History
The Centre already has a long and complex history. It was founded and incorporated in 1973, and in the Incorporation Act Gloria Montero is listed as its first Director. The first Board of Directors was also comprised of Ana Alberro, a sociologist, and Kathi Rempel, an immigration advisor. They along with others were the first members of a corporation called the "Centre for Spanish-Speaking Peoples", whose first objective was "to provide reception and settlement services to immigrant workers from Spanish-speaking countries, in addition to being a catalyst for the activities of the Hispanic community."
It all began in 1972, when a group of women from Spain, along with other Hispanic women and children, organized the celebration of Christmas festivities. This occasion demonstrated the need for a service organization for the growing Hispanic community. Since 1974, the Centre has received funding from the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program (ISAP) of CEIC. It was since that time, when the Centre was located at Dupont and Davenport, that the Centre has had a Counselling Program. Newly arrived immigrants from Ecuador and Colombia increased the need for services.
The arrival of refugees in the 70s, intitially from Chile and subsequently from Uruguay and Argentina, served to increase the support of the Hispanic community for the Centre, which became the focal point for many community development initiatives. Since 1975, in a voluntary work program, the Centre established a legal counsellling program with law students from the University of Toronto, not only with the objective of providing legal assistance for Hispanic workers but also with the goal of establishing a relationship between the Hispanic community and the future lawyers of Ontario, an initiative which has proven itself fruitful over the course of the Centre's history. In 1978, the Legal Clinic received funding from the Ontario Legal Aid Plan (OLAP), establishing an important precedent for the funding of ethnospecific agencies.
In 1979, the Centre received funding from an Ontario ministry for English as a Second Language and Citizenship classes, and in 1981, the Women's Program began to function.