Our History

Homes Not Borders (HNB) is a client-first, grassroots organization that delivers goods and services matched to the needs of the refugee community in the Washington, D.C., area. HNB started as part of National Community Church’s Refugee Care Ministry in 2017, connecting with local resettlement agencies (RAs) to determine how the ministry could help. Those agencies secure the initial housing for refugees, and the church volunteer team goes above and beyond the minimum State Department requirements to set up apartments and provide vital supplies such as furniture, housewares, decorative items, backpacks and toys for kids to make their new home more welcoming.

In 2019, volunteer Laura Osuri took her experience founding and operating the award-winning Street Sense media nonprofit and registered HNB as a 501c(3). That first year, HNB set up 87 homes for 278 refugee clients. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the State Department paused its refugee-resettlement program. But HNB continued our work, providing newcomers with the items they most needed in the face of the pandemic, from Chromebooks to cleaning supplies to career mentoring. In 2020, HNB completed 42 home setups and provided goods and assistance for 32 refugee families.

A turning point came in August 2021 when Kabul fell to the Taliban, dramatically increasing the demand for HNB’s services. The number of monthly home setups increased from six to 30, prompting HNB to scale its operations rapidly. Within six months, we hired two full-time and three part-time staff, including three people with lived experience as former refugees. We purchased a truck and doubled our warehouse space. Concomitantly HNB experienced a surge of donations from concerned individuals, corporations and foundations. Our average monthly revenue jumped from $10,000 in the first half of 2021 to $170,000 in the last five months of the year.

From 2022 through 2024, HNB served more than 5,000 people through four programs, and added a fee-for-service income stream from the RAs. During this time, we received awards and commendations for our work from U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, LIRS (now Global Refuge), and State Farm Insurance Foundation.

In January 2025, HNB stepped in to fill critical gaps left by the federal government's freeze on refugee resettlement funding leaving hundreds of area refugees without promised case management and rental assistance. HNB quickly raised over $100,000 to provide emergency case management and rent relief from January until May 2025. In April 2025, HNB unveiled a new program, Newcomers to Neighbors, to help refugees already in the country transition into life in the U.S. We piloted the program in the spring and will continue the program as long as there are newcomers coming in.

HNB is presently pivoting again in response to the federal government’s withdrawal of SNAP benefits for refugees and halting of issuing any new visas for refugees or SIVs. We are turning our attention to serving those who are already here with programming in food delivery, workforce development, and storytelling.