The 30-year-old Iranian refugee was living in Las Vegas, working at the MGM Grand Casino and attempting to forget about the almost seven years she spent detained on Nauru after her attempt to arrive in Australia by boat from Indonesia was thwarted.

Jobs are bountiful in Las Vegas, where mega-sized casinos line the strip and are open 24 hours a day.

But the unthinkable happened last week when the coronavirus pandemic shut the city down until at least April 16.

More than 200,000 hospitality workers, including Ms Mohammadi who was working as a cashier at the MGM food court, were instantly out of work.

"It is terrible," Ms Mohammadi, who does not have friends or family in the US, told AAP on Sunday.

"I don't know what I am going to do. I have no money."

Ms Mohammadi was one of the estimated 700 people held at Australia's offshore detention centres on Nauru or Papua New Guinea's Manus Island who were transferred to the US under a resettlement deal hatched between the Australian and US governments.

Ads-Up, an Australian-run group supporting the refugees in North America, said the refugees are among the hardest hit in the US as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities shut down.

Ms Mohammadi does not have $US500 to pay rent for her shared apartment and fears she will soon be homeless.

"Most of the refugees are living pay cheque-to-pay cheque in low-pay service or hospitality jobs, and many of them have pre-existing health conditions which have been exacerbated by their time in detention, so they're really on the front lines of this crisis," Ads-Up co-founder Ben Winsor told AAP.

"Over the past week, we've spoken with about a dozen refugees who've lost their jobs and will have trouble paying rent and providing for their families."

Ads-Up has set up a GoFund Me page to raise money to distribute to the refugees.

Australian Associated Press