Since 1910 Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Pittsburgh has been helping its neighbors across the region by connecting them to resources, healing their bodies and minds, and empowering people toward self-sufficiency.
On Aug. 23, it will grow that 114-year-old mission, stated prominently on its website, when Compassion Corner opens in the former Diocese of Pittsburgh building on the Boulevard of the Allies, Downtown. The new “campus of healing” will enable Catholic Charities and its partners to work and connect with the Gift of Mary, a new nonprofit temporary shelter for women escaping violence and abuse that is part of the Red Door ministry of Divine Mercy Parish, located at the St. Mary of Mercy Church building at 202 Stanwix St.
This collaboration will enable more services designed to provide the most vulnerable community members with a path to stability, according to a Catholic Charities news release. That includes expanded medical and dental care through its Free Health Care Center, free telecommunications training through the Gismondi Job Training Program, crisis case management, mental wellness programs and more.
On Thursday Catholic Charities Chief Executive Officer Susan Rauscher and the Rev. Christopher Donley, pastor of Divine Mercy Parish and founder of Gift of Mary, will join Bishop David A. Zubik and other Diocese of Pittsburgh and the nonprofit’s board members and leaders to announce publicly the $17 million capital campaign. The effort, which Rauscher said has realized 70% of its goal during the silent phase, has enabled the purchase of the building and its renovations. Of the total, $4 million is earmarked for Gift of Mary.
Rauscher, Father Donley and board members provided information on Catholic Charities’ move from its current Ninth Street location and the planned connection of services with all of Red Door’s initiatives at a November 2023 Sharing the Light presentation of St. Jude Parish at Sacred Heart Church in Shadyside. Catholic Charities has offices in Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Greene, Lawrence and Washington counties and offers basic needs services, counseling, free health care, parenting support, job training, housing assistance, refugee assistance, senior services and more.
The news release explained that Catholic Charities knows health care, mental health, employment and homelessness needs in southwestern Pennsylvania have increased and become more urgent. In 2022-23, Catholic Charities served 23,445 individuals with 314,145 acts of service, representing a 12% increase from the previous year. Additionally, the services provided at the new regional hub will help guide those in distress to holistic care, recognizing that those in crisis face myriad intra-related challenges.
The Gismondi Job Training Program will move with Catholic Charities. The three-month training in the telecommunications industry just saw six more people graduate from it, and the fourth cohort will begin in May. Rauscher hopes that the future holds additional trainings throughout the six-county area Catholic Charities serves, as it is not always possible for people to travel to Pittsburgh. Gismondi also operates in several other locations, including the Homewood YMCA. “Our goal is to get people employed and stay employed,” she said. That program states in its fundraising materials that its instruction leads to a 90% employability rate over three years.
Amid the ongoing construction at the site this week, Rauscher and Donley said Thursday’s official announcement of the campaign will ensure the public knows about it and Compassion Corner’s late summer opening.
The renovations to the building will give Catholic Charities more space for those additional services, and the Red Door efforts will be lifted by opening the first floor to become an indoor area for those they feed and otherwise serve on a daily basis. Construction workers have torn down walls, leveled the floor on the existing auditorium and opened access to it for the partners, and abated asbestos found in the building. Rauscher said the church and the building had shared mechanical systems; separating those and installing new ones — including a sprinkler system throughout the building — has enabled greener options.
Originally Compassion Corner had been scheduled to open in June. But plumbing had to be adjusted, and the expanded number of dental chairs — from six to 11 — needed a different connection to ductwork. It has also added a pediatric service. Rauscher said the delay gives the Catholic Charities and Father Donley’s staff and volunteers more time to coordinate efforts.
“It’s been an interesting but fulfilling ride,” Rauscher said. “When we started our relationship with Father Chris, we learned all about the many, many projects his parish has created. … It’s amazing, and it all came about because he’s been working with this community. … The trust they have established with those individuals is amazing.”
The Catholic Charities leader said the collaboration has enabled her staff to learn more about what resources exist, too, and to plan before the opening as much as possible so as not to duplicate efforts of other agencies and services in the region.
Catholic Charities will greatly benefit from the Red Door’s years of caring for the region’s street homeless and unhoused, Rauscher said. Being next door “gives us a chance to create relationships of trust with [Red Door participants].” In the past, some wouldn’t walk across town and seek services at the Ninth Street building. “We were foreign to them,” she said.
Now, “To have everything here and connect existing resources is powerful. The hub is here. Plus you can still connect it to other partners.”
As the renovation work continues, Catholic Charities staff is reaching out to the many different agencies that also offer health care, mental health resources, job and housing assistance, and more. Eventually, the nonprofit will have signed memorandums of understanding with them to formalize referrals.
“In the past, we could make a referral and we didn’t know what happened at that agency,” Rauscher said. “With this we can share outcomes and service plans.”
That includes linking case managers and service personnel, and as additional referrals occur, patients and clients can be tracked and data compiled for review. “You get some sense of the continuum of care,” she explained. “All you can do is refer outside. We hope we’ll know if it bears fruit.”
Rauscher and her staff look forward to the addition of a needed mental health wellness program, which can include art therapy and other innovations to help their clients heal. The nonprofit wanted one for years but didn’t have the space for it in its Ninth Street building.
Even with this, social service professionals know they have to be patient and “wait for that click” with clients. “We have to wait for those individuals to do more. … We serve people dealing with years of abuse and trauma,” Rauscher said. “They’re just waiting to get hope, hope that [their lives] can get better than it is now.”
To the rest of the community, the mental and health care system can look easy to use, she said. “It can be daunting to them.”
Father Donley knows this well through his work leading the Red Door ministry and creating Gift of Mary. As the building that will house the temporary shelter has undergone renovations, women have been taken care of through arrangements with regional hotels. His staff of counselors and volunteers have heard their stories of why they had to flee.
“Its raw and hard and brings a lot of them [to us],” he said. They have witnessed success stories and tragedies, as the women often return to their abusers and the abusive environments. But the help they have and will receive when the 18-bed temporary shelter is ready for them “meets them where they are, and we have to help them in the short- and long-term.
“It’s been a huge success already.”
Gift of Mary has three missionaries right now, and they stayed overnight at the shelter for the first time on Sunday to check it out. The maximum stay will be three weeks, but the women can leave and return if necessary, which Donley said has already happened. If they need a longer time in a safe place, the women will be referred to long-term local shelters.
The additional space on the first floor of the building will provide the Red Door and Gift of Mary participants an important benefit. “We are most looking forward to offering our friends on the street the ability to come inside [when we serve them],” he explained. That includes access to restrooms, as public restrooms are scarce Downtown, and a place for case workers to meet with their clients and complete important paperwork instead of trying to do that on the street.
“Compassion Corner is enabling us to step this up and bring them the dignity they deserve, the ability to get out of all the elements,” he said. “We’re trying to foster a sense of community. When people come here and are able to come inside, they’re not being accused of anything. … They’re being respected and loved.”
Father Donley is reminded of this often. This past Saturday, on his way to the Central Catholic annual Viking Auction at the Westin Pittsburgh hotel, he heard his name called from across the street. He found himself talking to a gentleman, who was in tears, “telling me how we saved his life. I’m very much moved by the little things we have. We can change someone’s life.”
He terms his work “a simple operation,” and Donley said “this isn’t a lunch, breakfast, dinner forever” for the participants. He is grateful to the Compassion Corner collaboration and honored to be part of it, especially because, “It allows us to foster better relations with other organizations that we refer people to for help as well.”
Rauscher and Father Donley invite anyone interested in helping to volunteer with their organizations, including becoming Gift of Mary missionaries, as those positions are designed for young women, mostly college graduates, who will cycle through after a year or two of service.
The reward is great, Donley said, and he is grateful to all the support and donations the Red Door ministry has received from groups and companies large and small.
He smiles when he recounts his initial Catholic Charities case worker job out of college for two years, keeping files, managing clients’ accounts and more. Donley used his brother’s truck to run two diaper drives and Christmas collections, delivering the goods and presents to neighborhoods all over the city.
He’s come full circle, Rauscher said. He’s now Catholic Charities’ chaplain.
To learn more about Compassion Corner, volunteer or make a donation, visit www.ccpgh.org.
To learn more the Red Door ministry, volunteer or make a donation, visit https://divinemercypgh.org/reddoor.
To learn more about Gift of Mary, its missionary and volunteer programs, or make a donation, visit https://www.giftofmary.org/.
Helen is a copy editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but she's currently on strike. Contact her at hfallon@unionprogress.com.