Three Afghan refugee families arrived overnight in New Haven and crammed into temporary lodgings with relatives, while a search continued for landlords willing to rent to a wave of newcomers.
The governor joined the head of New Haven’s refugee-resettlement agency Wednesday to urge landlords to make up to 100 apartments available, with a promise to cover the rent.
The New Haven agency quarterbacking the resettlement of the families fleeing Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s takeover, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), usually sees that number of new families arrive over the course of three weeks, not hours.
IRIS has been hustling to find landlords willing to house more than 300 Afghanis expected to have been relocated here between just October and December through a U.S. State Department program, IRIS Executive Director Chris George said. That has presented the agency with its most intense relocation challenge in its four decades of operation, with days to scramble to find homes in a process that used to take weeks
Reluctance from landlord has made the job harder.
So George joined Gov. Ned Lamont and other state officials at a press conference Wednesday to issue a plea to New Haven landlords to make 100 apartments available by the end of the year. The press conference took place outside a Scranton Street house where IRIS is arranging for an Afghan family to move in.
“We’re not asking you to put refugees at the front of the line,” George said. The ask is to include refugees in the line rather than eliminating them because they come here without jobs and immediate sources of income.
“We are not asking you to take the risk. We will take the risk,” George continued. IRIS is co-signing the leases so landlords don’t need to worry about late or missed rental payments. IRIS also has a long track record finding jobs for new arrivals.
Gov. Lamont and state housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno reinforced that message: Mosquera-Bruno’s agency has provided money for security deposits and first two months’ rent for the Afghan arrivals. It is also helping to arrange the arrivals to sign up for 12 months’ rental subsidies through the UNITE CT program. Lamont, meanwhile, has assembled an emergency task force to help resettle Afghan refugees.
New Haven gets the large share of refugees because of IRIS’s success in helping settle earlier waves of refugees. Newly arrived families tend to come to where their relatives have already settled.
“Landlords, please step up,” Lamont said. “We’re going to make it work for you financially.”
As officials spoke, a crew from Marie’s Movers hauled furniture into the second-floor apartment where IRIS is resettling an Afghan family. The operation reflected how people have come together to make resettlement work in New Haven.
Crew members carried tables and chairs and a dresser donated by Quinnipiac University as well as a sofa from a donor in Guilford. IRIS purchases new beds for arrivals (to avoid bedbugs).
The crew included two immigrants whom IRIS previously resettled here and were now helping the next wave of newcomers through jobs they’ve found: Javid Mohammadi, at left in photo, arrived here two years ago from Afghanistan; his brother is still trapped in Afghanistan hoping to get out. Anur Abdulla (center) fled Sudan and resettled here two years ago.
Meanwhile, first-floor tenant Catherine Lawson (pictured above) took in the action from her window, live-streaming the press conference on her phone. She had had no idea that officials were coming to her corner, or that a moving crew was coming to furnish the second floor, or that Afghan refugees would become her new neighbors.
She said she was “happy” to hear the news.
“They’re welcome here,” she said. “We’re all people. Let’s come together.”