The New York Immigration Coalition, in partnership with several community-based organizations, held an immigrant resource fair at the Queens Public Library Langston Hughes last week.
The May 10 resource fair was held to assist immigrants by bringing together in one place many of the resources they may need or could use.
Many of the resources available to immigrants at the event related to health access, education and public benefit enrollment, among others. There were also legal consultations available to members of the public. Immigration attorneys were on hand to try and answer questions from attendees about subjects like naturalization, DACA, green cards, public benefits, open immigration cases, legal representation needs, temporary protected status and more.
The legal consultation, provided by the New York Legal Assistance Group, was free to the public and available in multiple languages in order to make the discussions easier for the immigrants. Free food and family essentials were also provided at the event for those who attended.
According to New York Immigration Coalition Vice President of Policy and Programs Theodore Moore, the organization has been holding these “Key to the City” events for approximately 12 years. The events were originally organized because the organization recognized that many immigrants who come to New York City are in need of assistance in a variety of topics. While one would normally have to go all over the city to seek help in these areas, these resource fairs bring all of them together for immigrants to get help in what they need.
“Newcomer immigrants to the country may need housing assistance, they may need to enroll their children in education, they may need healthcare and all those various services,” Moore said. “Not only is [traveling all over the city for these resources] time-consuming, it’s taxing and costly if they’re taking public transportation. We thought what if we put all of these resources together in one place and do it in places that people know, like libraries, that are centrally located? We do multiple events every week all around the city. We’ve actually doubled as an organization the amount of events done since last year.”
Queens Public Library is a member of the New York Immigration Coalition. According to Assistant Director and Partnership Liaison for Queens Public Library’s New Americans Program (NAP) Fred Gitner, he reached out to the New York Immigration Coalition when he heard they were searching for venues in which they could reach out to the immigrant communities and migrant asylum seekers across Queens.
The first Key to the City event that the Queens Public Library hosted took place last month at the Central Library in Jamaica. Wednesday marked the second Key to the City event that the library has hosted.
“QPL is very proud to partner with NYIC for the Key to the City events which bring together many useful resources for newcomers in one place,” Gitner said. “One of NAP’s goals is to assist new immigrants in adapting to their life in a new country while helping them maintain ties to their culture. To this end we offer informational workshops in immigrant languages including computer classes, know your rights sessions and small business resource fairs in collaboration with community-based organizations and community partners serving immigrants. We also present music, dance and craft programs celebrating the many immigrant cultures represented in Queens.”
In addition to the New York Immigration Coalition, New York Legal Assistance Group and the Queens Public Library, another organization that funded this event was the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development. Additionally, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Councilman Francisco Moya provided funding.
Some of those represented by the booths set up at the event included Moya, the Queens Public Library, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Legal Assistance Group, Hunger Free NYC, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, the Qualitas of Life Foundation and the Libertas Center for Human Rights.
“When an immigrant arrives to this country, it’s very challenging for them to get involved in the banking system and credit history,” Helen Mueses of Qualitas of Life said. “They need to feel as though they have the financial tools to achieve their goals. We bring them that through our courses on personal finance and entrepreneurship. This [resource fair] is a great opportunity to bring a lot of services to the community.”
