Anaheim nonprofit that serves immigrants, refugees seeks a new home

Anaheim officials are on a short deadline to help Access California Services – a nonprofit that serves immigrants, refugees and low-income families – find a new, bigger location.

AccessCal, as it’s known, has been in west Anaheim since 1998 and provides an array of youth and adult programs to about 10,000 clients a year, Executive Director Nahla Kayali said.

The organization has outgrown its space, an office building on South Brookhurst Street, and proposed building its own 25,000-square-foot facility next to the Brookhurst Community Center. The idea was for the city to lease about 0.7 acres of Brookhurst Park to AccessCal for $1 a year for up to 55 years.

But the city’s Planning Commission and some residents balked, objecting to the loss of open space in a city that needs more of it. Some commenters on the NextDoor website raised concerns about how AccessCal clients might affect residents’ use of the park.

City Council members said at a June 19 meeting they support the organization’s work and are glad to have it in Anaheim, but they wanted to look for an alternative location. They’ll hear back from city staffers in about six weeks on whether a site was found, and if not, they may reconsider the Brookhurst Park proposal.

A similar plan several years ago for AbilityFirst, a nonprofit that works with people with disabilities, to operate from Brookhurst Park fell through when the organization failed to raise enough money for its project.

“At this time we need to provide more park space,” said Councilwoman Denise Barnes, who campaigned on improving and increasing the city’s park system. “The plan before us would only set us back.”

Kayali said AccessCal works with “a very vulnerable community,” offering clients computer training and English lessons, help filling out government forms and searching for jobs, citizenship classes, mental health counseling, day care and after-school programs. Being at Brookhurst Park would allow the organization to include outdoor recreation in its programs.

The new building would sometimes be available for community use, and it would turn a largely unused area into a complement to the park’s other offerings, she said.

Kayali said she would like for the organization to stay in west Anaheim because that’s near many of its clients, but for safety reasons a storefront in a busy shopping center may not work.

“We never felt like we were not welcome in the city of Anaheim,” she said, but if a suitable space isn’t found, AccessCal may have to move to a neighboring city.