The Child Center of NY, founded in 1953 as a children's counseling center in Queens, has become a powerful community presence in the city because of our work in the most underserved areas of the city.  

We’ve established Cash+Community Works (C+C) cohorts in Corona, a program with a peer-driven change model centered on removing inequitable structural barriers and challenging top-down approaches to supporting low-income families on the path to self-sufficiency. 

Queens is one of the most ethnically diverse urban areas in the world, and out of the estimated 3.1 million immigrants in the five boroughs of NYC, an estimated 1.1 million live in Queens. The Corona community is home to a majority (53.5%) Latinx population, with a large Asian community (35.3%). The community has a large immigrant population, around 63%. While rates of employment and labor force participation in the area are high, the poverty rate is around 20%. Residents are most likely to work in the construction or hospitality industries, which were hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Only half of Corona residents consider their housing affordable, and there are many overcrowded units and “doubled-up” families.