Vietnamese advocacy group aims to survive

New leaders vow to restore services, ease fiscal woes

Youth services specialist Hieu Le spoke last week to teens at the Vietnamese-American Civic Association in Dorchester. (JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE)

The Vietnamese-American Civic Association was once a bustling agency providing job training and education classes for the residents and businesses that line Dorchester Avenue, a center of Dorchester's expanding Vietnamese community.

Today, the nonprofit is just a shell of its former self, with one full-time staff member and a few volunteers.

As the agency nears its 25th year, financial woes that officials have attributed to mismanagement have forced programs to be cut and services to be scrapped. About a dozen employees have been laid off and more cuts could come.

The budget, which is funded by public and private grants, has a gap that is nearing $200,000, a significant chunk for an agency with an overall $1.2 million spending plan and one that threatens to close it down.

But not yet, its supporters say.

"People are really invested in the agency; this is such a big part of the community," said Quoc Tran, interim president of the agency's board of directors. "We did think about dissolution. But given the needs of the community . . . we're trying to bring the agency back on its feet."

The association has received support from other nonprofit groups and government agencies, including the mayor's office, which has been monitoring the group's spending plan and helping it search for funding.

"First of all, the agency's worth saving," said Larry Mayes, the city's chief of human services. The association "has been a real jewel . . . offering services that are vital to the prosperity of the community as well as the stability of the community. We really can't see them go away," he said.

The association had been thriving with contracts from state and federal agencies to run services for Vietnamese refugees and immigrants from throughout the area.

But three months ago, the board of directors learned of a budget gap after its executive director became ill, Tran said. Directors previously had started to sense financial problems and had asked the former director about them, he said, "but we were told 'it's under control.'. . ."

An audit, however, showed that the agency was keeping programs and staff whose funding contracts, and the revenue that came with them, had expired. Meantime, the agency was using a promissory note to pay its bills, including rent on its office space.

Agency officials said they have so far discovered no malfeasance in their review of the finances, but rather a system of mismanagement that was slowly drowning the association.

"They never realized how bad the situation was, and how difficult it is to overcome," said Hiep Chu, a former director of the association who has returned to help develop a recovery plan.

Since then, the agency's supporters have been scrambling to regroup. The executive director has been replaced and new board members appointed. The reorganization was an effort to give the agency a fresh face for creditors.

Also, the board has established an action plan, devising ways to find new revenue sources and cut services. Part of that plan includes the layoffs, but some members of the community have offered help as volunteers.

"They all recognize that this is such an important agency, that we serve the community," said Nga Nguyen, vice president of the board of directors.

The agency was founded in 1984 in the Fields Corner neighborhood of Dorchester, where a wave of Vietnamese immigrants had settled. The 2000 Census reported some 22,000 Vietnamese were living in Greater Boston, though agency officials put that number closer to 30,000.

Nguyen, whose parents came to the United States as refugees when she was just 2 years old, said she has seen firsthand how groups can help struggling families, particularly with language barriers. In addition, she worked at the Civic Association as an intern years ago, so has seen directly how the group has helped Dorchester's immigrant community.

"Most of the people we serve are people that really need help," she said.

The community has also come to depend on the agency and staff, from everything to translating government documents to registering for citizenship classes. The agency has no funding for such programs, but still volunteers have offered to help.

The agency has scheduled a community meeting at noon today in its office at 1452 Dorchester Ave., to try to explain its recent problems. But the meeting will come with a promise that services the agency supplies will survive, supporters said.

"That's what the agency has done for the last 24 years, and it's really sad to see this side of the agency," Chu said.

Milton Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com.