urbanSTL

The journey from El Tigre, Venezuela, to America was a harrowing one for Pedro and Rhisma Reyes.
There were jungles to traverse, 11 countries to travel through, hunger, sickness and moments of joy followed by hopelessness.
Their daughter, Charlotte, was born in Chile.
She almost died in Mexico. They were there, so close to America, as part of President Biden’s humanitarian parole program for immigrants from certain Latin American countries. But things turned desperate.

“We had to ask for money,” Pedro said.
Charlotte, just a few months old, got malaria. She was severely dehydrated, lost 5 pounds and was near death. Rhisma fought back tears as she told the story.

“It was very hard,” she said, through an interpreter, “but now we’re here.” Here is a small home in Florissant, not far from where the husband and wife both work at Gate Gourmet, which has a plant near St. Louis-Lambert International Airport and produces meals for airlines.

The family was brought to the area as part of the International Institute’s Latino Outreach program, which kicked off in September 2023 and has resettled 66 people from 30 families. All of the immigrants recruited to St. Louis already have work permits and Social Security cards, says Karlos Ramirez, vice president of Latino outreach at the International Institute.


The program was the brainchild of St. Louis attorney and philanthropist Jerry Schlichter, who helped fund it, along with support from the Missouri AFL-CIO coalition of labor unions. Immigrants who come to St. Louis are mostly from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti. They fled their countries because of corrupt governments and entrenched poverty, seeking asylum in the U.S. The program is modeled after one that has resettled about 1,300 refugees from Afghanistan. Immigrants like the Reyes family are given housing, transportation and meal money for a few months while they get settled. The Reyes couple already had jobs lined up before they flew from New York, where they had been bused after they crossed the border in Texas. In New York, a nonprofit called Tent Partnership for Refugees is helping to identify immigrants for the program, and that organization is funding the travel to St. Louis. Catholic Charities is helping fund the travel for immigrants who come here from Chicago.


“We don’t bring them here until we have a house or apartment for them,” Ramirez said. “We’re moving very intentionally. We need to make sure we give them to the tools they need to thrive.”
In the next year, the program hopes to bring 500 or more Latino immigrants to St. Louis, but that is dependent on two things: funding and politics.
In Missouri, key Republican politicians have opposed attempts to increase immigrant populations in Missouri. Attorney General Andrew Bailey has joined a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general challenging Biden’s humanitarian parole program. And recently, when Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas made comments about needing to recruit more immigrants to that city, Bailey issued a series of threatening comments on social media and in a news release. It was similar to the opposition that came up in St. Charles County and Jefferson City when the International Institute announced its program. When such criticisms arise, Ramirez responds with facts about the program. There are thousands of Latino immigrants in the U.S. who already have work permits and Social Security cards, and they are willing to come to St. Louis to work.
For the past few months, Ramirez has traveled to Chicago, New York, Denver, Boston and Austin, Texas, to help recruit immigrants for the program. The St. Louis business community has long pointed to increasing the immigrant population in the city as a key economic development goal, as the city has lost population and businesses have struggled to fill jobs. A 2012 report from the St. Louis Mosaic Project pointed to the city’s lower immigrant population compared to other major American cities as a detriment to the region’s economic growth.

Summit Real Estate Group last fall launched the nonprofit, Mission Realty Advisors, to provide community-based nonprofits with consulting and development services including budgeting, contractor selection, and capital and funding source strategies.

Led by Executive Director Peter Kinsella, Mission Realty Advisors is evaluating options for the Institute that could include the acquisition or construction of transitional and rental housing for new arrivals, and possibly opportunities for home ownership. Those options would be presented to the Institute’s board of directors, which would decide whether to proceed to look for investors. “If we are going to raise capital to invest in a housing initiative by way of building and developing or purchasing, we want to ensure it works for us -- meaning that we don’t want to carry a burden or a cost that is not going to make financial sense for us,” said Arrey Obsenon, president and CEO of the International Institute. The Institute works with a network of landlords to house refugees and landlords in St. Louis, but sometimes it doesn’t get more than 24-hour notice of families’ arrivals. That forces the Institute to pay for hotels and motels, with the cost for a week in some cases exceeding the cost of an apartment for three months, Obenson said.
“So it would make a lot of sense if we had 40 or 50 units as transitional housing so that once we stabilize a family, we can move them to more permanent rental housing, making sure we put them in a job,” he said.
Last year, the Institute leased 239 units to settle refugees with an average rent of $968 per month. A federal program provides an allowance of $1,125 per person over three months, but it must cover spending money, a security deposit, three months of rent, home set-up materials such as furniture and housewares, utilities, and bus passes.

The Institute relies on donations to close the funding gap, which can cost $4,315 for a single person and $3,454 for a family of three, according to an Institute spokesperson.
John Ross, CEO of Summit Real Estate Group, said Mission Realty Advisors was formed to meet demand from nonprofit groups in need of assistance on real estate matters.

urbanjoe wrote: ↑

Mar 11, 2025

I read this through my library but it's an interesting article in the NY Times: They Had an Answer to Their City’s Decline. Then Came the Immigration Crackdown.

Shrinking cities have tried to stabilize their populations with foreign-born residents. The strategy was working, until the inauguration.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/business/economy/trump-immigration-st-louis.html