The initial Altamed clinic, established as the East Los Angeles Barrio Free Clinic in 1969, inhabited a small retail location in the neighborhood’s Whittier Boulevard business district. A team of volunteer physicians, social workers, and nurses served the needs of Latino working families from 4pm to 10pm each evening. With patient demand high, the clinic had a firm policy of never turning away any patient. The clinic notably treated 11,000 people that first year, at an average cost of less than a dollar per patient.
By 1972, when Cástulo de la Rocha joined the clinic on a three-month temporary assignment, the nonprofit had taken the name La Clinica Familiar del Barrio and was affiliated with the newly created Urban Health Initiative. This innovative program was created by the federal government as a way of ensuring that medially underserved urban poor received quality care. The nonprofit also obtained federally qualified health center designation, which it maintains to this day.
Earning a law degree at the University of California, Berkeley, Mr. de la Rocha spent significant time working on social justice and discrimination issues as a member of Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. In 1977, he rejoined Altamed in leadership capacities. Over the years, Cástulo de la Rocha’s health care vision has encompassed continuous advocacy on behalf of urban Latino populations, including the uninsured. He has guided the company’s expansion to more than 40 locations that together provide comprehensive senior, primary medical, and dental care.