The San Francisco Veterans Equity Center (VEC) is a multi-service center designed to provide linguistically competent and culturally appropriate services for the estimated three thousand (3,000) Filipino-American World War II Veterans and their immediate families living in San Francisco.

Under the Immigration and Naturalization Reform Act of 1990 more than 100,000 Filipino Veterans who served in the United States Armed Forces in the Far East from 1939 to 1946 became eligible for naturalization. A little over 60,000 of these veterans immigrated to the United States and became U. S. Citizens. Currently, over 3,000 Filipino Veterans, who are in their 70s and 80s, have settled in the Bay Area, of which nearly 3,000 live in San Francisco. Because these veterans do not qualify for Veterans Benefits, majority of them are dependent on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), soup kitchens, and the support of volunteers.

Even before VEC opened its doors on December 1, 1999 in the South of Market area where the Filipino veterans are greatly concentrated, volunteers from the community, by their sheer dedication and hard work, had been providing much-needed services to these underserved veterans. The demand for services had been overwhelming that it can no longer be sustained simply by relying on volunteerism.

In 1998, service providers, individual members of the community and a number of Filipino World War II Veterans started the Veterans Equity Center Task Force. The task force is comprised of individuals with years of experience in providing services to minority seniors and Filipino World War II Veterans who arrived in the United States in the early nineties as a result of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1990. Upon arrival to the United States, this population was immediately in need of housing, case management, counseling, legal assistance, health services – just to mention a few. Rooted on community strength approach in service delivery, the task force developed the “one-stop-shop” system of care service delivery that stabilizes and bridges the gap between the existing services in the community and veteran population in need of services. VEC, finally, opened its doors to the public on December 1, 1999. To date the VEC provides services to over 2500 veterans residing in San Francisco and neighboring counties.