This site reports on a multi-year study on refugee resettlement in small and mid-size cities across the US. Originally funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF Award#1359895), our project began by looking to answer three questions:

1) Why are refugees being placed increasingly in small to mid-size cities (rather than the traditional gateway cities) in the US? What are their patterns of settlement?
2) What are the impacts on refugees of being placed in these locations? What are their outcomes when it comes to jobs, education, housing, transportation, healthcare, and civic engagement?
3) What are the impacts of refugees on these new host communities?

Looking down North St with a mural on the side of the Mawuhi African Market in Burlington’s Old North End. The mural is of an akwaaba, a symbol of welcome in Ghana and West African culture.

Through a series of different qualitative methods — interviews with key stakeholders, surveys with refugees on their aspirations and their outcomes, workshops and focus groups with new and older residents alike, and a variety of mapping exercises — we have worked to answer these questions to hopefully strengthen and improve refugee resettlement across the country.

Since 2019, the original project has expanded to look at other aspects of refugee resettlement, not only in the US and in rural contexts but across the globe. Other components of the project have focused on food access, environmental displacement, housing, employment, transportation, and cultural production within resettled communities.