Pittsburgh looks to create new Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs

Pittsburgh is looking to establish a new city office dedicated to helping the growing immigrant and refugee population.

City Council legislation introduced Monday would create the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

The office would help connect immigrants and refugees with resources and benefits offered through the city, county, state, federal government and private organizations. It also would advise other city offices on engaging the immigrant and refugee population.

Under the proposed legislation, the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs would celebrate “diverse cultures of immigrants and refugees and their contributions to Pittsburgh” and help them integrate into Pittsburgh’s civic, cultural and economic life, while also promoting the economic benefits of attracting new immigrants to the city.

Census figures show that about 9% of the city’s roughly 303,000 residents are foreign-born, up from about 7% a decade earlier.

In 2014, the city launched the Welcoming Pittsburgh Initiative, which has worked to increase civic participation among the city’s immigrant and refugee communities and equipped the city with interpretation and translation services that allow residents to access services in their preferred language. It also has developed cross-cultural training to ensure police officers can better serve immigrant residents.

The Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs would build off additional work of Welcoming Pittsburgh, including efforts to distribute over $500,000 in grant money to immigrants and refugees who didn’t receive federal stimulus money and open the Pittsburgh Hispanic Development Corporation start-up incubator in Beechview.