When Daniel Gonzalez came to Los Angeles from Mexico, the challenges of being a gay man in a new country caused him to feel isolated, depressed and anxious. 

He found community at Bienestar Human Services, an organization that provides a variety of services including support groups, which Gonzalez benefitted from. 

“I’m really thankful to Bienestar for [their] help and [for bringing] me the tools to get my family to understand the way that I live,” Gonzalez said.  

Bienestar was founded in 1989 as a response to a lack of resources available to Los Angeles’s queer community at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The name Bienestar means “well-being,” speaking to a client’s well-being, not just their sexual orientation or gender identity, but how their life could improve for the whole, said Robert Contreras, the organization’s president and CEO. As a result, Bienestar’s services are for anyone, not just members of the queer community. 

Contreras started as a volunteer in the 90s, when the organization was operating out of a tiny office paid for on a loan from the sister of founding member and now vice president, Oscar De La O. 

“Most of the people that we were seeing were in their 20s, some of them would not get to see their 30s because they passed away,” Contreras said. “I was helping them plan for their own funeral, because they did not have a family, or their family had kicked them out for being gay, so, we became their family.” 

At the time, De La O paid for the funeral costs of many clients out of his own pocket, Contreras said. 

Bienestar serves Greater Los Angeles’ Latino LGBTQ+ community with housing assistance, youth empowerment, trans health, men’s health, a harm reduction center, a food bank and a full clinic with HIV and sexual health testing, PrEP services, and substance abuse treatment.

The organization never refuses services to anyone, but primarily accommodates the Latino LGBTQ+ population with a fully bilingual staff. 

Los Angeles County has the nation’s largest Hispanic population, according to data analysis by the Pew Research Center. 

(Some members of the Latino LGBTQ+ community prefer Latinx, or Latine – to provide more inclusive terminology, but language preference differs across generations and the diaspora.) 

A safe space to learn, grow and feel accepted

Now, Gonzalez is a volunteer for Bienestar where he is focused on helping people achieve the same acceptance and good health—whether that be physical or mental—that he has. 

As a volunteer, Gonzalez connects clients to the services they need, and he works to get information about Bienestar onto social media. 

He first learned about Bienestar at Club Cobra, a gay club in North Hollywood, where representatives of the organization were outside with free condoms, t-shirts, souvenirs and informational pamphlets about its services to the bar patrons. 

The sense of family that Bienestar provides to its clients is what makes the organization so special, said Nery Alvarado, Bienestar’s director of behavioral health. Alvarado is also a licensed clinical social worker. 

Clients are able to receive all of Bienestar’s services in the language that they prefer and feel the most comfortable in.Few social service organizations in Los Angeles offer all of their services in Spanish, and if they do, there’s a waitlist, Alvarado said. Many clients have never had the opportunity to exist in a safe space, and Bienestar is often the first place they feel welcomed and empowered in, Alvarado said. 

For example, Bienestar’s support groups provided a space for Gonzalez to talk about his struggles as a gay man in a machismo culture, and his relationship with his family back home in Mexico. 

“I used to not have support from my family, they don’t accept me like this, so I repress…after the group, I started to open up, and believe in relationships,” Gonzalez said. “Everyone used to tell me we [gay men] are so promiscuous and we don’t get nothing serious.”

”I discovered I can be a good partner with somebody,” Gonzalez said. 

Now, Gonzalez feels comfortable in his own skin—before, he felt that he discriminated against other gay men who were out and loud about their sexuality and their personality. 

“Before, I couldn’t be out of the closet; if I was dating somebody in secret, if these guys started to, you know, speak aloud, or something like that, I was like, this guy’s not for me,” Gonzalez said. “The support groups helped me to learn that we have to respect each other, and you have to confront society.” 

The support groups helped Gonzalez to understand where his family’s lack of acceptance was coming from, and how to work through it.

“In my country, if you dress crazy, it can be dangerous and you can be killed, but here I feel more protected and safe,” he said. 

But, not everywhere in America is as accepting as Gonzalez anticipated—members of the Latino community in California often have the same negative perception of the queer community as they do in Mexico. 

As a Seeking Safety project manager, Mia Perez focuses on working with transgender women living with HIV and conducts support groups and classes in Spanish. 

Perez knows what it’s like to be concerned about safety in both Mexico and Los Angeles.“People make you feel like you don’t deserve to be alive,” she said.

One of the other services Bienestar provides is working with the Mexico Consulate to help transgender clients change their names and gender identity on their passports, Perez said. 

The organization also educates California legislators to pass pro-LGBT laws, such as Proposition 3, which would enshrine same-sex marriage in the California constitution.  

Challenges and difficulties  

In some instances, clients just don’t want to accept the help that Bienestar extends. Staff have seen people come in and refuse suggestions for medical tests due to an aversion to seeing a doctor.

This is despite the fact that nearly all of Bienestar’s services are free, or are covered by MediCal, Alvarado said. Bienestar also receives funding from government and foundation grants (nearly $3 million for the fiscal year ending June 2023), as well as individual donations.  

Staff frequently recognize the need for clients to be referred to other services that Bienestar and outside organizations offer. “I think it’s just sometimes, [there’s] just not enough hours in the day,” Alvarado said. “As a clinician, I only have a certain amount of slots to be able to render services.” 

Helping clients combat the stigmas that follow mental health diagnosis and substance abuse is difficult, but it’s part of helping them build a support system, Alvarado said. 

“It’s really hard because I make a lot of relationships with the clients… and when [they relapse] it’s like my family is getting that relapse,” Perez said.

Many immigrants experience discrimination even after becoming US citizens because they still do not speak English and are treated by other people as undocumented immigrants, Contreras said. 

Word of mouth drives awareness of Bienestar’s services, but community engagement events are another way they are increasing and expanding their clientele. 

Alvarado said seeing clients grow through Bienestar’s programs, from getting sober, to just being in a healthier space, and then sharing their experiences with others is what resonates the most. 

“I’ve had clients come back, to be able to see the growth that they’ve had, [and] see how going through therapy, going through the substance abuse program, has helped them be in a healthier space for themselves,” Alvarado said. 

Even though California is a progressive state, discrimination still exists for the Latino community, and it’s still important to provide a safe space, Contreras said. 

“We need to continue to move forward,” Contreras said. “We need to make sure that the laws and protections…are in place for the generations after [us], that we cannot take care for granted.”