What is "telacu"

The East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU) is a nonprofit community development corporation (CDC) founded in 1968 for the purpose of servicing disadvantaged communities in Eastside, Los Angeles through economic development. Over the years the CDC has impacted the community through its involvement in local Latino politics, community organization, housing development, scholarship funding, and job creation and training. With a revenue stream stemming from its many for-profit businesses, government grants, and private donations, TELACU has recently expanded its services to the Latino community outside of East Los Angeles, in some cases outside the state of California.

Fueled by the notion of self-determination in the Chicano movement and aided by federal assistance derived from the War on Poverty, TELACU was born after the United Auto Workers union allocated manpower and funding to set up a committee, which later morphed into TELACU, in February 1968. Initially created to combat the high levels of poverty and unemployment faced by local residents, TELACU currently owns and operates several companies all of which are driven by a self-proclaimed double-bottom line that is composed of both profitability and social service. As far as social services, TELACU believes that "providing tools to others in the form of jobs, affordable housing, loans, new community assets and scholarships is the most effective means to empowering people to build a legacy for themselves and for their families." During the course of its evolution, TELACU has developed an approach that emphasizes economic development based on the notion that this approach is a more effective means of impacting the community compared to its initial approach dedicated to community organization. In 2006 the Hispanic Business Magazine named TELACU the fifth largest Hispanic-owned business in California.