The nonprofit’s CARES Community Center will open Dec. 7 with an expanded health clinic, a food pantry, rooftop garden, adult education classrooms and more.
This story was originally published in Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit newsroom focused on Chicago’s neighborhoods. Sign up for its free daily newsletter.
BELMONT CRAGIN — Onward Neighborhood House, which started in a small West Town church more than 130 years ago, is gearing up to cut the ribbon on an $8.6 million community center.
The nonprofit provides social services for immigrants and low-income Chicagoans, and has operated out of Belmont Cragin since 2008. Onward House’s new CARES Community Center, which is being built at 2644 N. Central Ave., will have a free primary care clinic, a food pantry, bilingual mental health services, classrooms for adult education, a community room with a demonstration kitchen, a rooftop garden, onsite immigration legal services and more.
The community center, which is expected to be completed in early December, will occupy a 21,000-square-foot former funeral home that has sat vacant for years, said Emilio Araujo, Onward House’s director of development and communications.
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The CARES center has been in the works since 2022 when the Reva and David Logan Foundation reached out about renovating the former funeral home. The foundation has bought dozens of properties in and around Chicago to help local social service and arts organizations expand.
Onward House received $3 million in federal funding for the CARES center, $1.5 million from the state and $500,000 from the city. The organization is looking to raise another $1 million for the project. Donations can be made here.
Onward House currently runs a food pantry, an early childhood education center, a free clinic, adult education classes and its Illinois Welcoming Center, which provides resources for immigrants and refugees, out of three storefronts along Diversey Avenue. Its main office is at 5413 W. Diversey Ave.
The nonprofit has outgrown its current space in recent years, Araujo said. In 2025, Onward House served about 7,000 households across all of its programs.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Onward House partnered with CommunityHealth to launch a free clinic that works with uninsured and underinsured patients. Last year the clinic served 481 patients, more than 200 of whom were new.
The nonprofit’s pantry program has also been growing. Before the pandemic, the pantry served about 50 families per week. Now, it serves between 350 and 400 families.
The new CARES building will include three times the amount of clinic space across three floors, Eleni Dima, Onward House’s institutional giving officer, said.
In addition to the CommunityHealth clinic, the community center will feature a family health clinic run in partnership with the Infant Welfare Society of Chicago and space for bilingual mental health resources offered by Cicero Family Service.
The CommunityHealth clinic space will sit next to the Illinois Welcoming Center so neighbors who need medical care can easily be referred across the hall, said Mary Harrington, Onward House’s director of community health initiatives.
Onward House is also partnering with Latinos Progresando, a nonprofit based out of Little Village, to provide onsite immigration legal support at the Welcoming Center.
Onward House’s food pantry, which is being rebranded the CARES Corner Store, is next to the community room and will have a curtain divider so the space can easily be expanded.
The pantry is designed to feel like a traditional grocery store with shopping carts and a checkout. The community room will have a demonstration kitchen where people can learn how to cook healthy meals using the same ingredients available in the pantry.
The top floor will have a rooftop garden that will provide produce for the corner store.
“The CARES model is all about having all of our collaborators together in one space,” Araujo said. “We have the trust within the community, and the partners have the resources and services. By bringing that all into one space, everyone gets what they need.”
Harrington said it’s important to make social services as accessible as possible because many people she works with at Onward House have multiple jobs.
“Any commute or anything like that, it’s just more of a barrier,” she said.
In addition to being a one-stop shop for social services, Onward House wants the CARES center to serve as a gathering space for neighbors, Harrington said.
The community room has a capacity of 200 and will host a wide variety of events, including senior bingo, mental health workshops, community town halls and movie nights.
The CARES center will officially open on Dec. 7, with a 1 p.m. open house that’s free and open to the public.
“We really want this to be the community’s house,” Harrington said.
You can learn more about the CARES center and Onward House here.
