Four men strode back and forth through a warehouse full of everything needed to move into a new home: toiletries, furniture, cleaning supplies.
“Right now we are loading for a family of five,” said Vedad Fatic, the logistics coordinator with the Welcome Co-Op, a unique-to-Atlanta nonprofit that handles setting up apartments for refugees. “I’m trying to get household items, and they are loading the big stuff.”
Georgia resettles the third most refugees in the country, but that number changes depending on who is president. During the Trump administration, refugee acceptance rates in the U.S. plummeted to historic lows. Refugee resettlement agencies had to lay off staff and adjust the services they offered.
In response, Atlanta-area refugee resettlement agencies became flexible in how they use resources to help refugees make home in a new city. They formed a new nonprofit, the Welcome Co-Op, to streamline the housing process.
Fatic grabbed pillows and sheets while the other men loaded mattresses into two box trucks. It took the men about 30 minutes to load both trucks with the things needed to set up 13 refugees who will arrive in Atlanta that night: 13 mattresses and box springs, chairs, dishes, mops.
“I came as a refugee, too,” Fatic said. He came from Bosnia, and he’s been helping set up new arrival apartments in Atlanta for the last 20 years — the last 6 months with the Welcome Co-Op.
At the first apartment to set up, Fatic got the keys and the men methodically unpacked the trucks into a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. It was for a family of eight, seven of whom were arriving that night and reuniting with a family member who was already in Atlanta.
Refugees arrive in Atlanta after being vetted by the United Nations and then the United States. It’s the most rigorous vetting process of any immigrant to the country. According to the International Rescue Committee, a resettlement agency and one of the Welcome Co-Op’s partners, the process can take about three years.
Frank Muhindo walked into the bathroom attached to the primary bedroom. He turned all the faucets on and flushed the toilet.
“We have to check to see if there’s hot water,” he said. He’s part of Fatic’s crew.
The team assembled and made six beds, set up the couch and chairs, and stocked cleaning supplies and kitchen supplies. The men were finished setting up the apartment in no more than 25 minutes. As they wrapped up, Muhindo pressed the test button on the smoke detector.
“I am one of these people. I came the same way,” he said. “I need to help.”
Muhindo came to Atlanta from the Democratic Republic of Congo
“We get the beds ready, we get everything ready, and then it feels like, ‘OK, I’m home,’” he said.
Getting apartments set up takes effort and manpower. When new arrivals decreased under former President Donald Trump, Atlanta area organizations got together to see how they could pool resources.
“They were using the same apartment complexes and housing partners. They had the same exact required list of things that they were supposed to provide,” said Emily Laney, the executive director of the Welcome Co-Op.
Laney said the nonprofit helps resettlement agencies quickly scale up or down when it comes to apartment set-ups. That can look like tapping into networks of volunteers for help and buying even more in bulk to save resettlement money
“Our warehouse, this has been incredibly beneficial for us to have because we are setting up 700 apartments this year,” she said.
Georgia is set to welcome nearly 1,200 refugees this fiscal year. Data from the Coalition of Refugee Service Agencies shows Georgia settled 499 refugees in the last year of Trump’s policies. In the first year of the Biden administration, 1,061 refugees resettled to the state.
“We are ready to provide services to refugees who are coming here regardless of what’s going on federal policy wise,” Laney said.
And the candidates for president have opposite approaches to refugee policy.
Trump said at an Israeli-American Council summit he intends to reinstate his travel ban that rejected refugees from predominantly Muslim countries, and he said he will specifically bar refugees from Gaza.
Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris has not shared her refugee resettlement goals, but the Biden administration set resettlement goals to welcome five times more refugees than the previous administration.
