Jericho Road Ministries: Buffalo Refugee Ministry | Serve

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Our Neighborhood

Jericho Road Ministries (JRM) is located in New York zip code 14213 and provides services primarily on the West Side of Buffalo. The U.S. Census Bureau recently identified Buffalo as the second poorest U.S. city per capita. Critically affected with poverty, 14213 is the third poorest of Buffalo’s 17 zip codes (www.census.gov). As a rising number of refugees are resettled here each year, the fabric of our city is changing. In recent years, New York State has resettled the 4th largest number of refugee individuals in the nation, close to 25% of whom are resettled right here in Erie County. Additionally, 1/3 of our clients are secondary migration families who move from other U.S. cities to make their home in Buffalo.

Refugees face barriers such as poverty, language, education, culture, trauma, and fear. While Buffalo’s four resettlement agencies provide initial services to refugees, aid significantly reduces six months after arrival. For many refugees, six months is simply not enough time to promote successful adjustment to the U.S. community and social systems. Recognizing these additional needs, JRM provides strategic post-resettlement and supplementary services. We sustain over 2,000 client contacts per month. In total, over 2,500 low-income and refugee individuals use our services on a consistent or one-time basis each year.

Those we serve are low-income and/or refugees from more than fifteen countries, including Somalia, Sudan, Burundi, Congo, Ivory Coast, Iraq, China, Burma, Cuba, and others, speaking thirty languages.
Approximately 80% of our clients are refugees. Refugees are persons unable or unwilling to return to their country because of a well-founded fear of persecution (www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr).
Refugee families are settled in Buffalo at a rate of at least 1000 individuals a year, a number expected to maintain if not rise (Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance).
90% of Erie County refugees begin their journey on the West Side of Buffalo, where JRM operates (Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance).
Upon arrival to the U.S. only about 14.5% of refugees speak English well or fluently and 57.7% speak no English at all (Report to Congress, ORR, 2007).
As of 2000, 59.9% of families with children under age five in 14213 were living below poverty level and 72.8% of families with a female householder and children under five were in poverty (www.census.gov). Tragically, due to death or separation during flight, in addition to sexual aggression by refugee camp guards and rival groups, many of our refugee families are among those with a sole female head of household raising young children.
Almost 80% of arriving refugees are children between birth and 12 years old. Since most of the children are coming from countries where birthdays are not celebrated, they are placed in the school system based upon their size and parent estimates, without regard for language ability and previous education (Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance).