The newly opened Building Hope Dundalk Support Center offers a variety of services to help individuals become independent and productive members of society.
A partnership between three Catholic Charities programs – the Esperanza Center, Our Daily Bread Employment Center and the Villa Maria Behavioral Health Clinic, the center’s services cover everything from health and wellness programs to immigration services and workforce development.
“It is a one-stop shop,” Crystal Harden-Lindsey, Baltimore Community Foundation’s vice president of community impact, said. “People in the community have access to all this knowledge and resources.”
With the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March, Dundalk, Essex and other surrounding communities felt the impact immediately. When Catholic Charities was asked to help provide support to the families with burials and other services, it soon discovered more was required, said Bill McCarthy, executive director of Catholic Charities.
“The needs were obvious,” McCarthy said. “There was trauma, behavioral and other health services. The workforce was very disrupted for people who crossed the bridge everyday. People felt disconnected.”.
The Building Hope Center utilizes space already allocated for Catholic Charities programming. Minor renovations to the spaces were funded by a private foundation grant which predominantly covers programming and operating support. Staff from Esperanza Center, Our Daily Bread Employment Center and Villa Maria Behavioral Health Clinic will oversee the center’s programs. All services are free to the individual.
What really makes the center stand out, according to Harden-Lindsey, is its bilingual case management program that offers bilingual services every day the center is open. For an area that has seen its Latino/Latina population grow over the last 10 years, that is important, she said.
“It is embedded and part of the fabric,” Harden-Lindsey said. “No longer will you show up and can’t get services” because there wasn’t an interpreter available.
The center will also help “navigate systems to get information,” McCarthy said, to help with utility or rental assistance.
The Baltimore Community Foundation invested more than $1 million into the initiative.
“We recognized that the Key Bridge had a negative and adverse effect on the communities,” Harden-Lindsey said. “We were excited to be able to support this group.”
A grand-opening ceremony was to take place in January but was postponed to a later date due to weather.
Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org
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