Founders Yasuko Sakamoto, Bill Watanabe, and Evelyn Yoshimura.

The Beginning

Founded by a group of Japanese American activists who wanted to form a multipurpose social service center, Little Tokyo Service Center aimed to provide linguistically and culturally sensitive social services to the Little Tokyo community and the broader Japanese American community in Southern California.

Nikkei Helpline Established

The Nikkei Helpline (NHL) is the first crisis hotline for the Japanese speaking community. Since it was created in 1984, the helpline has handled over 150,000 cases, assisting with everything from immigration, education, and traffic accidents to illness, drug abuse, relationship crises, and other emergencies. The NHL serves Japanese-speaking community members.

Call the helpline at 213-473-1633.

San Pedro Firm Building residents in 1991.

Affordable Housing Committee

LTSC Board forms an affordable housing committee, which advocates for low income housing at City Hall. The committee was formed in reaction to the increasing demolishment of low-income housing in Little Tokyo and adjacent areas, as part of Urban Renewal efforts in Downtown LA.

San Pedro Firm Building

LTSC acquired and completed rehabilitation of Little Tokyo’s San Pedro Firm Building in 1991, allowing residents to return to a building the City of Los Angeles had targeted for demolition.

With many of Little Tokyo’s affordable units being demolished during a wave of urban renewal, the San Pedro Firm Building rehabilitation kickstarted the community development wing of LTSC to further advocate for our clients and neighbors.

Alzheimer’s Caregivers Support Group Established

LTSC’s Alzheimer’s Caregivers Support Group gives members a place to gather and help each other. In the meetings, the group members learn of improved ways to take care of their loved one and provide emotional support to them. In addition the members focus on their own heath as caregivers and learn how to better manage stress. The group shares updated information on the illness with three meeting locations throughout the Los Angeles area. All groups are conducted in English with LTSC staff providing translation as needed. The meetings give members the opportunity to share their experiences with others who can provide support and empathy.

A Rec Center for Little Tokyo

In 1994, Little Tokyo Service Center took the lead of creating a rec center in Little Tokyo. 25 different sites were vetted for our community gymnasium before a long-term land lease was finally settled with the City of Los Angeles in 2011 (with the help of former council member Jan Perry).

Casa Heiwa

Casa Heiwa, LTSC’s first ground-up affordable housing project, is completed in Little Tokyo. Also serving as the new main office for LTSC, Casa Heiwa is notably the first apartment building in the United States to be built in the “5+1” typology (five wood-framed floors on top of one concrete podium). This efficient building method has since become widely used in apartment construction across the country.

Tofu Festival (1996-2007)

To promote the Little Tokyo area and provide an event for the LA community to celebrate Japanese American cuisine and culture, LTSC held the first LA Tofu Festival on the corner of the 2nd and San Pedro in the summer of 1996. The event brought unique tofu dishes, a tofu eating contest, games, and music to the Little Tokyo neighborhood for nearly 10 years. Due to private development in the lot the festival was usually held in, the last LA Tofu Festival was held in 2007.

Union Center for the Arts Renovation

The Union Center for the Arts is a $3.5 million adaptive re-use of a vacant historic church building into a multi-medium Asian Pacific arts complex. It draws 30,000+ people to Little Tokyo annually, boosting the local economy and revitalizing the area. LTSC completed renovations in 1998 and continues to manage the Union Center for the Arts.

Little Tokyo Community Council Formed

Seeing the need for a formal organization to deal with ongoing issues in Little Tokyo, several community leaders, heads of nonprofit organizations (including Little Tokyo Service Center), business owners, and residents formed the Little Tokyo Community Council.

Social Services Grows

The 2000s saw a significant expansion of public funding for our Social Services department – during this decade LTSC became the Service Coordinator for seniors living in Little Tokyo Towers and JCI Gardens.

Kosumosu Transitional Housing

The Kosumosu Transitional Housing, a $1.3 million small apartment renovation is completed. It consists of supportive transitional housing for 28 survivors of domestic violence and their families and is a collaboration of LTSC and LTSC CDC. This is a long-term housing program that provides transitional housing for victims of domestic violence who have fled an abusive relationship and are determined to live independently. Opened in fall of 2003, the Kosumosu program provides a physically and emotionally safe environment to its residents as well as culturally sensitive and linguistically appropriate supportive services. Residents become empowered to rebuild new healthier lives through living together and supporting each other while participating in the program. Services are provided in English, Korean, Mandarin and Japanese and include care management services, counseling, advocacy, legal services, information & referral, job counseling, financial management, empowerment training and permanent housing search.

Far East Building Renovation

LTSC completed $3.8 million in renovations on the Far East Building, a vacant, earthquake-damaged, historic building. The building includes 16 units of affordable housing, a community computer learning center, retail space and an interpretive gallery.

The Far East Building became home to LTSC’s Far East Lounge program for seniors in 2014 (before moving to Terasaki Budokan), and also is currently home to Far Bar.

Sake Festival (2006-Present)

Kicking off in 2006 at the Museum of Neon Art, LTSC’s annual fundraiser gives supporters a chance to connect over unlimited sake and food tasting. Undergoing many different names over the years (many times a variant of Sake in the ___), our Sake Festival reached its largest size in 2024 with Sake in the Park – 1000+ guests in Gloria Molina Grand Park.

Multilingual Caregiver Conferences

LTSC begins conducting Caregiver Conferences in various Asian languages throughout the city. LTSC organizes a Japanese/Korean film series, publishes newsletters in the two languages and forms the Korean Japanese Better Relations Committee.

Transit Safety for Seniors

LTSC community organizers work with senior residents to advocate for and receive safety enhancements at the Little Tokyo Gold Line station.

Sustainable Little Tokyo

Sustainable Little Tokyo is a community-driven initiative working to ensure a healthy, equitable, and culturally rich Little Tokyo for generations to come. What began as a robust community outreach and engagement effort in 2013 has turned into a neighborhood-generated framework dedicated to environmental, economic, and cultural sustainability.

Sustainable Little Tokyo is committed to bringing this community-wide vision to life, while continuing to honor the neighborhood’s deep history as a center for Japanese-American communities and culture.

A community-wide campaign led by

• Japanese American Cultural & Community Center
• Little Tokyo Community Council
• Little Tokyo Service Center
• Japanese American National Museum

J-Town Senior Connection participants and volunteers at our 10th anniversary event in 2024.

Far East Lounge (now J-Town Senior Connection) Begins

In 2014, Little Tokyo Service Center recognized that the growing older adult population in Little Tokyo needed a community space of their own, a place to socialize and improve their minds and bodies. In addressing this, the Far East Lounge was born, a gathering place for seniors located under the neon lights of the historic Chop Suey building.

Once the Terasaki Budokan finished construction, the program relocated from the Far East building and was renamed to J-Town Senior Connection, using the new rec center for expanded senior physical fitness programs.

You can read more about JTSC at our 10-year anniversary roundup here.

Little Tokyo Eats

Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), Little Tokyo Community Council (LTCC) and Keiro partnered to launch the “Little Tokyo Eats” program (LT Eats) in April of 2020, providing meals to Little Tokyo seniors from local small businesses during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A generous grant from Keiro made it possible to support local restaurants by paying them the market value for their meals. Seniors were then able to order these meals at a subsidized rate of $3 and receive contact-free deliveries from LTSC staff and volunteers every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon.

LT Eats partnered with 12 Little Tokyo restaurants: Azay, Far Bar/Sake Dojo, JiST Café, Korea BBQ House, Korean Kitchen Hibachi BBQ (Japanese Village Plaza), Kouraku, Mitsuru Café, Mitsuru Sushi & Grill, Mr. Ramen, Oomasa, Orochon Ramen, and Suehiro Cafe.

Terasaki Budokan Opens

After a 25-year long community-driven effort to establish a recreation center in Little Tokyo, the Terasaki Budokan finished construction in 2020. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the facility could not have a public grand opening until 2022. During that 2-year waiting period, the Budokan still found ways to safely serve the Little Tokyo community, such as hosting vaccine drives.

Go For Broke Plaza & First Street North Residences Breaks Ground in Little Tokyo

Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC) is partnering with Go For Broke National Education Center (GFBNEC) to build Go For Broke Plaza & First Street North Residences, a mixed-use development and one of the City of LA’s largest 100% affordable housing developments, in the heart of historic Little Tokyo.

The ground floor along Jackson Street will feature approximately 40,000 square feet of retail space prioritizing Little Tokyo small businesses and community-based nonprofit and cultural institutions including the permanent home for GFBNEC, LTSC’s partner on this project and a non-profit community institution. The entry courtyard will incorporate the existing Go For Broke monument, which pays tribute to the WWII American veterans of Japanese ancestry who fought in the famed 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team and the Military Intelligence Service.

This project is the realization of a decades-long campaign for community control and self-determination. The community’s vision for the land – embodied in a 2013 vision document called “Sustainable Little Tokyo” – strengthens and celebrates the identity and history of Little Tokyo. The vision – developed over the years through countless meetings of residents and stakeholders – includes affordable housing, green space, retail space that complements existing small businesses and strengthens long time legacy businesses, and pedestrian pathways that access all parts of the neighborhood.