Boston is home to more than 55,000 Caribbean immigrants, most hailing Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The population enriches the city with vibrant cultural happenings and is well-represented in the city’s essential workforce, including healthcare and security.

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But the community also faces serious obstacles that stifle educational and economic opportunity and impede its ability to prosper. Unemployment and poverty remain high.

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In Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood, where the majority of the community comprises Haitian immigrants, residents face an array of urgent housing-related challenges, including foreclosures, evictions, and one of Boston’s highest concentrations of distressed residential buildings. Community members lack the necessary information, services and resources to enable them to apply for mortgages, understand and assert their rights as tenants, and defend themselves against predatory housing practices.

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With programs in community economic development and family support services, CICD’s work puts roofs over families and goes beyond “bricks and mortar” of affordable housing to build thriving communities and a promising future for the next generation of Caribbean Americans.

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*The household median net worth for Boston's Caribbean blacks is just $12,000, compared to $247,500 for whites.