Volunteer Summary – First 6 Weeks
How much volunteer effort is needed to resettle a refugee family? As a general rule plan on about 250 hours of volunteer time from the moment the family arrives at the local airport, to the completion of the first month. The second month is typically 1/2 or maybe only 1/3 the original effort.
Actual numbers will, of course, vary by family. Size of family, health care needs, education requirements, English language ability, background like experiences – all of these will play a factor in the volunteer effort and the amount of time needed to help with their adjustment to a new life.
In addition to time there will be expenses. At first the largest expense will typically be housing. The second greatest expense will typically be food. Both of these will vary depending on family size and location of resettlement.
Since I started this blog series as a case study of our current refugee resettlement case I’d like to demonstrate the effort that we’ve already expended.
The family arrived on July 21. Through July 31 our resettlement team contributed 69.75 hours, had driven 552 miles, and spent $750.97. The biggest segment of time (32.25 hours) related to housing issues, mostly preparation of space and coordination of donations. The largest expense ($377) was food.
In August our resettlement team added 286.5 hours, drove 1,081.5 miles, and spent $772.41. The greatest use of time was, once again housing, with 145 hours. Move-in day was in August so many people were involved with transporting donated goods and helping to convert an empty house into a home. Again the biggest expense was food with $462 in that category.
So, our six week summary reports 356.25 hours of volunteer time, $1,523.38 spent on their behalf, and 1633.5 miles driven.
Volunteer time will drop significantly in September. Since 30 days has passed and the family now has a food assistance card, our obligation to pay for food has ended. They are receiving cash in the form of a matching grant so we should not have to pay for incidentals at this point either.
Our total expenses will go up for the next couple months, however. Because of timing, in this resettlement case we were able to apply some of the refugee’s own resettlement grant money to the first month’s rent and security deposit. That’s why housing was not our greatest expense above.
Since the family is enrolled in the matching grant program we cannot use their matching grant funds for their own housing. Therefore, our financial assistance for housing will take a big jump up in September.
