Latino Churches Rise Up to Shepherd Economic Programs

Emboldened by their growing numbers, encouraged by the White House and enticed by successes they’ve seen in the African American church, increasing numbers of Latino churches are looking to get down to business.

So-called faith-based economic development has been a powerful force in the African American church for years, with some of the largest congregations turning blighted corners into commercial real estate developments and launching venture capital funds.

For a variety of reasons, Latino churches had not followed suit in large numbers, particularly in California and the Southwest. One key reason is that so much of the Latino community--an estimated 70%--is part of the Catholic Church, which handles most of its economic and community development programs through Catholic Charities USA.

Now, with more Latino churches springing up within the Protestant evangelical movement, in which individual churches have substantial autonomy, more Latino church leaders are signing up for Economic Development 101.

And among the instructors are the African American church leaders who started their programs in the 1980s and 1990s--programs that not only carve out an additional revenue stream for church-supported programs, but also mean new jobs in some of the nation’s most downtrodden communities.

“Latino churches, we are now just beginning,” said the Rev. Jim Ortiz, senior pastor of My Friend’s House Assembly of God Church in Whittier. “We are now no longer just farm workers; we are a major force in this society. And we need to be able to harness this for the benefit of our community.”

It is difficult to find precise numbers for churches--ethnic or not--involved in economic development, in part because what qualifies as faith-based economic development varies widely depending on the size and resources of the church. Such economic development could be as ambitious as construction of a strip mall or as modest as entrepreneurial training, and includes programs to create jobs that benefit the local community.

Ortiz’s church rehabilitates, then sells housing units purchased from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Those transactions, he said, can net the program $5,000 to $15,000 each.

In addition, through his separate economic development arm--Metro Impact Inc.--he runs a computer learning center aimed at helping area residents improve their job-readiness skills.

“That’s all part of economic development,” he said.

Within the African American church, which turned alliances and skills forged during the civil rights movement into the basis of its economic development program, projects are often multimillion-dollar ventures.

Los Angeles-based FAME Renaissance, the 9-year-old economic development arm of First African Methodist Episcopal church and one of the most successful faith-based economic development programs nationwide, recently launched a $5-million venture capital fund, with money from Wells Fargo Bank, Washington Mutual and other sources.

The fund will be used to invest in small businesses within the local community, said the Rev. Mark Whitlock, executive director of FAME Renaissance.

And the community development arm of West Angeles Church of God in Christ, also predominantly African American, is spending more than $30 million to build or rehabilitate more than 300 housing units, said Sandra Speed, director of real estate development.

Projects like these are often funded with a mix of government and private dollars. And with the faith-based initiative backed by President Bush, the government is poised to offer more dollars to church-sponsored groups.

Those pushing for more involvement by the Latino church look at large-scale projects with a touch of envy, but they recognize that the Latino churches embracing economic development are starting from just above ground zero.

“Our first step is to help educate our leaders as to the possibilities,” said Ortiz, who helped organize an economic development conference in early June that attracted more than 350 Latino church leaders.

Billed as the first West Coast conference on economic development focused on the Latino church, Visiones Realizadas, which translates to “Visions Realized,” was seen by many as the first step in the Western U.S. to put an economic spin on what has traditionally been a social services ministry.

It was sponsored by Los Angeles-based Churches United for Economic Development, initially a predominately African American group that in recent months has developed a large Latino and Asian membership.

Locally, Ortiz and other Latino church leaders said, the No. 1 goal is training, which is already well underway. Latino leaders need to learn, among other things, how to set up a separate nonprofit, or 501(c)(3), arm to handle the economic development work and how to respond to a request for a proposal. Much of that training will come through Churches United and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at USC.

“We offer very basic programs that will eventually lead to people learning how to develop a business plan and get loans and get businesses up and running,” Ortiz said. “These basic issues . . . are essential to address before moving on to the business incubators and loan packaging. We’re not at that level yet.”

Latino pastors said the big push for economic development now is among Protestant evangelicals, a rapidly growing group that already includes an estimated 8 million Latinos nationwide.

Still, estimates are that 70% of the Latino community nationwide is Catholic. And in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, the nation’s largest, 70% of the church is Latino, said Humberto Ramos, interim director of the Hispanic Ministry for the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese.

Although much of the mission of Catholic Charities still involves emergency and social services, local organizations within the Catholic Charities network have taken on such projects as the purchase and rehabilitation of a shopping center in Baltimore and business training in Omaha.

Within the Catholic Church, Ramos said that individual parishes generally are limited in the size and scope of projects they are allowed to take on. For that and other reasons, there were few Catholic church leaders at the Visiones conference.

Ortiz said conference organizers specifically targeted leaders within the evangelical church. Although numerous, such churches tend to be small. About 80% of the evangelical churches, Ortiz said, have memberships of fewer than 150.

To work around that, many Latino churches are “pooling our resources to help each other out and to get training for our pastors for economic development,” said the Rev. Daniel de Leon, senior pastor of Templo Calvario in Santa Ana, the largest bilingual Latino church in the nation. He said his church is part of the Kingdom Coalition, a group of 70 Southern California Latino churches, which has as a major goal “to help our churches develop in this area.”

Pastors and community leaders agreed that in general, Latino churches in the East and African American churches across the country are further down this path.

Jesse Miranda, president and co-founder of the National Alliance for Evangelical Ministries noted that in the Southwest, Latino church leaders tend to be more recent immigrants, less familiar with the “hoops, loops and inner workings of the government” and with private-sector funding sources.

“In the East Coast, you have a few examples of programs that are maybe a little further along and operating at a more sophisticated level,” said Danny Cortes, chief executive of Philadelphia-based Nueva Esperanza (Spanish for “New Hope”), described by many as the No. 1 Latino faith-based economic development organization in the nation. “Large-scale development, that requires a certain expertise that comes with time.”

Nueva, which serves the Hunting Park section of North Philadelphia, recently acquired a commercial strip, built a successful self-service laundry and launched a community college.

Given a few decades, Ortiz said, local Latino churches will be able to take on similar projects.

“Our people in general have not yet reached the plateau where the major item on the agenda is wealth creation and business incubators,” Ortiz said. “Our people are still trying to feed their families.

In time, he said, local Latino churches will “probably be where FAME and West Angeles are now. Maybe sooner, with their help.

“The good thing is,” he said, “they’re willing to help us catch up.”

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Times staff writer Karen Robinson-Jacobs covers minority and immigrant business. She can be reached at karen.robinson@latimes.com.