A vacant former church in Braddock will soon be reborn as a community center and transitional living space for formerly incarcerated people and those struggling with addiction. But it’s seeking help to meet its goals.
The building’s owner, the internationally famed artist Caledonia Curry, known as Swoon, plans to donate the structure to Za’kiyah House, a local nonprofit that runs sober houses in Homewood and Braddock. But Curry has pledged to first replace the building’s dozens of boarded-up windows.
Her Kickstarter campaign blew past its initial goal of $50,000 and was aiming for its stretch goal of $75,000 as of Thursday. Za’Kiyah House founder Ronna Davis-Moore said $100,000 in all is needed to replace the building’s 38 custom windows and two large former stained-glass windows.
The building, to be renamed The Sanctuary, will house a social hall, a sanctuary and three two-bedroom apartments, said Davis-Moore.
“We want to make a space that is like a sanctuary, a place where they’ll come and feel safe, a place where they’ll come and see beauty and get what they need,” said Davis-Moore.
Davis-Moore is a formerly incarcerated person, who has worked for years in social services. The initiative that became Za’kiyah House began in 2016 with an informational street event called Recovery on Frankstown. In 2018, she opened a house for men in Homewood. That was followed this year by Donelle’s Safe Haven, a home for women in Braddock, in a building also donated by Curry and her Heliotrope Foundation.
“Our mission is to reduce homelessness, drug and alcohol, and recidivism,” she said.
Curry, too, comes from a family traumatized by addiction and incarceration.
“I see Za’kiyah house as this group of people that is so fiercely compassionate and is so fiercely ready to do the work and to make sure that no one falls through the cracks,” she said.
Curry lives and works in Brooklyn. She is renowned for her large-scale portraiture rooted in street art. Her work has also been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide.
While she had her first gallery exhibit in Pittsburgh in 2020 at Contemporary Craft, her Pittsburgh connections date to about 2007, when she and a group of friends, working as Transformazium, acquired the Braddock church and turned it into a community art center. In addition to renovating the building to stave off demolition, the group ran initiatives like Braddock Tiles, a ceramics and job-skills program for area youths.
But Braddock Tiles ended in 2018, and Curry said the church has lain mostly dormant since. However, repairs continued, and a new roof was completed. Before she hands the building over to Za’kiyah House, however, the windows must be replaced, including the two formerly stained-glass windows whose successors will incorporate decorative metal latticework designed by Curry.
Curry said all the windows should be in by year’s end. Davis-Moore said the Sanctuary’s next priority will be to refurbish the building’s social hall with the apartments and sanctuary to follow.
