BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — A Buffalo organization is getting ready for a potential influx of refugees. Jericho Road and other resettlement agencies in Western New York are preparing to receive hundreds of refugees from around the world.
Matt Tice says Jericho Road and Vive have already helped more than 3,000 refugees, and they’re expecting to help a lot more.
“This year has been incredibly busy for us, we have seen more people than probably we’ve ever had before,” Tice said.
“Our numbers have actually close to doubled in the amount of people that we’ve served last year and so we are just continuing to welcome them, continuing to settle them and be prepared that there’s so much going on in immigration world wide,” said Anna Mong, who’s the chief program officer at Jericho Road.
Tice and Mongo say shelters not only in our region, but across the country are close to capacity.
“We are at full capacity, we have been at full capacity for about a year, and that we anticipate those numbers will continue,” Mongo said.
The organization says refugees are coming from all over including, South America, the Middle East, and also from Ukraine as the war with Russia continues.
“People are coming to us, they need places to go, and we’ve also been talking to shelters across the entire country,” Tice said. “Knowing that everywhere else is very full, everyone is looking for other opportunities, places where they can go, where they are safe and they can take that next step in their journey.”
Now that they might be receiving more refugees, he says they’re just trying to make sure they’re prepared.
“We are always trying to make sure that we’re ready for that,” he said. “We don’t know, who’s going to show up. We’ve been making sure we’ve been monitoring the pulse of what’s happening with immigration across the entire country, and so there’s constant movement. Always lots of different changes with that. We need to make sure we are available.”
New York City is currently trying to resettle thousands of refugees, and there is a possibility those refugees will be relocated in Buffalo.
Sarah Minkewicz is an Emmy-nominated reporter and Buffalo native who has been a part of the News 4 team since 2019. Follow Sarah on Twitter @SarahMinkewicz and click here to see more of her work.