October 14, 2004 | Read Time: 6 minutes
Born in a small mining town in poor, rural Mexico, Roger A. Cázares came to the United States as a child, and later took advantage of its opportunities. He then went to work for those for whom such opportunities never came knocking.
Mr. Cázares took a leave of absence from a bank job in 1969 to work with the MAAC Project, a social-services and housing organization in National City, Calif., that provides help primarily to low-income Latinos. His job was to help unemployed Latinos find work. “I never did go back to the bank,” he says. “I was hooked on the work.”
This summer Mr. Cázares stepped down as the MAAC Project’s chief executive, a position he had held for 29 years. Antonio V. Pizano, who for the last nine years has served as head of the San Joaquin Housing Authority, in Stockton, Calif., has succeeded him.
Under Mr. Cázares’s tutelage, the MAAC Project has grown from a bare-bones operation that organized and advocated for needy Latinos and their San Diego County neighborhoods into a wide-ranging organization that offers a school for students from poor families, drug and alcohol counseling, a Head Start program, low-cost rental housing, job training, and home-weatherization services.
A $230,000-per-year operation with fewer than 10 employees when Mr. Cázares joined it, the organization now has a $19-million annual budget and 380 employees. The group, which serves 30,000 clients per year, has accumulated $100-million in assets, primarily through real-estate development.
Formed in 1965 by several Latino groups, labor unions, and a veterans’ organization, the MAAC Project was initially called the Mexican-American Advisory Committee. But the name was later changed to the Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee so the organization could make it more apparent that its services were available to all ethnic groups, as well as tap a wider array of grant opportunities. Today, the organizations goes strictly by its acronym, Mr. Cázares says.
Elvira A. Diaz, vice president of resource development at the MAAC Project, attributes the organization’s growth to Mr. Cázares’s outgoing, easy nature. “He’s the ultimate bridge-builder,” says Ms. Diaz. “He’s very nonthreatening, and his sense of humor helps bring people together.”
Although he is officially retired, Mr. Cázares plans to keep working on issues that affect Latinos in San Diego County. “My job’s been more like a lifestyle,” Mr. Cázares says. ” It’s not something I can just turn off.”
In an interview, Mr. Cázares talked about his career and his plans:
How has the MAAC Project differed from most other social-services groups?
We’re very diversified. We run alot of complementary programs and have a very holistic approach to helping low-income families become self-sufficient and develop wealth.
We had to be diversified because there weren’t many groups serving Latinos, but we also had to do a variety of things just to survive. When Ronald Reagan became president [in 1981], a lot of our federal grants for job development were cut. It was a blessing in disguise. I had a bank background. Back then, we treated this like a business. We were always looking for opportunities to grow and survive. We would build facilities in low-income communities that didn’t have city and state services offices. Eventually, they established their own offices there, which was our intent.
How has the social-services landscape changed in San Diego County?
It has become a lot more sophisticated. Originally, we were hiring people from the community and training them. There weren’t a lot of college graduates from the communities at that time. But now we have people who have graduated from Stanford, Harvard, Cal-Berkeley, San Diego State. In the past, these people would not come to work in a community organization. The sector has matured a lot. People see career opportunities in the nonprofit arena. People also want to work in a job that they can see is making a difference. Over 900 put in applications for my job — college presidents, bank presidents. Those people in the past didn’t see the nonprofit sector as a viable one, but they do now.
What does that mean for organizations?
What it means to the disenfranchised or marginalized community is that there is a sustainability to these groups. They won’t be going away. They’ve become institutions. They’re not the grass-roots organizations they evolved from.
You started out as an organizer. Was it harder to do then than it is now?
For several years, organizing was harder to do, but it’s starting to come back now. Five years ago, there wasa proposition here in California that called for treating 14- and 15-year-olds as adults for felony crimes. Alot of high-school and college students banded together to defeat it, but it passed. A lot of those groups stayed together despite that and are still very active in addressing the educational-achievement gap for people of color. They’re doing a lot of research and challenging school boards statewide.
There’s a groundswell for grass-roots organizations now. Foundations are giving these groups more money, too, which is very encouraging.
Feelings toward immigrants have changed. Has that affected the MAAC Project’s clients?
We have a lot of parents that are in our Head Start program — there are 1,300 kids. You might have one legal resident-alien parent per kid and the other is undocumented. The Border Patrol is picking people up and sending them out. Many of these people’s kids are citizens. Corporate America uses these parents as workers, but they have no job protections and are in constant fear of being separated from their families. Who would do the work if they didn’t?
What advice do you have for the next generation of social-service managers?
Take risks. If it’s meant to be, the job will stay with you. Don’t ever fear losing your job. Stick with the mission and don’t get comfortable.
ABOUT ROGER A. CÁZARES, NEWLY RETIRED CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE MAAC PROJECT
Born: Rogelio Amaya Cázares, in 1940 in San Francisco del Oro, Chihuahua, Mexico. His kindergarten teacher in San Diego changed his name to “Roger” because it was easier to pronounce.
Education: Earned a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from San Diego State University. Also holds an associate of arts degree in accounting from Southwestern College, in Chula Vista, Calif.
Charitable interests: Serves as vice chair of the Community Technology Foundation of California, in San Francisco, and as a member of the board of the National City Chamber of Commerce.
Books he’s currently reading: My Life, by Bill Clinton, and A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet, by Jimmy Santiago Baca, a memoir about a Latino boy growing up in a dead-end environment.
