SALT LAKE CITY — A little bit of hope in a bleak situation for hundreds of refugee families now calling Utah home.
Just a few weeks ago, Catholic Community Services of Utah said they were going to have to terminate their refugee resettlement program due to federal funding cuts. But local, anonymous donors are stepping up to help the hundreds of refugee families that are already here.
However, everyone involved acknowledges this is a short-term solution, including former refugees like Espoir Ngimbi, “It’s been something so good to refugees.”
Ngimbi says the Catholic community services refugee program made all the difference for him and his family, while they made a home in Utah after fleeing from the Congo. “They also help you get employment," Ngimbi explained. "That way, they can help you through your self-sufficiency, you get self-sufficient that way you can start taking care of yourself.”
But federal funding was eliminated in late January during the early days of the Trump administration. “This is the most difficult time that we are experiencing in the history of the refugee settlement program,” stated Aden Batar the Migration & Refugee Services director for Catholic Community Services in Utah.
Batar announced just a few weeks ago that CCS was going to have to eliminate its refugee services program. Within days, private donors stepped up to help the roughly 300 families, recent arrivals, who are already here in Utah.
“But luckily, there’s a lot of people in our community who always cares about the refugees that we are serving and came forward with some resources. So we received about 1.5 million dollar donation,” Batar said.
While Batar and others are extremely grateful for those donations, they also know it’s a short-term fix. Batar says CCS is hoping to raise another one million dollars to try and keep the program going for the next four years or until federal funding is reinstated.
“If they don’t get the services, we will see families losing their housing, we will see people who don’t have jobs, we will see a lot of people becoming homeless and that are going to live on the system," Batar expressed. "That is what we are trying to avoid.”
Espoir Ngimbi now works for CCS…he says his African name means Hope, and that is what he and others are clinging to right now. “We all just hope for the best right now, all hope for the best.”
Since no new refugee families are coming into Utah, CCS officials say the current donations will help the 300 families that are already here.
If you’d like to donate or no more about the program, you can go to their website.
