(An affiliate of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society - HIAS)

If you or your relatives are immigrating to the San Francisco area as refugees, Jewish Family and Children's Services is available to provide excellent services to help you or your family get on your feet.

JFCS has been welcoming and assisting newcomer refugees for over 25 years, and has resettled over 10,000 individuals fleeing from the Former Soviet Union, Bosnia, Iran, Ethiopia, and other countries where persecution persists. Resettlement caseworkers working in San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, and the Peninsula are available to assist newcomers in their transition to a new country. Caseworkers speak a variety of languages, including Russian, French, Spanish, Hebrew, and Ukrainian in order to try to work with newcomers in their native languages.

JFCS provides a wide range of services to newcomer refugees to help them in their resettlement process, including:

• Financial assistance
• English language classes
• Bi-lingual case management, including regular meetings with families to help solve any problems and monitor progress
• Loans and/or grants for vocational and professional training
• Donations of furniture, household goods, and clothing
• Information and referral, including orientations about community and designated programs
• Bilingual individual and family counseling
• English tutoring and family-to-family volunteers
• Day care for children from 2 years 9 months to kindergarten age at designated programs for the first year
• Subsidized Jewish summer camp for children for their first two summers in the community
• Subsidized Jewish day school scholarships for the first 3 years in our community in cooperation with the Bureau of Jewish Education (subject to availability of scholarship spaces.)
• L'Chaim Senior Center, which provides social day care for frail Russian-speaking elderly.
• Legal immigration and advocacy assistance
• Green card processing
• Special services for elderly and disabled
• Citizenship-related services

JFCS will also work closely with the following agencies on behalf of newcomer refugees:

• Mt. Zion Hospital, which provides medical services, with Russian translation available.
• Jewish Community Center, which provides English classes for work-age and senior newcomers, Russian-language lectures, social and recreational programs, New Life, a monthly Russian Jewish newspaper, and after-school daycare programs for children up to age 12.
• Jewish Vocational Services, which provides a full range of employment services. JFCS also refers work-age and other interested newcomer refugees to Jewish Vocational Services, to help newcomers find the earliest possible employment. Please visit the Jewish Vocational Services site in order to learn more about the many services which it offers to newcomer refugees.

If you are interested in working with Jewish Family and Children's Services to help with your resettlement or the resettlement of someone you know, please contact Michael Graham at (415) 449-2900 or MichaelG@jfcs.org.

Jewish Family and Children's Services
2534 Judah Street
San Francisco, CA 94122.

We would be happy to help you or your family in their initial resettlement.