This past year has been especially difficult for the children and families in our community. For the first time, the majority of requests for our assistance were for emergency rent and partial rent payments, which we made directly to landlords on families’ behalf. These organizations reached out to us because there was simply no other resource available to provide the urgent, essential support needed to keep children safe and housed.
An advocate from American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) reached out with a request for a contribution toward remaining legal fees for two teenagers to secure their youth visa applications, one of whom was a young man left here completely by himself when his sister and her husband were suddenly deported.
Separately, we supported two other teenagers, both 16-year-old immigrants living in the U.S. without family, who each needed to return home (one to Mexico, one to Honduras) to help their families through serious medical crises. By that time, conditions in each of their home countries had stabilized, making it safer for them to return home than to remain in the increasingly dangerous environment they faced in the U.S.