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GREENSBORO — Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas halted its refugee arrivals to the Triad on Tuesday, citing economic conditions.

The announcement by the nonprofit, which has operated in the Triad since 1979, comes after a spate of problems in serving clients. “This is a financial decision driven by the current economic conditions,” stated an unsigned statement on the LFS Web site, “that have affected the program’s sustainability at this site.”

Neither the agency’s executive director, the Rev. Laura Benson, nor Chief Executive Officer Suzanne Gibson-Wise, could be reached for comment.

Existing refugee clients will be “transitioned” to other resettlement agencies in the Triad between now and June, the statement says. At that point, LFS refugee work in the Triad will cease and will be limited to Raleigh and Columbia, S.C.

“It’s going to be devastating,” Heather Scavoni, an immigration lawyer for LFS, said Tuesday. “Between Miami and here, the wealth of knowledge is concentrated in the Greensboro office.”

LFS, which contracts with the U.S. State Department to relocate refugees who are uprooted by war and political upheaval, is one of four resettlement agencies in the Triad.

The others remaining will be Church World Services, World Relief of High Point and N.C. African Services Coalition.

About one-third of all refugees coming to North Carolina come to the Triad, the state refugee coordinator has reported, because of the concentration of resettlement agencies here.

In the 1990s, LFS played the lead role in turning the city into what outside observers likened to a “little Ellis Island.”

But recently, a combination of staff turnover, scarce resources and a grim employment outlook for newcomers resulted in turmoil at the agency.

Last fall, the state refugee coordinator noted that a Burmese refugee and former LFS client who turned up at Greensboro Urban Ministry’s night shelter was the first reported homeless refugee in North Carolina.

That case was followed by months of upheaval for resettled Iraqis, whom LFS moved to apartments in the Hunters Glen complex off U.S. 29. There, some units had no heat, plumbing leaked and clients lacked proper clothing and follow-up services.

By last week, some Iraqis whom LFS resettled to Greensboro last summer had become so desperate for work that a few had signed on with a staffing company, Labor Solutions, to work at a poultry plant in Moorefield, W.Va., by arrangement with LFS.

The local agency’s director of employment services for refugees, Vicki Dithane, attended a meeting of Burmese refugees at the Kitchen Operations Center on Tuesday night but said LFS staff members themselves had not yet been informed of the announcement.

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com