The story
The Chinese-American Planning Council, Inc., originally the Chinatown Planning Council (CPC), was founded in 1965 as a grassroots community-based organization in response to the tremendous influx of Chinese immigrants after the change in immigration laws and amid the Great Society movement. Initially, CPC volunteers counseled families by referring them to local schools and provided case management services to help immigrants adjust to their new homes. Filling a void in the community as the first social service agency to serve Chinese-Americans in New York, CPC began to expand its services based on the needs expressed by those in the community.
In 1966, CPC launched its Head Start Program and youth programs for preschool and school-age children. In 1970 it opened its first child care center; in 1971, it began its seminal youth program, Project Reach; and in 1972, it opened the Project Open Door Senior Citizen Center. It helped construct two uniquely conceived senior citizen residential buildings, Everlasting Pine and Hong Ning. In 1975, it launched its employment & training services with the English Language Center, which provided new immigrants with badly needed job-readiness skills training and workplace English instruction. The Chinese-American Arts Council, a CPC subsidiary, was founded in 1975.
By 1983, CPC provided home care services to senior citizens through its Home Attendant Program, which continues to burgeon as the population ages. The need of low English proficient, home-bound seniors for language-appropriate, culturally sensitive care prompted the launch of CPC's Mature Workers program to train home attendants, which also answered the need for middle-aged workers to find low-skill employment that didn't require English fluency.
Since the late 1970s, as the gentrification of Chinatown, Manhattan pushed up rental costs, immigrants began to move to Brooklyn and Queens, and CPC followed suit, setting up Queens (Chinatown, Flushing) and Brooklyn (Chinatown, Brooklyn) offices and changing its name and vision from the Chinatown Planning Council to the Chinese-American Planning Council. The community continued to evolve in the 1990s, with the majority of undocumented immigrants flowing in from China's Fujian Province and facing challenges that are unique yet similar to the trajectory of waves of earlier Chinese immigrants.
After the tragedy of 9/11 in 2001, one-quarter of Chinatown's workforce was out of work. CPC responded immediately by launching 9/11 relief services to help dislocated workers access emergency assistance, serving more clients than any other program in the community (3,180) due to CPC's reputation and ability to refer clients in-house to its other services. As the economic slump continued in the year after 9/11, CPC transitioned its 9/11 program to meeting long-term employment and training needs as well as ongoing case management needs, training over 800 clients and placing over 50%, a remarkable feat given the economic climate.
CPC has recently achieved accreditation for its childcare centers and received three licenses to open vocational and business schools. A new program enables clients not qualified for government assistance to pay for their employment workshops and placement assistance. The Workforce Development Division is enhancing its focus on healthcare training programs to meet client and market needs in the changing economy and has introduced a new Food Protection program. In January 2005, CPC opened a one-stop multi-social services center to connect clients to services focusing on mental health, while the Brooklyn branch is conducting mental health outreach among community seniors.
Over the years, CPC has honored many people of Chinese descent who have become outstanding leaders in their fields, including architect I.M. Pei (1978), musician Yo-Yo Ma (1983), fashion designer Vera Wang (1993), Major John Fugh (1994), film director Ang Lee (1996), Nobel Prize winner Dr. Daniel C. Tsui (1999), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Sheryl WuDunn (2011), among others.
CPC holds two major events, a biennial Brooklyn Bridge Walk-A-Thon with a Family Day Fair and an annual Chinese New Year Dinner. Many elected officials support the events and CPC, including New York City Comptroller John Liu, New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, New York State Senator Tom Duane, New York City Council Member Margaret Chin, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and many others.
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In April 2025, the United States House Committee on Homeland Security announced that it was investigating CPC for the "potential use of federal funds" to "facilitate illegal immigration."
From Wikipedia’s article on Chinese-American Planning Council, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4