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Hi Everyone. My name is Allison Benner and I live and work in the Highlands/Jefferson Park neighborhood of Denver, CO. Since May, an increasing number of Venezuelan refugees have settled in my neighborhood in various encampments and 30,000 Venezuelan refugees have entered Denver over the course of the year. These refugee families have recently crossed the US border seeking asylum after a long and arduous trek on foot and by migrant train fleeing Venezuela. Denver has been inundated and has no more housing resources to offer. The goal of this project is to keep a refugee family of 8 in stable housing and support them with mental health services as they heal psychologically.
Yessika 36, Addys 15, Andy 13, Antony 12, Santiago 6, Esmeralda 8, & Jeremiah 3 (Jefferson 18 not pictured)
As many of you may remember this fundraiser originally supported 3 families (26 people) this summer. Two of those three families are well on their way with the ability to pay their rent and stable employment. Those two families each had a father. The third family I am still supporting only has a mother and 7 children.
This fundraiser will support keeping Yessika Nino and her 7 children housed. She has been working hard to find stable employment while integrating her children into the school and healthcare system and just needs a bit more time. She has had short stints doing janitorial work and even roofing but nothing long term yet. It is much more difficult for women to find work as undocumented laborers than it is for men. I am so proud of them all. The kids are thriving in bi-lingual schools in the neighborhood. This is a big part of why I’m hoping they can stay where they are and not be disrupted. Andy who is 13 and has never written or read has picked it up in just 2 months. These kids are voracious learners so proud of their homework, letters, and numbers. They are 18, 15, 13, 12, 8, 6, and 3. Rent is $1500 for this family of 8 per month. This GoFundMe will cover 4 months rent while they get on their feet covering them until Yessika, the mother, can receive her legal work permit in 90 days from now.
The additional $500 will pay for 20 discounted affordable counseling sessions for the older children who are struggling the most with the aftermath of the trauma from the journey. The most difficult parts of the journey for the children involved not eating for a week at a time and the viewing of countless dead bodies who did not survive the jungle crossing between Columbia and Panama.
About to begin the trek from Columbia to Panama through the Darian Gap.
Any extra funds will support helping additional families transfer from the highway encampments to stable housing.
Please join me in supporting these folks as they navigate this new terrain of being away from their homeland, recovering from a harrowing journey, and arriving and orienting to somewhere totally new while parenting young children and not yet speaking English. I am hoping we can prevent the profound disruption that is homelessness for people just starting to find some semblance of stability.
As I have gotten to know and love this family over the last 6 months, I can assure you these people are an asset to our community. I am very moved by their resilient nature, phenomenal trust in the dream of a new life, and their culture of friendliness (these folks have never met a stranger). You will often find Yessika down at the encampments giving back what little she can to her recently arrive countrymen. Her family are the kind of people who laugh a lot and are available to possibility, love, and connection and carry unrelenting faith. The kind of people who walk through the most dangerous place on earth for 7 days carrying the younger children on the backs of the mom and the two teenagers. These are the kind of people who remind you what it means to be awake and mobilized in your own life. And I reflect on how bad it must be in Venezuela that all those sacrificial and hard choices were made.
A sincere thank you to you all,
Allison Benner
*As an aside- A goal of this project is to connect Yessika (the mother) with a job for the short term. She is about 90 days out from receiving her work permit papers. Please reach out with ideas and possibilities.
If you would like to learn more about the current Venezuelan refugee situation in Denver and see photos of the encampments this is a thorough article.
If you would like to learn more about the migrant journey here is a video.
