OAKLAND -- By some standards, Laura Lopez isn't qualified to run a nonprofit -- let alone the one that she has built into one of the East Bay's most pioneering health care services.

Her only degree is from a high school in Lima, Peru. And her English still isn't good enough to write a grant proposal.

When the founders of an organization created to provide health care to undocumented day laborers decided a decade ago to promote Lopez from outreach worker to executive director, she wasn't even sure what her new title meant.

"I asked, 'Does being executive director mean I can still go in the street and talk to the people?'" she recalled. "And they said, 'Yes.'"

Laura Lopez, executive director of the Street Level Health Project, is photographed at the center in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2014. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group) ( Laura A. Oda )

These days, the only part of the job Lopez hasn't mastered is knowing when to call it a night and go home to her family.

Under her leadership, the Street Level Health Project has grown from a health clinic operating one day a week out of a single room in an abandoned hospital to a full-fledged community center in Oakland's Fruitvale district that serves people speaking 55 different languages. Depending on the day, visitors can see a doctor, get something to eat, take a class, meet their friends or get a referral for additional services such as legal advice or help finding housing.

Perhaps the center's most important function is as an entry point into Alameda County's health care system. The county is unique in that it provides medical coverage to undocumented workers, but getting them enrolled has been a big challenge, said Alex Briscoe, director of the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency.

Many undocumented workers, leery of deportation, stay away from government-sanctioned programs. But Lopez has proved so skilled at earning their trust and getting them to seek medical care that the county set up centers in Hayward and Berkeley that are modeled on Street Level's community-based approach.

Last year, the nonprofit's doctors saw nearly 1,000 patients, many of whom were referred to the county's program, which offers more advanced primary or specialty care.

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