A New Home in Columbus
Housing Provides Foundation of Stability for Newly-Arrived Refugees
Volunteers help a CRIS Resettlement Caseworker (right) unload donated furniture into the apartment of a family who will arrive later that evening.
One of CRIS’ most significant responsibilities as a refugee resettlement agency is to help newly-arriving refugees to find safe, sanitary, and affordable housing, and much of this job falls to CRIS’ Housing Coordinator, Kristen Albert. “That means identifying good fit before they get here, making sure it’s as close to a busline and grocery store as possible, and ideally close to community support as well,” she says. “Then I walk through the application process and make sure everything is ready to hand off to the case manager for lease-signing and move-in.” She also has the responsibility to develop and maintain relationships with housing partners - anybody from property managers to landlords to realtors.
When asked why she became interested in this type of work, Albert talks about being born and raised in Central Ohio and growing up in one of the same neighborhoods that she now helps to make home for many of CRIS’ clients. “Columbus has always been a place that welcomes and supports its own, and it has a long history of welcoming and supporting immigrants and refugees. So part of that is probably just engrained in who I am, having grown up here.”
Many challenges arise from trying to secure housing before a family arrives in the US (without proof of income, credit history, rental history, or even ID in many cases), so it can take a lot of education to explain to landlords and property management staff the different types of paperwork and situations that renting to CRIS clients may come with. CRIS also offers significant programmatic support and guidance though, often helping to serve as a liaison between rental offices and families. Further complicating the matter, these existing challenges are compounded by the broader housing crisis that currently plagues Central Ohio. “We just don’t have the supply to meet the demand, let alone affordable housing,” says Albert, who describes rental rates nearly doubling in recent years while the already-limited resettlement funds available to secure housing have only grown slightly.
Beds prepared by a “Welcome Team” of volunteers for the children of a family that will move in later that day.
The Value of Community Support
Albert calls community support a game-changer for the families she serves, and partners come from many corners of the community. “We work with anyone,” she says, “from individual, private landlords and homeowners who are interested in renting, to rental property management companies... and everybody in between.” When she is able to connect with welcoming property owners, “it means that we are able to have access to landlords who understand our vision and our mission and are passionate about giving people a chance to make it.”
She also talks about the value that volunteers can add to a family’s resettlement journey: “I love the concept of making a house a home. Community support makes that shift from house to home. So even if we just have extra hands available to put sheets on a bed and a couch in the living room, and really make it feel like a home when a family arrives, that can really make a huge difference for a family and their ability to get re-established in a new place. Someone willing to show a family where the grocery store is or figure out what their mail is, all of that contributes to housing stability.”
“But, how can I help?”
“If you’re not already involved with housing, if you’re not a realtor or a property manager, it might be confusing how you can be involved with housing. But the unique thing with housing is it is all interconnected. Having a neighbor who is helpful makes a huge difference, so just being in the community of Columbus you have the opportunity and potential to make a huge impact on housing. That’s what we honestly need to keep making these success stories happen. One of our favorite questions is ‘here is my background and skillset, how can I help?’ and we can really get people plugged in from there.”
-Kristen Albert, Housing Coordinator at CRIS
A Foundation of Stability
One heartwarming story from the past year involved two large families who arrived at approximately the same time, one from the Democratic Republic of Congo and one from Somalia. Housing larger families is particularly difficult, but due to “an amazing advocate” at one of the property management companies that work with CRIS, the families were able to move into two houses next to each other. Albert describes visiting the families months later and seeing that the children have become friends, helping each other with homework and supporting each other through the transition. In addition to the intercultural community-building that was taking place, she says that hearing from some of the older kids about their educational and career aspirations was incredibly exciting to her. “It may not always seem obvious that housing gets you to that point, but it’s the foundation of stability that lets you start focusing on those things besides just the basics.”
Another success was that of a family who had several housing prospects fall through as they waited in a Columbus hotel. Finally, a local couple who had volunteered with CRIS offered their rental property, and the family was able to move in. Albert says that it is so nice to see a landlord who truly cares about their tenants as humans and drops by to check on them from time to time. When it seemed like there might have been an attempted break-in at their home, the landlord was there the next day, making sure the family was okay.
To learn more about or help with housing at CRIS, contact Kristen Albert.
