Catholic Community Services of Utah struggles to serve clients after federal budget freeze

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SALT LAKE CITY — Catholic Community Services of Utah is among the many nonprofit agencies in the United States struggling to continue to do their work after the federal government froze funding that had already been approved for their programs.

“The past couple of weeks have been really tough,” said Aden Batar, director of CCS’ migration and refugee services.

The nonprofit organization has a federal contract to serve immigrants and refugees. In January of this year alone, CCS of Utah served 356 immigration clients, and managed 66 refugee foster care cases and 1,003 refugee resettlement cases. However, on Jan. 20 an executive order signed by President Donald Trump halted federal funding, which means that CCS lacks money “to provide the very basic services like housing, case management, employment and so forth” to those thousand individuals whom they had already committed to helping through the government contract, Batar said.

“The families and the individuals that we’re serving, they’re here,” he said. “The federal government brought them here to the United States.”

The largest group of recent refugees resettled by CCS came from Afghanistan and helped American troops during the conflict there by serving as interpreters or in other roles. CCS also is serving recent refugees from war-torn countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

All the CCS clients were given refugee status and special immigrant visas (SIV) issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

“Those individuals have the legal status that the federal government issued them,” Batar said.

The contract with the federal government calls for CCS to provide housing, utilities, groceries and other basics for three months while the refugees become self-sufficient.

CCS also helps unaccompanied refugee minors, who are placed in foster care homes. To these youth, CCS offers services such as medical care, mental health treatment, and education and job training.

For refugee and SIV families, CCS also provides case management, health screenings, helps enroll the children in school and other services.

Now, however, “the federal government is not reimbursing us for those activities,” Batar said.

According to the CCS 2024 annual report, government funding accounted for 53 percent of the organization’s revenue from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024; at the same time, migration and refugee services took 51 percent of the expenses. Basic needs programs such as the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall, the Weigand Homeless Resource Center and the Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank accounted for 41 percent of expenses. Administration took the remaining 8 percent.

CCS is committed to helping the refugee families that recently arrived, “so it’s really hard,” Batar said. “We’re a nonprofit organization; we don’t have the kind of resources to continue paying without getting any federal resources. It puts us in a dire situation.”

CCS of Utah is part of Catholic Charities USA. In response to the executive order freezing federal aid to nonprofit organizations, Catholic Charities USA President and CEO Kerry Alys Robinson issued a statement that read,

“Last year, 92 percent of the services provided by the 168 independent Catholic Charities agencies around the country covered basic needs – access to food, housing, health care and other necessities – for families and individuals struggling to get by. These vital services include food pantries for those who can’t afford groceries, childcare programs for low-income families, meal deliveries for homebound seniors, job training resources for veterans, temporary and permanent housing, mental health services and much more. The millions of Americans who rely on this life-giving support will suffer due to the unprecedented effort to freeze federal aid supporting these programs. The people who will lose access to crucial care are our neighbors and family members. They live in every corner of the country and represent all races, religions and political affiliations. For more than a century, the Catholic Charities network has worked with the government to care for poor and vulnerable people in every community in the U.S., and we continue to be eager to work with government to care for our neighbors in need. We strongly urge the administration to rethink this decision.”