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At your service
Latino Task Force agencies meet as many needs as they can

By BRYAN MITCHELL AND LOLA ALAPO, mitchellb@knews.com; alapo@knews.com
November 24, 2005


It's shortly after 9 a.m. on a Monday morning as the final members of Knoxville's Latino Task Force wander into the meeting room at Catholic Hispanic Charities.
The meeting commences and the group discusses the issues important to the growing Hispanic community.

The group consists of about a dozen people from across the Knoxville area who are interested in assisting Latinos in different ways.

Bill Keeler from the Fountain City Ministry Center talks about providing increased social services to Latinos.

Knoxville Police Department Sgt. Savannah Ayub speaks about how law enforcement is training its officers to communicate more effectively with both victims and offenders.

"I can assure you we at the police department are doing our part to see that Hispanics receive the same care and respect that everyone else in Knoxville gets," Ayub said.

Lisa Barba from the Legal Aid of East Tennessee office is interested in providing better access to legal assistance.

Lourdes Perez, acting director of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Knoxville Hispanic Ministry, chairs the group and helps keep the focus, which can float between the need to combat dangerous human smugglers to providing proper prenatal care to pregnant women.

"There are so many issues that we have to work on, but we can only do so much at one time," Perez said.

As an increasing number of Hispanics settle in East Tennessee, there are a variety of agencies that are forming to serve their unique needs.

Across town in South Knoxville, Santos Aguilar runs the nonprofit agency Alianza del Pueblo, or the People's Alliance.

Its mission is to empower recent immigrants, Aguilar said, and it offers a variety of programs, including anger-management classes and home-buying workshops.

The organization's membership card has a photo that members can use for identification. Alianza keeps on file members' family information in their home country. It makes it easier to notify next of kin in the event of an emergency, Aguilar said.

"Every day, we make a difference in the quality of life for a few people, and what they learn, they teach somebody else," he said.

Back at Perez's office, the need to help Latinos with residency matters prompted an initiative that will ensure Hispanics get proper information about immigration matters.

Megan McClary heads up the Catholic Charities Office of Immigration Services. As program director, she assists Latinos in filing paperwork to extend work visas or green cards, which can be a lengthy and complicated process that often involves lawyers.

Most of the clients she serves are in the United States legally, but some come to her after arriving without the proper documents.

"The process should be that they get their green cards and then come here," she said. "But sometimes that doesn't happen."

McClary is able to serve many of the needs Latinos have, but not all. In many cases, she has to refer her clients to an immigration attorney.

"We are able to do a lot for people here, but not everything," she said. "There is still a lot that only a lawyer can handle."