From KERA:
On any given week, Ben Demers can be found hauling furniture up a staircase, assembling beds and tables or shopping for sheets and other household items at the nearest big box store.
Demers and a colleague recently he set up a Dallas apartment that will house a family of Afghan refugees who are new arrivals to the U.S. More families are scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks.
“This month is crazy,” he said. “The next couple of weeks, we’ll have maybe two setups a day. I think this week we have five setups — so one a day.”
Demers is a resource coordinator for World Relief North Texas, one of several resettlement agencies charged with securing housing for refugees, helping them find jobs and ensuring children are enrolled in school.
After four decades in Fort Worth, the agency has opened an office in Dallas to meet the growing needs of the refugee community. This fiscal year, the agency expects to resettle a total of 450 refugees, about 80 of those individuals will be housed in Dallas.