Alain Mentha has a day job. But he joked that if the pace of his nonprofit volunteer group’s effort to help thousands of Afghan refugees arriving in New Jersey doesn’t slow down, he may not have a day job for much longer.
“The company I work for has been great,” Mentha, who works for an academic book publisher, told NJ Advance Media on Thursday. “They even donated to the effort. But I can’t keep this up for too much longer.”
Mentha is also the executive director of Welcome Home Jersey City, a community-based nonprofit organization that provides educational, employment and material support for refugees and asylum-seekers. His group has been gearing up to help as many Afghan families as they can find temporary housing and resources to eventually resettle in this area after a massive U.S. military airlift out of their war-torn country.
Gov. Phil Murphy wrote President Biden to offer assistance in resettling up to 9,500 refugees while tens of thousands more are expected to be flown out of Afghanistan as a 20-year military mission there is scheduled to come to an end next week.
Mentha’s group may only be able to help up to 10 families, but they are part of a network of New Jersey residents and organizations trying to help many more.
The refugees are first arriving at Joint Base McGuire, Dix Lakehurst. Some of them may remain at the sprawling Air Force, Army, Navy base for up to a year in temporary housing.
The goal will be to resettle as many as possible as quickly as possible. That’s where groups like Welcome Home Jersey City come in.
“In certain instances they lean on us,” Mentha said. “The families need support. They are arriving in a state of shock, often not being able to speak English and adapting to a very different culture. That’s where community support becomes so important.”
Mentha said his group has been able to find and furnish two apartments in a church rectory that will be available for refugees. He said social media calls for help have brought in donations, saying Welcome Home may be able to match a typical yearly fundraising goal of $200,000 just through the relief effort.
Welcome Home works closely with the state chapter of the International Rescue Committee, an international organization that helps resettle refugees from around the world in the United States. The IRC is part of a network of resettlement agencies working with the U.S. State Department.
“Over the past 20 years, the International Rescue Committee in New Jersey has resettled 382 Afghan refugees and Special Immigrant Visa holders in our state,” Alison Millan, deputy director of the NJ IRC said in an email Thursday. “Since July 2021, 17 Afghans have been resettled by IRC in N.J. We have been so heartened by the outpouring of support to welcome Afghans arriving in our community. IRC in NJ is working with a wide range of local partners to coordinate these welcoming efforts that help families who have left their entire lives behind to begin anew.
“Inquiries on how to support local refugee families can be directed to NewJersey@rescue.org.”
The effort to help the Afghan refugees in New Jersey is not just among established groups like Welcome Home Jersey City, which was formed in 2016 to help refugees from Syria, and the IRC. Airbnb, for example, announced it will provide temporary housing for up to 20,000 Afghan refugees worldwide.
Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, the pastor of the Reformed Church of Highland Park and a leading member of the refugee resettlement group Interfaith-RISE, said there is a great need for housing.
Interfaith-RISE was slated to resettle 47 evacuee families, and it agreed Thursday to accept another 125 families.
He said one of the group’s main goals is to find permanent housing for the refugees.
“We need landlords to allow us to start renting units and lining people up ASAP,” he said, noting that some landlords are uncomfortable with renting to families they haven’t personally vetted. “It’s not a risk to the landlord. We will pay the rent. We would be the tenants and the families would be subtenants.”
Other organizations helping in the relief effort include:
Staff writer Karin Price Mueller contributed to this report.
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Bill Duhart may be reached at bduhart@njadvancemedia.com.
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