Nonprofits that traditionally have served the needs of District residents are opening new offices in Montgomery County to target the growing lower-income population of the traditionally affluent jurisdiction.
The Washington-based health care nonprofit Mary’s Center will open a satellite location in Montgomery County this January, five months after CentroNia, a youth development nonprofit, expanded into the county and three years after the Latin American Youth Center opened its own Montgomery office.
Council member Valerie Ervin said she believes the nonprofits are following their clientele.
“A lot of nonprofits are seeing people they once served in D.C. head to Montgomery and Prince George’s county, even parts of Virginia,” Ervin told The Examiner. “Gentrification is happening in D.C. neighborhoods fast and swift.”
B.B. Otero, president and CEO ofCentroNia, said the group decided four years ago that if it had the opportunity to expand, it wanted a presence in Montgomery County.
“Our experience was telling us to follow the northeast corridor from Mount Pleasant and Adams Morgan to Silver Spring and Wheaton, there seemed to be a real line there,” Otero said. “Not to say that people don’t ebb and flow out of Virginia as well, but the kind of work we do requires public investment and it is very hard to do just on donations. It depends on strong public funding and Montgomery County has been very welcoming.”
Yesenia Sarabia-Peiker, spokeswoman for the Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care, said the group picked Montgomery County over Northern Virginia localities for its next office because the political climate was more welcoming. Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun Counties have made movements to screen prison inmates for immigration status, and Prince William County may deny some county services to illegal immigrants.
“Overall though, the very short answer is there is a need in Montgomery,” Sarabia-Peiker said.
Lori Kaplan with the Latin American Youth Center said the number of clients served at her group’s Washington locations remains steady, and though some of the increased need in Montgomery has come from migration from the District, immigrants are also electing to settle in Montgomery as their first point of entry.
Ervin said she agreed the county’s demographics are changing and help is needed.
“The critical point here is that our county was always able to take care of us,” Ervin said. “Now it is becoming more and more difficult and they have got to partner more with the nonprofit community because otherwise we’re not going to be able to handle all of the needs that are coming to us.”
