New Haven Independent

The new director of the Casa Latina Family Education Center gave tours of the new facility — new computers, blackboards, a dance floor — at an opening ceremony Thursday.

The center, owned and operated by Casa Otoñal in collaboration with Easter Seals Goodwill Industries, will expand Casa’s growing campus of social service buildings across Howard Avenue, reaching a different slice of the population: families and kids.

Signs of the first season of the center’s summer camp — T-shirts, drawings and a few sock puppets (pictured at top) — could be seen around the three-story building at 154 Minor St., next to the Boys and Girls Club.

In addition to summer camp, Casa Latina will offer after-school programs for sixth-to-eighth-grade students. That program, open to all city students in that age range, starts Sept. 24. Further programming, including adult ed, G.E.D., and English As A Second Language classes, is expected to start in the future.

In a brief speech at the opening ceremony, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. applauded Casa for answering the needs of “young people who are disconnected from structures of support.” Those familiar with Casa Otoñal’s senior center and community center on Sylvan Avenue know “something special happens there— a sense of caring and community.”

Explaining why her organization chose to expand, Patricia McCann Vissepo, Casa Otoñal’s executive director, said the need was obvious. With places like the Hill Cooperative Youth Services now grown defunct, youth have few places in the Hill to go. “Everything’s closed— it’s terrible.”

“You don’t have to be a sociologist to see the problem”— just take a look at the kids milling around on street corners in the Hill without anything to do, said McCann Vissepo (pictured at right, wth Casa Otoñal treasurer Alicia Caraballo at left).

The Minor Street building was “built with a purpose” of serving kids. It used to bustle with activity from the Latino Youth Development agency. About five years ago, the agency folded, and the building was left unused.

Casa saw the opportunity to expand services. The agency bought the building and opened it this summer. Yale Recycling pitched in, donating sofas and tables. Grant money poured in from: the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the Casey Foundation, the Carolyn Foundation, Yale-New Haven Hospital, and United Way.

Further renovations are still in the pipeline. The third floor, which will host adult ed, remains to be redone. Visitors will have to wait to see that floor, said Lopez, wrapping up a tour. Meanwhile, it’s “good to see the facility up and going. All our hard work paid off.”