CINCINNATI — After months of quiet emptiness, the colorful, sixth floor office on Reading Road is returning to life with Giovanna Alvarez leading the charge.
A division of Catholic Charities of southwest Ohio, Su Casa has built a reputation in the region’s growing Latino community for its ability to serve as a welcoming face, build connections and serve those in need. Over the past year and a half, that mission hasn’t changed, but the pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to the way Su Casa can deliver.
“We’re kind of like that welcoming face in the region for immigrants and refugees people that are coming and starting and selecting Cincinnati as their new home,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez works at the Su Casa office
As Su Casa’s director for the past 12 years, Alvarez is proud of the way the center and its footprint has grown.
“Now we’re like around 20 staff members for Su Casa and like at least 120 volunteers monthly in order to provide all the operations that we do,” she said.
Alvarez said she’s seen areas once managed by one or two people grow into departments with multiple personnel working on legal assistance, education, direct aid and outreach.
In recent years, Su Casa has grown to serve more than 5,000 clients across the Greater Cincinnati area, yet for the past several months, Alvarez said her office has been emptier than she’d like.
Employees return to the office for in-person services
“We have to kind of readapt all of our services,” she said.
Alvarez said so much of what Su Casa has done relies on in-person services, physically being a face for the Latino community and helping many who may lack access to reliable Internet or other methods of remote contact.
When the pandemic forced Su Casa to close its offices, Alvarez said much of the center’s initial work went into explaining what was happening and how to respond.
“At the beginning, many were not understanding what was going on,” she said. “They were not understanding why children were not going to school.”
Nationwide, the coronavirus pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on the Hispanic population, both in terms of mortality and economics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that Hispanic and Latino people had a COVID-19 case rate twice as high as those who were white, non-Hispanic.
In Ohio, the Latino Affairs commission found about half of the state’s Latino population saw their income decrease during the pandemic and nearly a quarter permanently lost their jobs.
Su Casa worked to mitigate those concerns.
Courtesy: Su Casa
“We were able to give direct financial assistance, through donations, help with education and getting testing,” Alvarez said.
She said they also worked to make their programming accessible to those who need it, such as their summer camp, Vacaciones Útiles, which went virtual in 2020.
“Every child got a laptop, and we also gave them the remote access to our tutoring program throughout the year so the impact was even bigger than ever,” she said.
In 2021, Alvarez said Su Casa has been able to return to more in-person services, but the organization remains conscious of health concerns in the Latino community.
She said recent efforts have focused on job assistance and vaccine education.
Despite everything, Alvarez said Su Casa’s mission hasn’t changed so neither has her drive to help.
Su Casa staff collect donations for clients
“You hear the stories of the families that come for services and then that gives you the energy to keep on going and to be creative to try to find solutions to serve them better,” she said.
Alvarez’s efforts over the past year earned recognition from the regional YMCA, as they named her 2021’s Career Woman of Achievement for leadership. Meanwhile, Alvarez believes there is plenty of recognition to share.
“It’s not only for me, it’s for all of us,” she said. “That’s making a positive impact in the life of many, many thousands of families yearly.”
