By Sophia PerriconeUpdated: Jan. 13, 2022 at 4:51 PM PST
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Three Afghan families fleeing the Taliban will temporarily call Nevada State College home.
“We’re providing temporary or transitional housing. We’ll be doing this over the next four to five months. They’ll come in, they’ll get acclimated to the area,” said Dr. DeRionne Pollard, president of Nevada State College.
Pollard said the families will be living in their on-campus, apartment-style dorms, thanks to a $60,000 grant from the county’s rescue plan funds.
Milan Devetak, the director of the African Community Center, which helps with the resettling process, said it has been tough finding housing for the hundreds of refugees coming to Southern Nevada.
“We were scared and obviously with the housing challenges that we have here in our city – where are we going to house them? The rents are up and there aren’t any, or many, apartments available,” Devetak said.
The temporary solution buys more time to find a permanent one.
It also allows the African Community Center to get to work, helping families adjust to their new lives.
“We will be providing all of the services. We welcome them at the airport, we provide food, we enroll them in various services, enroll their kids in school, adults in ESL classes,” he said. “The end outcome will be self-sufficiency through employment, so we have internal, in-house employment services and typically we find work for our clients in three to four months.”
Until the families are placed into permanent housing, they will be living among college students.
Pollard said many of her students have already reached out, asking how they can help families adapt to Southern Nevada.
“As soon as we sent a communication out to the college community, students and employees alike, I received lots of messages, ‘I know Farsi,’ ‘I have family from this part of the globe, can I help out?’” she said.
If you’re interested in volunteering to help refugees adapt to life in Nevada, click here.
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Nevada State College to temporarily house Afghan refugees on campus (fox5vegas.com)