The past five days have been horrifying for Jessica Bueler. She is worried about when the federal government will reimburse her organization, Welcome Neighbor STL, for its services to Afghan refugees and to pay her employees.
“I get a little more nervous day by day that things are going by, and it's not being released,” she said. “We went through the correct paths, the right channels to apply for the funding. The funding was granted, and now all of a sudden, the funding is not being awarded as promised, so it really puts us in a tough spot.”
Welcome Neighbor STL began providing social services, including driving lessons, adult and children’s English language classes and family partnering programs last year to people from Afghanistan. The federal government awarded the organization more than $310,000 to support Afghan refugees.
Many other immigrant and refugee service providers in the St. Louis area are also scrambling to stay afloat since the Trump administration last week paused most federal grants and loans before later rescinding that executive order.
Bueler said she had no issues with reimbursement from the government for the organization’s October and November payments, but now she is waiting for the December payment to be released.
On Jan. 31, Paul Costigan, the Missouri state refugee coordinator, emailed immigrant and refugee providers who have not received their recent federal reimbursements to advise them that he could not access the federal payment management system.
“After being unable to log into the system last Tuesday for most of the day, we were able to get in to do our request. On Thursday, our request was labeled 'under review,'” Costigan said. “Evidently, they were reviewing all requests to ensure the funding wasn’t in violation of any of the executive orders from the previous week.”
He said the payments have been labeled “processed” in the system since Monday, but no funds were placed in the state’s account for refugee service reimbursements.
“Once we get confirmation from our bank that the requested funds are indeed in the account, we will immediately send checks to our vendors,” Costigan added. “My hope is that the process will become smoother and take less time in reimbursing the agencies next time around, but that is out of my hands.”
Now, Bueler is leery about the future of her organization and its 15 employees. She said she is thankful that she has not had to lay off or furlough any of her staff so far. Instead, the organization’s board came up with a $100,000 campaign fundraiser to help secure the organization’s immediate future.
“We are confident that we'll be able to cover staff salaries for two more months … but we need to be planning and have a strategy moving forward,” she said. “We're looking at working with other religious institutions, local businesses and with other individuals. This is going to be a new model.”
The International Institute of St. Louis also has had to pivot since the pause in federal funding. It recently furloughed 60% of its staff and scaled back immigrant and refugee services.
The resettlement agency has taught English classes and provided job placement and mental health services to immigrants and refugees for decades. Those services have all been reduced because of the lack of funding and available staff.
The institute is waiting for the federal government to reimburse more than $1.1 million from its December payment request.
“That is not an insignificant amount for an organization like us with the cash needs that we have,” said International Institute of St. Louis interim President and CEO Blake Hamilton. “We hope to receive payment for the work that we have provided this community, but if not, it is going to impact our ability to continue with the breadth of services that we still are able to offer.”
The institute’s entire Festival of Nations team was included in its furloughs. It also paused the festival’s preparations for showcasing diverse foods, clothes, music and artwork from local, national and international vendors and artists. The festival draws large crowds every year to Tower Grove Park.
Hamilton said the festival is not canceled, but at this time, the institute is moving funds to other departments and services that are more beneficial to the community.
Although many services and programs the institute offers have been reduced, its Latino Outreach Initiative and Afghan Support Program are still operating. However, Hamilton said the Latino Outreach team will now only focus on trying to work with Latin American and Hispanic families that have legal status to move to St. Louis from other cities. Before the threat of mass deportations, the program did not require a person's immigration status to participate.
Immigrant and refugee service providers are also concerned about the refugee families who were on their way to St. Louis from various countries. The federal government also paused its refugee arrival program. The International Institute resettled more than 400 refugees in the past three months, but refugee aid has been cut off.
Welcome Neighbor STL had committed to resettling 18 Syrian refugees, but so far, the organization has only resettled 10. The other refugees are still waiting to see if the federal government will allow them to move to the U.S.
There are some non-federally funded immigrant and refugee organizations in the region that are still operating at full capacity. Still, some providers are worried that services and programs will soon become overcrowded. The English language learning organization iHELP still hosts English classes for immigrant families in the area.
“The need is going to increase as other organizations who have been able to offer English classes to the community might not have those resources anymore,” said Julie Fox, executive director of iHELP. “Then the need for in-home classes are just going to increase, and we already have a long waiting list of those who are in need of services.”
