Welcome home: Chevy Chase resident’s nonprofit helps resettle refugees

Homes Not Borders rushed to set up apartments before Trump administration suspended U.S. program

January 21, 2025 11:45 a.m. | Updated: January 22, 2025 2:36 p.m.

Frigid temperatures and icy sidewalks didn’t stop Potomac’s Andrea Herman and her family from spending part of Martin Luther King Jr. Day carrying boxes of housewares and furniture into a Riverdale apartment in Prince George’s County that will soon be home to a refugee family from Guatemala.

Motivating her was the thought of helping families that had been assigned housing through the U.S. Refugees Admissions Program, the country’s resettlement program that was suspended by an executive order from President Donald Trump following his noon inauguration Monday. The federal program, managed by the Department of State, approves individuals who are seeking refugee status to enter the country and provides them with government-funded resettlement assistance.

“Because today is both Donald Trump’s inauguration and Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, we were looking for an opportunity to do some service within the community,” Herman said as she washed plates and kitchenware for the new family.

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Monday was the first time Herman, her husband, son and family friends volunteered with Landover-based nonprofit Homes Not Borders, which focuses on supporting refugees settling into their new homes and communities. Founded by Chevy Chase resident Laura Thompson Osuri, the nonprofit organizes home setups that furnish refugee apartments. The nonprofit also runs financial assistance, artisan empowerment and storytelling programs for refugees.

Ahead of the inauguration, and the threat of suspension of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, the nonprofit’s staff felt a sense of urgency in recent days to provide as many home setups as possible.

“We heard prior to today that [Trump] was going to suspend all refugee resettlement, going to stop the asylum seeker process, close the borders. So that means nobody’s coming in — period — which is awful and shameful,” Osuri said.

Since Thursday, the nonprofit has set up 12 refugee homes – a record number — with furniture, beds, housewares and décor in Montgomery and Prince Georges counties, according to Osuri. Typically, the nonprofit does about six to eight setups per week.

In the next few weeks, the nonprofit is expecting to wind down its home setup program, Osuri said. But its operations won’t shut down entirely.

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Homes Not Borders will continue to focus on the organization’s other programs, Osuri said, and the launch of a new program, Newcomers to Neighbors. The program will pair volunteers with refugee newcomers to help them navigate their new community. The nonprofit is hoping to fundraise $125,000 for the program.

Home setups

Osuri explained that Homes Not Borders works with resettlement agencies to determine when a family or individual is arriving and housing has been assigned. Then the nonprofit will gather details about the family demographics and have its volunteers pack trucks with furniture, homewares, tchotchkes and toys to deliver and set up in the homes.

“A lot of [volunteers] take a lot of effort into picking out the flowers to go with the painting, to go with the rug. It’s really nice. They try to make it look like a home and make it as welcoming and warm as possible,” Osuri said.

Osuri said many refugees are resettled in areas such as Riverdale, where rents are cheaper than in Montgomery County. She also noted that the owners and management of the Riverdale apartment community where they did setups on Monday, in particular, are welcoming to refugees who come to the country with no rental or credit history.

Abdulfattah Sokari, a recipient of a home set up by Homes Not Borders who emigrated from Egypt with his wife and daughter in August 2024, told Bethesda Today through an interpreter that he was “very, very happy” when he saw his home set up with furniture and decor.

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Sokari said he came to the United States because he wanted to reunite with family including his mother, father, brother and sister already living in Riverdale. He was also seeking a “better future” for his family with a good job for himself and good schools for his daughter.

“Homes Not Borders does not just give us furniture, they support us,” Sokari said.

Dave Burgett, a Bethesda resident who has volunteered with Homes Note Borders for about three years, said Monday that it was “gratifying to see how quickly many of the immigrants” he has helped seek jobs and begin integrating into society.

“There’s this myth out there that people are either freeloading off the government or they’re taking away jobs from Americans,” Burgett said, noting that many of the refugees are eager to support themselves by getting jobs and to be productive.

On Monday Burgett said he and other volunteers had the rare experience of meeting the family whose home they were setting up.

“It’s nice to be able to meet people and shake their hands and say, ‘Hello,’ ” he said.

Sarah Nugent, a volunteer from Alexandria, Virginia, who worked with Burgett on Monday, said the Guatemalan family they helped wrote a message to volunteers on Google translate that expressed how grateful they were for their help.

“You meet the parents and you can see the relief in their faces and the joy and the hope that they have,” Nugent said. “That is just an incredibly rewarding part of Homes Not Borders. And while there will be a slowdown in refugee resettlement, I’m hopeful that it will pick up in some capacity again in the future.”

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