Emergency Housing Fund for Tukwila Refugees

We are a group of refugees from the refugee and migrant camp that was hosting hundreds of migrants and refugees living at Riverton Park United Methodist Church (RPUMC). While living there we were required to either live inside the church but the majority of us lived outside in approximately 100 tents on top of wooden flats in the mud, makeshift structures, or in their cars on the property of the church for up to 10 months.

After the extreme cold weather last week, we were moved into temporary hotel stays by the church and local government, and after only 5 days were required to leave the hotel by the City of Tukwila (the police were called requiring us to leave - which we complied due to not wanting our asylum cases impacted) - even after holding a press conference demanding that the government at the city, county, and state provide adequate housing due to the inhumane conditions at the Riverton Park encampment that we have experienced for the past year, and extreme neglect by the local government.

We have since created our own organization, Mãos Unidas Pela Solidariedade (Hands United in Solidarity), representing approximately 70 refugees primarily from Angola, Congo, and other areas of Africa. We developed to be able to use our own voices to share our own stories and organize for our own solutions.

As we continue organizing to appeal to the government to meet our demands for long-term housing, we are asking the community to support our efforts in providing temporary housing funds through donations towards hotel or stays in homes, so that we can focus on organizing instead of worrying about where we sleep each night.