More than two dozen immigrant-owned-and-operated residential care businesses in Maine have launched a coalition to raise awareness about their work in the state’s highly needed industry, at a time when some public officials are worried about fraud.

In an impact report shared by the group on Wednesday, the coalition said its members are providing “some of the most highly regulated and closely monitored support services in Maine.”

There are 30 agencies that make up the new Maine Immigrant Business Coalition. According to the report, two-thirds of them have provided care to more than 400 people with intellectual disabilities who qualify for Medicaid waivers. Most residents require at least two staff members per shift, covering 24 hours a day.

“We started seeing the importance of the need for having this coalition when we started seeing some biased narratives, painting everyone in this field with a broad brush,” said Landry Kwizera, the coalition’s president. “We need to defend the profession that we love, and the love we have for our jobs and the people we support.”

Rooted in Care, Growing in Maine June 2026 by emilycovering

There are more than 100 organizations across Maine that provide specialized care and support to people with intellectual disabilities and autism, according to the coalition’s report. The members represent about a quarter of those providers.

The report highlights several state rules and regulations that require these agencies to reauthorize their services every two to three months, provide records of care, and to seek state approval for staffing levels based on each resident and their needs.

Kwizera, a psychiatric nurse and chief financial officer of Golden Group Home Services, said the coalition came together this year to confront growing behavioral and residential care needs in Maine, and to raise awareness for the immigrants working these jobs.

The state has also seen increased arrests and detentions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Several of those arrested this year have included asylum seekers who are legally authorized to work in the country while waiting for their immigration court dates, including at least one woman in January who was on her way to work at an assisted-living facility, and at least two certified nursing assistants.

Kwizera said he has heard of workers also being harassed in immigrant-run group homes and others who are scared of going into work. He said clients risk missing medication and important medical appointments as a result.

“If nothing changes, at least we can educate,” Kwizera said. “People need to know what we do — we don’t need medals, we don’t need to gain anything. But the stigma that’s been placed on immigrants while working in group homes … they are not there to take advantage of clients. If anything, they’re changing lives.”

Kwizera came to the United States from Rwanda in 2011. He said he is a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

While he was a nursing student at the University of Southern Maine, Kwizera said he started working as a direct support professional in group homes because the shifts lined up well with his class and family schedules.

He helped residents with varying needs in all kinds of daily tasks — waking them up and bringing them to appointments, reminding them to take their medication and ensuring they’re keeping up with personal hygiene.

When he graduated, his clinical rotation was at Spring Harbor, a behavioral health hospital in Westbrook. He remembered recognizing some of the patients from his previous work.

“I was seeing them at their worst,” Kwizera said. “I knew how to talk to them, even when they had come in and were in crisis.”

His experience getting into residential care, and opening an agency, mirrors that of other coalition members.

“Many agency owners began our careers as direct service workers ourselves: certified nursing assistants, personal support specialists, and home health aides,” according to the coalition’s impact report. “Recognizing an unmet need and sensing the opportunity to build something lasting, we pursued licensure, established businesses, hired within the community, and created agencies that reflect both Maine’s needs and our own heritage of care.”

As of March, DHHS reported more than 2,500 people with intellectual disabilities were on a waitlist for residential care.