Help the Youth Justice Coalition build our new home!
Or contact us at info@youth4justice.org for other ways to donate.
About Chuco’s
Chuco’s Justice Center is an old factory that has been converted by the Youth Justice Coalition into a meeting space and gathering place promoting community connection, innovation, healing and liberation in Los Angeles.
We have to move from our location, but have secured an even larger space – the vacant site that was the Kenyon Juvenile Court, located on 76th Street and Central Avenue in South Central Los Angeles. With your help, we can convert a site that convicted and incarcerated thousands of youth each year into a place for education, freedom, culture and creativity.
More than 15,000 people come to Chuco’s every year to organize for change in the community and inside lock-ups, for baby showers and repasses, dance battles, concerts and shows, open mics, press events, actions, conferences and workshops, art festivals, film screenings and welcome home celebrations to connect people returning home from jails and prisons to community resources and family. Chuco’s is also home to one of the largest collections of graffiti murals in the U.S., regular street art exhibitions, and includes a world-famous “graf lab” where anyone can get up without fear of ticketing or arrest.
More than 30 groups also call Chuco’s home, including the Youth Justice Coalition’s FREE LA High School, Capoeira Angola, Boom Squad and Demolition Crew (world famous krump and jerk dance collectives), Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, Uplift Inglewood – (a coalition fighting gentrification and displacement in Inglewood), Californians United for a Responsible Budget, community intervention organizations such as 2nd Call that are building truces and reducing the violence between neighborhoods, and many more – each grassroots, volunteer led organizations that are provided a safe space, photo copying, utilities, internet and phones free of charge.
Why Does Chuco’s Need a New Home?
The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is taking our block by imminent domain to create a parking lot for the new train line being built across the street connecting the Exposition Line to Los Angeles Internationsl Airport (LAX). Along with the building of a new Rams Football Stadium, and the rebuilding of the Forum and Hollywood Park Casino, the train line is displacing – through construction and gentrification – tens of thousands of residents and small businesses in the historical, working class black and brown communities of Liemert Park, the west side of South Central Los Angeles in the 40s, 50s and 60s and Inglewood.
When the YJC first learned that our block was being torn down, we urged the MTA to preserve our space and the community that surrounds us, but we also began looking for a new space. A few years ago, we had organized to close Kenyon Juvenile Court – one of the nation’s largest juvenile courts – in favor of diverting youth from arrest and incarceration. We knew that Kenyon was vacant and set out to reclaim it as a positive space for Chuco’s and all Los Angeles. We notified the MTA about our interest in the courthouse, and we also reached out to County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas and State Senator Holly Mitchell for support. With their leadership, we have the opportunity to renovate Kenyon as our new home.
We Need Your Help
In order to reclaim Kenyon Court as a resource for LA’s youth, families and communities, we need to raise the funds for renovations and repairs. If we can raise the construction funds, we will have a ten-year lease with the County rent free After that, we can renew the lease or raise the funds to purchase the building. But, we found out from the County that time is short. In order to secure the building, we need to raise the funds by March 31st. Our goal is to raise 2 million dollars in three months!
We know so many of you have been to Chuco’s for a meeting, to finish high school, to fight for an issue your care about, to bring your family member home from prison, for a baby shower or a show – for so many reasons.
Now Chuco’s needs your help. This space belongs to all of us, and it will take all of us to save it! Please give whatever you can and be counted as a person who is transforming Kenyon Juvenile Court into the new Chuco’s Justice Center. (How crazy amazing would that be?) Your contribution is also 100% tax deductible.
Chuco’s History
When the Youth Justice Coalition was first organizing, we struggled to find any space to work out of. We met in parks and fast food spots, and mobilized out of Kinko’s and the back of a Jeep. When we got our own space, we promised to build a center that would provide free space, computers, copy machines, phone and Internet access and other resources to grassroots groups working to challenge criminalization, incarceration and police violence targeting youth and communities of color. We first got a small storefront on Martin Luther King and Broadway, and then, in 2010, we opened a large warehouse space on the border between South Central LA and Inglewood.
We named our space Chuco’s Justice Center to honor YJC youth leader Jesse Chuco Becerra.
Jesse “Chuco” Becerra, 2-31-81 to 9-24-05 was shot and killed on an early Saturday morning outside a party on 21st and LaBrea in South LA. We loved Chuco for many reasons – he was a committed youth leader with the Youth Justice Coalition (YJC), a father, community mentor, friend, son, cousin, homie, brother and nephew. He was working on building a cease fire between three rival neighborhoods. He was generous – quick to share a kind word, a smile and a helping hand. His positive spirit fills this space.
Contact us with questions – info@youth4justice.org
If you would rather give to another organization, please show love to your favorite youth and community justice group!!! We can connect you to great grassroots groups in your community or area of interest.
THANK YOU AND HAPPY 2018!!!