Education and Skill Building

El Centro seeks to promote self-sufficiency and empowerment through bilingual education and skill building initiatives.

Employment Assistance

Provides employment and life skills training to improve job readiness, job placement, employability, and increase wages by helping remove barriers through education, workshops, individual counseling and referrals. The program connects participants with appropriate employers. This program assists low-income, unemployed and Latino people in securing and maintaining a livable wage by teaching employment skills and conduct, vocabulary/language, safety regulations and other information to better current employment and end the cycle of homelessness.

Tax Preparation Site

Provides free, bilingual tax filing assistance to the community from January – April as a United Way Tax Preparation Site.

Homeownership Education and Counseling

Prepares prospective home buyers with education workshops and one on one coaching for successful long term homeownership. These workshops cover down-payment assistance, mortgages loan products, recognizing predatory lending, and credit building or rebuilding. This program includes counseling and educational workshops for Pre-Purchase, Investment for Retirement and Foreclosure Avoidance. Click here for our current Homebuyer Education Workshop schedule.

Financial Literacy

Provides financial literacy education and personal financial management skills to create measurable behavioral changes in money use to empower participants’ economic independence and financial security. Staff provide tailored steps to address negative behaviors and strengthen credit through case management and ongoing educational workshops. This program targets women, unemployed, homeless, those facing foreclosure or eviction, and low-income Latinos. Participants are individually assessed to fully understand their core attitudes toward money and barriers to self-sufficiency.

Asset Building

Participants may enroll in an Individual Development Account (IDA), which is an asset-building, matching funds program. This program is aimed at improving the economic well being of the household and consequently the community. Participants must attend Financial Literacy and Asset Specific Education.

Life Skills & Job Readiness Education

Provides employment assistance and soft skills employment training to homeless and low-income families so that they know their rights, increase their wages, and maintain employment to help end the cycle of homelessness.

ESL Classes

Addresses the language barriers to obtaining employment, citizenship and in everyday life through English classes for beginner and intermediate students to improve proficiency. Services include assessment and evaluation of participant skills, bilingual instruction, referrals for legal assistance, and other services as need.

Bilingual Legal Clinics

Provides free, monthly bilingual orientation and consultation on various legal matters through partnership with the Law Offices of Schroeter, Goldmark and Bender and the Washington State Latino/a Bar Association.