AUSTIN (KXAN) – After a freeze in United States Department of Health and Human Services funding, some Central Texas organizations have been forced to suspend long-standing refugee programs.
Catholic Charities of Central Texas, or CCCTX, one of the largest social services non-profit organizations in Central Texas, announced Monday that due to the federal funding freeze that began in January, it had to stop its Refugee Resettlement program, laying off 30 employees with it.
“The reality is, we have not received these federal funds since the funding freeze was announced by the federal government in late January,” said Allison Cavazos, CCCTX’s interim executive director.
“We can’t do this work without a guarantee of those funds,” she continued.
CCCTX’s Refugee Resettlement program helped refugees legally in Texas navigate employment, obtain health insurance, ga in job skills and access other services essential to succeed in their new home.
“[It] provides a holistic wraparound support for refugee families,” Cavazos said. “Our hearts go out to those families who have had some of their options limited now.”
Cavazos said her organization has a half dozen additional programs that are still running. Refugees are still able to access those, she said.
“At Catholic Charities, we say, ‘We’re providing help, creating hope.’ So we absolutely have hope that the funding will be reinstated,” Cavazos said. People can support the organization by visiting its website.
Fender funding freeze
The Catholic Charities for Fort Worth is Texas’ designee for refugee resettlement services. It stepped up to be in charge of the state’s refugee resettlement programs after the state dropped out of the program in 2016, according to reporting from Texas Tribune.
Since the funding freeze, CCFW reported that its partners, which include CCCTX, have laid off 750 staff. This number was reported before CCCTX announced it laid off 30 of its employees.
On March 3, CCFW filed a lawsuit against DHHS and Health and new Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“Despite four attempts by CCFW on January 29 and 30 to obtain payment of obligated grant funds through Defendants’ Payment Management Services system (“PMS”), and another ten requests in the following four weeks, Defendants have persisted in unlawfully preventing CCFW from obtaining over $36 million under its open grant agreements—an amount owing that continues to mount with the services CCFW continues to provide, unfunded, with each passing day,” the lawsuit read.
