About Mekong Community Center

The Mekong Community Center is a nonprofit organization that was established in 1989 with the goal of empowering and supporting America’s largest Vietnamese community in Santa Clara County. We are proudly America’s first Vietnamese community center that is committed to providing outpatient mental health services to help clients and their families adjust to everyday life and to reach their true potential.  In 2020, the Center has added a wellness component offering services to all Asian/Pacific Islander population subgroups in Santa Clara County. The purpose of the Wellness Center is to empower all the Asian/Pacific Islander communities to take charge of their health through learning, sharing life experiences that will help them to improve quality of life in both physical health and mental health. The center reaches out to all Asians regardless of age, race, religion, or sexual orientation.

The Mekong Community Center is located in San Jose, California, the city which boasts the largest Vietnamese population in the United States. San Jose has more Vietnamese residents than any other California city, over 180,000, making up nearly 11% of San Jose’s overall population.  We provide linguistically and culturally sensitive behavioral health services to enable individuals, particularly those of  Vietnamese, Southeast Asian, and other Asian/Pacific Islander cultural background to overcome mental health challenges and to provide the support and resources they need to thrive.

Our services include crisis intervention, individual & group therapy, rehabilitation counseling, case management, and psychiatric medication support. We are starting a new service called the Wellness Center designed to increase access to ethnic and culturally sensitive prevention and early intervention behavioral health services, outreach, education, health & wellness groups and workshops, to unserved and underserved Asian/Pacific Islander ethnic communities in Santa Clara County. Our staff members are bilingual and bicultural Vietnamese and Asian-Americans who understand the cultural stigmas surrounding mental health issues and are sensitive to the challenges our clients face. Our team of trained professionals includes psychiatrists, therapists, social workers, case managers, and peer support staff.

Organization History

In 1989, a group of concerned Vietnamese professionals established Mekong Community Center to provide transitional housing and case management services to the ever growing Vietnamese American population who were experiencing hardships of homelessness, mental illnesses, and dual diagnoses of mental illness & substance abuse. The original location was established in downtown San Jose, designed and established structured daytime activities and temporary housing for six clients. Since then, we have grown to provide comprehensive outpatient mental health services and have formed complete Adult, Older Adult, Children & Family  Treatment Teams to better meet the needs of our clients and the community.

Mekong Community Center, also known as Hội Quán Cửu Long, takes its name after the Mekong River in Vietnam, and Hội Quán means a social services center. The name pays homage to our roots and the roots of the clients we serve. Originating in the icy headwaters of the Tibetan highlands, the Mekong River flows through the steep canyons of China, known as the upper basin, through lower basin countries Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia, before fanning across an expansive delta in Vietnam and emptying into the South China Sea. The Mekong River is the longest river in Vietnam, producing much of the country’s crops and providing a third of Vietnam’s food source. Like the Mekong, we aspire to help Vietnamese, Southeast Asian, and other Asian-American clients overcome their challenges, and to grow, thrive, and prosper.