Casa San José’s new community center broke ground in Beechview on Oct. 10 amidst a historic surge of immigration to Pittsburgh. The center will provide services to the residents of the neighborhood, which is home to one of the city’s largest Latino populations.
“We really wanted to make sure that we build something that not only fit the staff, but that fits the community. And so I cannot be more excited that this day has finally come,” said Monica Ruiz, Executive Director of Casa San José, at the center’s groundbreaking ceremony.
Casa San José, a nonprofit serving Pittsburgh’s Latino and immigrant communities since 2013, has long relied on a patchwork of partnerships and rental spaces to offer its services. The multimillion dollar community center will serve as its first permanent home.
Roughly 50 people attended the groundbreaking, including community members, local and state representatives, and county officials.
The $6.3 million project will expand the vacant property at 1600 Broadway Ave. over the next 16 months. Once completed, residents will be able to access a suite of services, including case management, English classes, youth programs, mental health support, and advocacy.
The project’s funding comes from American Rescue Plan Act dollars granted by the city, as well as various foundation donations and fundraising campaigns. Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato applauded the project as a “community asset for everyone.”
“Celebrating pieces of infrastructure like this are so incredible, and they’re so important because this is going to be a space … for everyone in the community,” Inamorato said.
According to a 2023 report produced partly by the City of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh’s total population decreased by just over one percent between 2014 and 2019, while the city’s immigrant population increased by nearly 20%.
In contrast to metro areas like New York, where Mayor Eric Adams has warned that an influx of migrants “will destroy” the city, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey has embraced immigration as a needed tonic to the region’s graying demographic.
Speaking at the groundbreaking, Gainey praised Casa San José for adding value to one of the city’s largest population drivers.
The 2020 Census clocked Beechview as 10% Hispanic in ethnicity, the highest proportion for any major neighborhood or municipality in the region, according to a report by PublicSource.
“If we don’t receive more immigrants into our city, if we’re not a city that continues to live up to what our past is, then we will not have a city that is growing,” Gainey declared at the groundbreaking. “We will only have a city that’s growing old.”
For Hispanic immigrants themselves, Casa San José offers vital assistance in the tumultuous first steps of relocation, be it connecting with banks or navigating the city’s bus lines. One such benefactor was Lizebeth Garcia, who immigrated from Mexico to the United States 20 years ago.
Garcia, 44, then moved to Pittsburgh in 2013, the same year Janice Vanderneck of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Baden founded Casa San José.
“When I first got here, I didn’t know the city at all; I didn’t know what any of the services were,” Garcia said. “I had the privilege to actually meet [Vanderneck] that day, and she had an amazing team of a few caseworkers and volunteers at that moment, and the help that I got meant so much to me.”
Ten years later, and now a youth program coordinator for Casa San Jose, Garcia said the expansion would, for the first time, give the organization a brick-and-mortar location to conduct outreach programs at schools across Pittsburgh.
The groundbreaking concluded with a ceremonial dirt toss onto the vacant lot where the center will be built out in the coming years. Vanderneck, with white hair and a long career behind her, said it was an outcome she couldn’t have predicted when she first started Casa San José.
“Thank you to all those who continue to work so hard,” Vanderneck said. “I have friends here from the wider immigrant community, and I appreciate and love you all.”
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2024.
