Cash grants help city migrants - The New York Community Trust

February 1, 2024 | By The New York Community Trust

Cash grants help city migrants

Attorneys photographed providing free legal help to recently arrived migrants as part of a Pro Se Plus Project.

Attorneys participating in the Pro Se Plus Project provide free legal help to recently arrived migrants. Photo courtesy of New York Legal Assistance Group

Over 150,000 migrants have arrived in the city since spring 2022, and local nonprofits are rising to the occasion to meet these newcomers’ urgent needs.

Since 2022, The Trust has made more than $2.7 million in grants to nonprofits serving immigrants, with a focus on those who are newly arrived and living in shelters. These grants address newcomers’ legal, employment, and health care needs, and provide food and cash assistance.

The Havens Relief Fund Society, founded in 1871, engages a network of volunteer community leaders and professionals, known as “almoners,” to make one-time emergency grants to at-risk individuals and families in New York City. With a Trust grant, the Society established its Migrant Emergency Relief Fund to provide financial assistance for immigrants who have been in the city for less than one year.

The Society’s mission dates back to its founder, Charles Gerard Havens, who tested the idea of intervening at a crucial moment with cash assistance for low-income New Yorkers. Today, the Society’s network of more than 150 almoners is embedded in schools, hospitals, domestic violence shelters, legal aid providers, and community organizations in each of the five boroughs.

“The Havens model fills in painful gaps that case managers and others working with people in need can’t usually fill,” said Eve Stotland, The Trust’s senior program officer for education and human justice. “It’s discouraging to work with someone who is telling you what they need, and you can’t offer them the one thing that is most important and most acute.”

The one-time grants can have ripple effects. For example, cash for a sewing machine allowed a survivor of domestic violence to generate the income needed to remain in a safe new apartment with her children.

“We understand that a $400 or $500 cash grant isn’t necessarily going to change somebody’s trajectory out of poverty—but it will relieve the stress of the moment,” said Allison McDermott, Havens’ executive director. “And we have seen very impactful grants that really have changed lives. It’s pretty amazing the difference a small amount of financial assistance at the right time can make.”

Havens’ almoners used the Migrant Emergency Relief Fund to help newcomers with a range of needs over the past year—from buying toiletries and clothing to providing medical treatment for a mother diagnosed with cancer after arriving in New York. An almoner based at a city school purchased food and clothing for newly arrived students who were living in shelters. Almoners also bought work boots and other items needed for Occupational Safety and Health Administration training, helping newcomers get closer to obtaining employment.

“I find the work our almoners do so inspiring,” McDermott said. “Although in this time of great need they may feel overwhelmed and under-resourced, they also feel the call to rise to the moment and welcome new New Yorkers in the same way that New York has welcomed waves of immigrants before.”