Catholic Charities' Refugee Resettlement Program is scrambling to find homes, beds, furnishings and jobs for 450 refugees, majority of them Nepalese-speaking Bhutanese who were expelled from their home in Bhutan in the late 1990s. 

Last week, the agency's staff made several trips to Syracuse Hancock Airport to pick up 30 Bhutanese refugees who arrived over three days. About 20 more Bhutanese refugees are expected next week, and this weekend the agency was still trying to find apartments for them, said Kip Hargrave, director of the refugee program. 

In July and August, the agency resettled 200 refugees, mostly Bhutanese, said Felicia Castricone, executive director of North Side CYO, the Catholic Charities agency that runs the refugee program at 527 N. Salina St. Typically, the agency resettles 200 refugees a year. Last year, it received 380 refugees, she said.  

"It's very tight. We're getting apartments ready, but it's very, very busy," Castricone said. "We had to hire a new case manager and hired refugees to help set up apartments." 

The Bhutanese arethe latest wave of refugees coming to Central New York. The first Bhutanese refugee arrived in Syracuse in March. The rest – about 200 – will be coming in the next several weeks. 

These Bhutanese, who are mostly Hindus, are descendants of Nepalese agriculturalists who migrated in the 19th century to Bhutan, a landlocked nation in South Asia that is located in the middle of the Himalayan Mountains. 

Bhutan granted them citizenship in 1958, but the Bhutanese government revoked their citizenship in the early 1990s and called them "Lhotsampas" or illegal immigrants. During the 1990s, more than 100,000 fled to refugee camps in eastern Nepal, where they've lived in limbo for up to 17 years. 

This year, the United States agreed to resettle 60,000 Bhutanese refugees. 

Hari Adhikari, 47, was one of the leaders in the refugee camps who advocated for the refugees to be repatriated to Bhutan. When that effort failed, he pushed for them to be resettled in the United States. 

Adhikari arrived in Syracuse seven months ago, and now resettles many of the people he helped find food, shelter, access health care and education in the refugee camps.