Southwest Key will shut two migrant shelters
Southwest Key, a nonprofit that operates shelters for thousands of unaccompanied migrant children, will close two of its Texas locations due at least in part to an “unexpected loss of federal funding.”
The Austin nonprofit will close a shelter in Conroe, north of Houston, in October and lay off nearly 200 workers, according to a letter filed with the state. A second shelter in Harlingen near the U.S.-Mexico border will also close, Southwest Key spokesperson Neil Nowlin said.
The shelter in Conroe, at 10393 League Line Road, has the capacity for 160 unaccompanied minors. Southwest Key declined to provide the number of children that can be housed at the Harlingen shelter.
The children at both shelters will be moved to other Southwest Key shelters, Nowlin said in a statement.
Southwest Key did not provide details about when and where the children would be transferred. The nonprofit runs more than two dozen facilities for migrant children in Texas, Arizona and California.
Southwest Key had more than $400 million in federal contracts in 2018 to house many of the immigrant children who crossed the southern U.S. border. In a letter to the Texas Workforce Commission, Southwest Key wrote that the Conroe location would close Oct. 1 due to a loss of federal funding, but declined to provide specifics to the Houston Chronicle on
the funding was cut and attributed the termination of the two leases to a “variety of issues.”
The organization recently obtained city permits to open another shelter for unaccompanied migrant children in Houston after a long battle with local advocates and city leaders to stop the facility at 419 Emancipation, which is now operational and has the capacity for 200 minors.
The nonprofit scaled back its proposal to limit housing to 16and 17-year-olds rather than younger children, which moved the proposal forward. Southwest Key has four shelters for unaccompanied minors in Houston, according a city spokesperson.
Southwest Key has been criticized for housing migrant children separated from their parents at the southern U.S. border, and was under investigation by the Justice Department for misuse of government funds, according to a New York Times report in December. The nonprofit’s chief executive and chief financial officer resigned in the spring amid reports of mismanagement of government funds.
A spokesperson for the Western District of Texas U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the status of the investigation. Southwest Key declined to comment on the reports.
Border Patrol agents encountered more than 53,000 families and nearly 9,000 unaccompanied minors between ports of entry in March. Families and children make up more than two-thirds of all migrants apprehended at the southern border, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis in April.