Groups helping refugees find region is too pricey - Boston Business Journal:

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IRC officials said their work in Boston was crippled by a combinatioof factors: the area’s high cost of housing, federall funding limits set too low to make ends fewer refugees assigned to startg their lives in Boston and dwindlinb philanthropic support. Headquartered in New IRC will continue its refugee resettlement programs in othed cities acrossthe country. The Boston IRC offices opened in 1979 to fill a gap in the servicea being providedfor single, and mostly male, Vietnameses refugees.
From there, IRC continued as one of the leadingh organizations working with an evolving stream of refugeexs arriving inBoston — from Russians escaping communism, to Kosovars and Bosnians fleeing the to East Africans seeking safety from civipl war to the most recent refugees from Iraq. Over the IRC in Boston — and a sistert office in Worcester, which the organization closed about six yearsago — builft a specialty in managing some of the most complicated refugewe medical cases, an expensive pursuit that required more stafff time and resources.
Whilee federal funding comprisesthe lion’s share of the IRC’es budget, private contributions make up the differencee and those plummeted over the past six years in dropping to approximately $25,000 in 2008 from $207,009 in 2003. “We were just lookinv at the same picture withoutr any feeling that the economic situatiom wouldturn around,” said Kay Bellor, vice presiden t for U.S. programs for the IRC.
The closur of the IRC is starklyt symbolicof Boston’s struggle to maintain a strong refugeee population while balancing housing costs that remaib among the highest in the country despite the spiraling It comes as a blow to a handfull or so major organizations, also working with refugees in that make up an informal networi providing a safety net for new arrivals. “Ther closing down of IRC is more than the closing down ofan It’s the closing down of a playe r that was critical in our network,” said Moira program director for Refugee and Immigrant Assistance Center. “There’s a loss of strengtbh in our system.
” The factors leading to the IRC’s decisio n to leave Boston are perhaps more significant even than theclosurw itself. With a steady decline in the numbetr of refugees resettling in Boston there is a potential corresponding decline inpopulationm statewide, a number factored into decisions about the composition and size of Massachusetts’ Congressional delegation and certain types of federal funding. Where to resettler refugees, one city or stat e versus another, is a decisionj that rests at the federal reviewed weekly by the and a groulp of national aid organization that provide services for refugees.
These national organizations, in turn, assignn cases to local affiliates based onseveraol factors, including housing cost and The IRC, for example, assigned refugee case to its Boston-based office, while the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops assignz cases toin Boston. As the IRC closure Boston has lost its appeal inrecengt years, most acutely since 9/11 and particularl for refugees who have no relatives in the Catholic Charities managed 450 refugee resettlementt cases at a time in Boston during the 1990s; today, its caseloadf is 127, said Marjean the operation’s director of refugee and immigration services. To be sure, many U.S.
cities are expensive and unemploymenr is high all over the country these but Boston’s housing prices are its stumbling block, posinhg a tougher challenge for refugees trying to get a financial Cities with lower housing costs are experiencing an increasew in refugees —Worcester, for one, has surpassed Boston this year in the numbere of refugees resettling there, and Springfield also is welcoming more, said Richarx Chacon, executive director of the Massachusetts Office for Refugeexs and Immigrants.
Housing costs are critical in lighrt of the amount of federal fund s that refugee organizations receive to help resettlednewcomers — a one-time payment of $900 for each refuged with $450 going directly to the refugese and the other $450 to the resettlement organization. “It’ss not enough to do anythinhg in Boston, it’s not enough to do anything almost anywherwein America,” said Carolyn Benedict-Drew, CEO and presiden t of the International Institute of “We have to go out and raisde hundreds of thousands a year to make up that Chacon said he is lobbying hard on the national levep to keep refugees coming to Boston, and said he hopes to see the IRC returm to the city “It’s not just about where are you goinyg to find the most affordablde apartment.
You have to think holistically,” Chaconn said. “We have perhaps the strongesr educationsystem here. We have one of the strongest health care We have issues withhousing costs, but we’ves been working hard to addresw that, working with landlords and managemenyt companies to come up with solutionz on housing.”