CRRA provides resettlement services to refugees and asylees who are escaping violence, persecution, and repression.
At CRRA we embrace refugees who arrive in Charlotte, recognizing their troubling experiences, trying to ease their transition into a new country, and respecting their need to remember where they came from.
CRRA’s infrastructure allows us to settle refugees of all nationalities and religions. Refugees have arrived from Myanmar, Congo, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Syria, and Central America – as well as others.
The agency, working through HIAS receives federal grants for refugee resettlement programing distributed through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. Grants cover basic services for refugees during their initial 90-day period of resettlement, as well as ongoing support.
During the initial 90-day resettlement period, CRRA obtains and furnishes apartments and stocks them with food so that once the caseworker meets the newly arriving refugee at the Charlotte airport, they have a home.
New arrivals receive help registering their children for school, obtaining Social Security cards and are able to attend classes for English as a Second Language (ESL). Our employment counselors endeavor to find them work and guide each arrival toward self-sufficiency during these early months after arriving.
Through additional federal grants, CRRA provides extended medical case management, employment services, legal services, financial and digital literacy, and cultural orientation classes beyond the initial 90-day resettlement period. CRRA also connects refugees and asylees to other service providers in the Charlotte area.