Developers broke ground Monday on a Belmont Cragin community center that will help close the neighborhood’s gap in offering residents access to health and human services.Onward Neighborhood House was joined by project and community partners for the groundbreaking ceremony to celebrate what will be come its premier community services center. When CARES Community Center opens at 2644 N. Central Ave. before the end of the year, it will expand access to health care, improve food security and offer other wraparound services for immigrant and low-income families in Belmont Cragin. Onward Neighborhood House Executive Director Mario Garcia speaks about the nonprofit’s future CARES Community Center at 2644 N. Central Ave. in Belmont Cragin.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times “This is a project that … will bring access to health, health care, food, education and also, more importantly, especially these times of polarization, is going to have space for communities to come together,” Mario Garcia, executive director of Onward Neighborhood House, said.Founded in West Town in 1893, Onward Neighborhood House is a nonprofit that aids immigrants and underserved families and provides free access to adult education, food and child care. The volunteer-based health clinic CommunityHealth will open a co-location clinic at the center with IWS Family Health, which is a federally-qualified health center look-alike. The CARES Community Center will also include bilingual mental health services through a partnership with Cicero Family Service.There will be an expanded food pantry, adult education classrooms, an Illinois Welcoming Center for immigrants and refugees and open community space.The center has been years in the making, though the vision has evolved over time.The building was donated by the Reva and David Logan Foundation in 2022. The foundation, who started working with Onward in 2021, found the site and approached Onward about using it as a food pantry — one of the nonprofit’s largest programs.But the partners saw the need for additional programs and services in Belmont Cragin, Emilio Araujo, director of development and communications for Onward, said. The vision then grew to include the welcoming center, medical clinic and other services. Inside the future CARES Community Center in Belmont Cragin.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times Belmont Cragin is one of the largest immigrant communities in Chicago, and 79.1% of the population is Hispanic, according to 2025 data from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. It also faces some of the highest barriers to accessing health care.Seventeen percent of Belmont Cragin residents are uninsured — nearly double the rate for Chicago, according to Onward. The neighborhood has 30.4 primary care providers for every 100,000 residents, compared to 107.7 citywide.“For years, we've been witnessing the destruction of brick-and-mortar infrastructure that once offered Chicago citizens places of safety, times of need, places where people can be, places where they can access the services they need,” Richard Logan, president of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, said. “With the disappearance of many of these venues in neighborhoods across the city, our communities have become less equitable, more isolated and much less able to provide hope and take care of the most vulnerable around us. … When this building came on the market, we came [to] Onward Neighborhood House, guided by our internal mantra: invest in the jockey and not the horse.”Onward has longstanding partnerships that have helped create a web of services, Araujo said. CARES Community Center is the manifestation of that and will span 31,000 square feet. It's also blocks away from the nonprofit’s space on West Diversey Avenue.The site used to be a funeral home, according to Araujo. Onward has a long-term lease for the space, which the foundation purchased for $1.3 million in 2022, according to property records.Monday marked the start of construction after interior demolition at the former funeral home was completed. Araujo said the nonprofit hopes to hold a grand opening in September, once construction is done.The community center is a $7.5 million project. In 2024, Onward received a $3 million federal grant to support the center’s development. The project also received nearly $1.5 million in state funding and a $500,000 grant from the city of Chicago, according to Araujo. ...read more read less