Migrant funds may be less, delayed
Nonprofits uncertain about size of losses with reimbursements from federal agency
Though San Antonio and area nonprofits had no guarantee of federal funding when they committed to providing humanitarian aid to the thousands of migrants traveling through the city, it was a victory when Congress approved $30 million last month to help reimburse those expenses.
But now it appears that more than half of what Catholic Charities of San Antonio has spent on aiding migrants might not be covered. And what funding it and other agencies and cities do receive might arrive later than what the bill promised.
“I think there will be unmet needs,” acknowledged U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, during a news conference Monday at Travis Park Church, a major provider of assistance to the migrants seeking asylum.
Cuellar originally sought $60 million in reimbursement funding as part of a $4.5 billion emergency spending bill signed into law July 1 to address the humanitarian crisis at the border. Federal Emergency Management Agency
will be handling the reimbursement applications.
But specifics on which states, and which kind of humanitarian services, are eligible for reimbursement are still up in the air.
Cuellar said FEMA officials told him Thursday they are debating three different methods of distributing the funds: limiting the money to the four border states as Cuellar had originally outlined in the House bill, sending most of the money to border states but some to others or opening up the applications for reimbursement to all 50 states.
Cuellar said the last option is “wrong,” adding if all states qualify for reimbursement, the $30 million will go quickly.
He’s also questioned whether transportation to cities outside of San Antonio will qualify for reimbursement, pointing out that during the migrant influx of 2014, those kinds of costs weren’t covered in a state reimbursement program.
If that’s the case this time, it would heavily impact Catholic Charities of San Antonio, which has spent more than $324,000 on transportation to send migrants to their final destinations, scattered throughout the nation. Most of that has been spent on bus tickets.
Overall, the organization has spent more than $533,000 in aid to asylumseekers in San Antonio since thousands of recently released migrants began arriving at the city bus station at the end of March.
Christina Higgs, spokeswoman for Catholic Charities, said the nonprofit won’t know how much to ask for in federal reimbursement until it knows if these transportation costs are eligible. As for the timing of any money that is paid back, the emergency spending bill included a 30-day deadline for distributing the funds from when it was signed July 1. But FEMA told the Express-News last week it expected a delay of over half a month.
At the news conference, Cuellar downplayed the expected delay.
“A few extra days will be OK,” he said. “Even if it’s a couple days — don’t write a negative story.”
The local United Way will be in charge of gathering receipts from the city and the major players in migrant aid: Catholic Charities, Travis Park Church and the San Antonio Food Bank. It will then submit them in one composite application to the federal government.
More than 26,000 migrants have passed through the Migrant Resource Center, and more than 17,000 were sheltered overnight at the Travis Park Church, all in the past four months.
As of July 17, the city had spent about $240,000 since the resource center opened March 30.
About 2,000 migrants have received medical services, including children who were rushed to the emergency room for what Colleen Bridger, assistant city manager, called “stressinduced illness.”
The San Antonio Food Bank has delivered over 60,000 meals, and more than 1,500 volunteers have jumped on board to help out with all of these services.
Gavin Rogers, associate pastor of the Travis Park Church, said the estimated cost to run the church’s migrant shelter from the start of the year to the end of September will be around $200,000. About half of that has been covered by the city, he said.
But the shelter is expecting a $40,000 to $50,000 hole in funding by the end of the fiscal year. Rogers said he will be applying for grants and relying on private donors to fill the gap, while it waits for federal reimbursement.
“(Reimbursement) would ease some of the pressure of these nonprofits that look at this with a question mark, saying ‘How long can we be doing this?’” Rogers said. “All it’s going to do is better serve the migrants in the future, because we don’t know when this crisis is going to end.”