Centers stage: the effort by a new gay and lesbian center in San Francisco to win over its community reflects a nationwide mission to shape centers according to the needs of the people they serve. (Activism).

After a decade of planning, the 41,000-square-foot, $15 million San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center was scheduled to open January 15. More than just a new organization with a custom-designed building, the center represents a holistic approach to one of the world's most vibrant gay and lesbian populations, says Johnnie Pratt, the center's outreach coordinator, adding, "In this physical place we are trying to realize a vision of multicultural, intergenerational, pansexual interaction. We can teach the world about something more than just tolerance."

Offering a support network for existing social and service organizations rather than its own host of programs, San Francisco's "hub" approach may also have something to teach people around the country about how gay community centers need to be responsive to the people they hope to serve.

Leaders of gay community centers in other large cities applaud San Francisco's approach as well-suited to that city. "New York's center has the tradition of being a meeting place [for other organizations], whereas Los Angeles was very programmatic from its inception," says Gwenn Baldwin, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Providing help for new groups and a venue for the programs of established organizations, "San Francisco is a bit of a hybrid," she says.

The center features an elder-focused room, a box office for community-related events, art space, child care, a cafe, legal services, educational and job training, a staffed Internet lab, and a youth resource room. But where a center in a less queer-friendly town may have had to provide and staff all such services itself, San Francisco is relying on the assistance of other gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender groups. "San Francisco has a rich and diverse community of nonprofits," says interim executive director Oren Slozberg. "We don't want to be competing with them. Part of our commitment is not to duplicate any services--we'd rather invite the current groups to share their expertise in their particular specialties."

While such collaboration may be the 21st-century model for GLBT centers in big cities, smaller towns may need a different approach.

Kathy Knobloch, executive director of the gay community center in Sioux Falls, S.D., which opened its doors in late 2000, laughed when asked if her center, like San Francisco's, had integrated its programming into the work of preexisting organizations. "About the only thing we have in common with San Francisco is our initials," she says. "Here, there are a couple of inclusive churches and' a gay bar."

But although different centers may need different approaches according to their specific area's circumstances, one common denominator that must be present, activists agree, is community support. Take the case of the center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., which underwent an expansion in June 2000 to a new 16,000-square-foot building. The organization nearly didn't survive the transition after a million dollars in pledges went unpaid. According to executive director Ed Nicholas, the center, started by a handful of people with money, "never really reached out to the community to increase its base of support."

The Florida center has since won over its constituents by restructuring its administrative hierarchy and launching a marketing campaign. "People in South Florida are coming to embrace the center," Nicholas says, "not only as it stands to serve them but also as the brick-and-mortar symbol of gay presence in our community."

That process is still under way in San Francisco, where some have wondered if the city, already home to so many organizations, needs a costly center. "I've been involved in San Francisco queer nonprofits for eight years, so I am one of those converts to the need for a center," says Slozberg, who hopes the center will promote increased collaboration and networking among the city's wide-ranging GLBT organizations.

With that in mind, the center will also play low-cost landlord to 23 nonprofits previously scattered throughout the city. Some, like the Harvey Milk Institute, which offers a variety of educational courses, have not had administrative space before. Says HMI executive director Kevin Schaub: "For the past five years we have been holding our classes at an elementary school, and people are tired of those tiny chairs."

FTM International, a female-to-male transgender advocacy group, sees many advantages of being a center tenant. "My hope is that underserved groups like ours will be able to work with other groups," says FTM International president Dion Manley. "It will be a chance for people to get to know us, increasing our visibility and ability to network."

In cities without such an array of separate organizations, gay centers may still find that the best way to respond to their communities' needs is the do-it-yourself approach. The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Utah in Salt Lake City was founded in 1992 chiefly as a meeting space but now hopes to initiate more in-house programming. "Our goal is to move toward becoming more like L.A., including wellness care and wraparound services," says executive director Paula Wolfe.

Because such services already exist elsewhere in San Francisco, many residents remain unsure of what the new center will offer and whom it will serve. Some organizations in the area are adopting a wait-and-see attitude before agreeing to play a role in the center.

"As a small youth services provider, we are willing to work in collaboration, but we already have our own agency," says Douglas Hudson, executive director of Bay Positives, an organization for HIV-positive youth. He adds that before Bay Positives joins other groups in backing the center, "we still need to see how the center's youth space is going to be used."

Even interim executive director Slozberg seems anxious to see how all of the planning will translate into practice. "It is the responsibility of the center to demonstrate that we are what we say we are going to be," he says. "Once the place opens, who comes in those doors will lead us to our next set of challenges."

Find more on GLBT community centers throughout the country at www.advocate.com

Romesburg is a former host and writer for GayBC.com.