.S.
• The service center has been in planning for a decade when Supervisor Dave Cortese revealed significant health disparities within the community as well as cultural and language barriers preventing access to vital services.
• Cortese and Supervisor Cindy Chavez led the Vietnamese American Service Center Stakeholder Assessment to further identify disparities and barriers relating to the county’s health and human services. The findings of the stakeholder assessment resulted in a recommendation by the Office of the County Executive to construct the Vietnamese American Service Center.
• According to San Jose Spotlight, the county spent $33 million on the 37,000-square-foot, three-story building.

Services: The service center will deliver integrated, accessible and culturally responsive social and health services to support the local community.

• According to the Santa Clara County website, the center’s fundamental goal is to connect the community to county services they need and bring key county agencies together to help service the community.
• The website shared a service and operational model that will encompass five categories, including Care & Treatment, Assessment & Testing, Triage & Consultation, Navigation & Access and Community Engagement
• In Aug. 2020, the center served as a COVID-19 testing center.

Featured Image via SACCGov