Celebrating 15 Years of Helping Latinos
CASA of Maryland Has Grown With Hispanic Community

By Manuel Perez-Rivas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 7, 2000; Page M13

CASA of Maryland has grown from operating out of a small space in a Takoma Park church into a well-organized advocacy group and social services agency serving immigrants in Montgomery and Prince George's counties--the largest organization serving Latinos in the state, one with enough clout to draw some of the area's leading political figures to a birthday party.

CASA celebrated its 15th anniversary last Thursday with a reception, dinner and dance at the University of Maryland Inn and Conference Center in College Park. In many ways, this was more than an anniversary, it was a quinceanera of sorts--a coming-of-age celebration.

"It's the first time in our history that we've had a gala like this," said Gustavo Torres, CASA of Maryland's executive director since 1993. "It really shows that the story of this organization is the story of this community. It shows how far the Latino community has come in the state of Maryland."

This sentiment was heard numerous times throughout the night, perhaps put most plainly by County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D), one of the evening's featured speakers.

"I don't mean this in a bad way, but it's nice that CASA is out of the bake sale fundraising mode and into the gala banquet mode," Duncan said to a round of laughter and applause from the nearly 250 people in the room. "CASA is not a fledgling group. It's now an institution in this county and in this state."

It certainly wasn't that way in 1985, when members of several congregations in the Takoma Park area joined with members of the area's Central American community to establish a center where they could provide basic assistance, things like food and clothes, to a growing community of refugees who were moving into the area in significant numbers.

"At that time, the organizations that were providing assistance to this community were all in D.C. There was nothing in Maryland," said Bette Hoover, who was the first person to serve as president of the CASA board of directors, from 1985 to 1988. "There was an obvious need in Maryland, a lot of refugees from El Salvador. Yet they were going from Maryland to D.C. when they needed help."

The new group was given space in the Takoma Park Presbyterian Church. The Rev. George Taylor, then the pastor at the church, said he wanted to help because many refugees were being turned away from social service agencies because of their immigration status. "I thought it was wrong that folks were being turned away from basic social services because they were undocumented," Taylor said.

The group was called CASA, then an acronym for Central American Solidarity and Assistance but also, fittingly, the Spanish word for "house." The full name was dropped in 1995, reflecting the organization's broadening role, from serving primarily Central Americans to a more encompassing group of immigrants.

CASA came into regional prominence in the early 1990s, when it stepped in to assist a growing population of day laborers who were gathering daily at the corner of University Boulevard and Piney Branch Road in search of work. Many of the laborers did not speak English and were being exploited or cheated out of wages. The Day Labor Assistance Project was created to organize the daily hiring activity, and to help workers ensure they would be paid for their work.

Since then, however, the organization's activities have expanded manyfold. CASA now helps workers find not only day labor but permanent jobs as well. There are job-training programs, a language and literacy project, a legal project, tenant support, an HIV and health education program, as well as a community organizing and leadership initiative.

The organization now has several sites in the region, a staff of 21 people and a core of more than 60 volunteers. Its budget has grown from $26,000 in 1985 to $1.5 million today, half of which comes from private foundations, and about 40 percent of which comes from Montgomery and Prince George's counties. Agency officials said CASA serves about 19,000 people every year.

"CASA's growth parallels the growth of the area's Latino community, not just in numbers, but in maturity," said Ana Sol Gutierrez, a former county Board of Education member who began volunteering at CASA in the early 1990s and later served as board president. She received a special recognition award for her efforts at last week's banquet.

"The population it serves is different," she said. "They're legal residents. They're working. Their economic levels have escalated somewhat. But many are still living in poverty, earning below the living wage. They need more training, more education. We're now concerned with quality-of-life issues."

"We have changed a lot," Torres said. "We have gone from an organization that provided direct services, like food and clothes, to one that is now focused on empowering the community."