Posted by Christopher Coen on January 27, 2012
Many refugee resettlement agencies nationwide have resorted to assisting in sending refugees off to distant locations, including to other states, to find employment with meatpacking companies, dairies, etc. The employment rate for Idaho’s employable refugees dropped to only 55 percent in 2009. Jan Reeves, who heads the Idaho Office for Refugees, says his office looked farther afield to find jobs for refugees. (Of course finding far-flung jobs, such as at a dairy in Boardman, Ore., does not come without risks. A refugee died in an auto-accident trying to drive to Boardman in 2010.) The employment rate has moved back up to more than 70 percent. An article in Idaho’s State Impact has more:
In the last few years, more than four thousand refugees have found their way to Idaho. They’ve come from Africa, and from East and South Asia. Most came to Boise. For years, the city’s strong economy, good quality affordable housing and supportive community created an especially favorable environment for refugee resettlement. Now, the recession has shifted that picture.
Most days, Nowela Virginie and her two young daughters are here, in her small apartment just off a busy thoroughfare on the outskirts of Boise.
Virginie is 23, and she arrived in Boise three years ago. She was born in Rwanda, but spent sixteen years of her life in a refugee camp in Tanzania…
…“You know, new country is supposed to be hard,” she says. “New language, everything is new…if you don’t speak any English, is so hard – really hard.”…
…Marcia Munden is a social worker with Catholic Charities of Idaho. She says Virginie is one of many refugees living in Boise who have found themselves stuck. “Three years ago we were just seeing a few extreme cases of refugees that had consistent difficulty with integration,” she says. “And then it really happened very suddenly where there were 50, 60, 100 families really struggling.”…
…The recession has complicated the hard task of refugee resettlement nationwide. But the shift is especially stark in Boise…
…Now, Boise is one of the places where the IRC has reduced the number of refugees it aims to resettle each year, cutting back by about a third. In addition, they and other local agencies that help refugees find work have adopted new strategies. Jan Reeves heads the Idaho Office for Refugees. “We’ve looked at other ways of opening doors that we’ve never had to look at before,” he says.
For example, Reeves says, they’ve looked farther afield, finding jobs for a number of refugees at a dairy in Boardman, Ore. The efforts appear to be paying off. Before the recession, in 2005, 95 percent of the office’s employable caseload found work. That dropped to 55 percent in 2009. It has since gone back up to more than 70 percent… Read more here
By the way, Jan Reeves is another person that came into government via the revolving door. Previously, he was the Director of the Mountain States Refugee Resettlement Program, and then Director of the Mountain States Refugee Center.
Posted in economic self-sufficiency, employment/jobs for refugees, Idaho, IRC, meatpacking industry, revolving door, Rwandan, safety | Tagged: Boardman, employment, Idaho, International Rescue Committee, IRC, Jan Reeves, refugees, resettlement, Threemile Canyon Farms | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 26, 2012
This topic seems to fall under the “Do not do” section of the best practices category. According to the State Department resettlement contracts, resettlement contractors are not to place incoming refugee cases in temporary housing, rather they should place refugees in their own permanent housing, e.g. an apartment rental, upon their arrival. Nevertheless, some contractors do this despite the requirement (I understand that once in a while refugees arrive in the US on short notice from the State Department, but what other excuse contractors are using for use of temporary housing I am not aware of). According to a July 2009 monitoring inspection, World Relief Aurora – an affiliate of World Relief in Aurora, Illinois – is one of the contractors that government inspectors found which have failed to place refugees into their own housing upon arrival. In this case, the agency placed refugees into the homes of unrelated refugee host families.
Monitors visited four refugee families and found that none of the adults were working yet, even though they were eager to work — one family had been in Aurora for four months, and another refugee man three months earlier. In addition, none of the refugees had received an initial health screening, which the Operational Guidance contract document requires be done within 30 days of their arrival. With regard to the housing:
…All of the refugees that monitors visited except [an] Iraqi family had been placed with unrelated refugee host families for a few days when they first arrived until they could sign leases for their own apartments. No form of written agreement showed what the host families had agreed to provide or for what period. The affiliate assured monitors that they provide bedding and other supplies, and that families usually volunteered. The Burmese Chin refugee told monitors that his bed and other items belonged to a previous tenant who had moved away. A case note in his file also revealed that the affiliate had asked the refugee to pay a previous tenant’s rent share for a period before the refugee moved in. The young Karenni refugee did not understand what furnishings were his to keep if he moved out… Read report here
Here is a snippet from a February 2010 posting which shows World Relief has long-placed refugees into non-permanent housing upon arrival.
… [a] Burundian refugee woman in Boise should not have lived with church members after initially arriving in Boise. The State Department’s Admissions Office has repeatedly warned (here, here and here) World Relief affiliates that this is a prohibited practice…
Posted in best practices, Chicago, Cooperative Agreement, faith-based, housing, Karenni, late health screenings, Operational Guidance, World Relief | Tagged: best practices, Cooperative Agreement, inspection, monitoring, refugees, Relief Aurora, resettlement, World | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 25, 2012
A New Hampshire man drove a 20-pound rock through the window of an Iraqi restaurant in downtown Lowell, Mass. owned and run by Iraqi refugees. The owner of the restaurant is an Iraqi refugee who was an influential Iraqi television journalist targeted for violence for “telling the truth’’ about Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. A veterans group joined by Lowell Mayor Patrick Murphy held a show of support in front of the restaurant as they took turns sitting down inside to eat meals. An article in the Lowell Sun covers the story:
LOWELL — An area veterans group pledged to fill every seat in Babylon, a downtown Iraqi restaurant where owners feared hatred drove a man to throw a 20-pound rock through a window last Wednesday.
Instead, those veterans filled every seat twice.
Lowell police said they identified the man who threw the stone, and that he confessed…
…The suspect, a New Hampshire man who will not be identified until he is arraigned, will be summonsed…
…to court to face a charge of breaking glass in a building, a misdemeanor.
Patrick Scanlon, a Vietnam veteran and coordinator of Veterans for Peace who organized the show of support, voiced skepticism that hate wasn’t involved, but said it was nonetheless important to show support for the family that had been hit hard by fear.
Scanlon was joined at 25 Merrimack St. by veterans of the Iraq war, such as former Army Sgt. Rachel McNeill, of Allston, who served from 2002 to 2010 and spent a year in Iraq serving on a gun truck that escorted convoys, and Chris Borden, of Chelmsford, who continues to serve in the Army Reserves after deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan…
…The veterans, joined by the likes of Lowell Mayor Patrick Murphy, held flags and signs in front of the restaurant as they took turns sitting down inside to eat meals.
Owner Leyla Al-Zubaydi and her father Ahmed Al-Zubaidi said their family was terrified the vandalism was fueled by hate… Read more here
A Boston Globe article gives details about the Iraqi refugees who own the restaurant:
LOWELL – Coming home from work one night, Ahmad Al Zubaidi was attacked by seven men in dark clothing. They savagely beat the influential Iraqi television journalist and left him for dead on the streets of Uzbekistan.
Targeted for “telling the truth’’ about Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the Iraq native spent a month in a hospital recovering. The message was unmistakable: Leave or be killed.
Eight years later, half a world away, the 57-year-old recounts the tale in the colorful confines of Babylon Restaurant, his six-month-old establishment in downtown Lowell… Read more here
Posted in hate crimes, International Institute of Lowell, Iraqi, Lowell | Tagged: hate crime, Iraqi, Lowell, refugees, resettlement, veterans | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 24, 2012
Today the State Department’s PRM Bureau had a live chat session on their Facebook page with Acting Assistant Secretary David Robinson. This was my question:
Christopher Coen’s question: Why are Office of Admissions’ inspections of refugee resettlement contractors not unannounced, and why are there no penalties for the contractors’ failure to meet Cooperative Agreement contract requirements?
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration: PRM announces visits up to two weeks in advance, and home visits two days in advance. Just so you know, PRM requires corrective actions that correspond with the level of non-compliance. This could include stopping placement of refugees through a particular contractor. In fact, this year, monitoring findings factored into the Cooperative Agreement awards. In general, we view our auditing and monitoring and evaluation programs as cooperative tools to correct mistakes and respond to inadequacies. In the rare instances we find faults too serious to fix, we take immediate action, including the possible removal of an organization from our work.
Don’t unannounced inspections reveal how a place really operates? Announced inspections allow the refugee resettlement contractors to make preparations (clean things up?). If you read through some of the State Department monitoring reports you will see that the contractors’ refugee case notes (part of the record that the monitors use to test the contractors’ quality of services) often do not correspond to the services and material items that the refugees say that the agencies gave them. The case notes also sometimes do not conform to what the monitors find in other parts of the records, and in their interviews with a small sample of refugees (3-4 refugee cases). Announced inspections allow for altering of the records (monitoring reports show the use of white-out liquid, and pro forma individual refugee self-sufficiency plans). Computerized case management notes can make the possible alteration of records difficult to detect.
The other problem is how rare these inspections are – once in ten years or more, according to the results of our monitoring reports FOIA requests (once in five according to a senior State Department official I spoke with in 2010 who refused to speak for attribution).
It’s good to see that State Department monitoring findings are finally being factored into the Cooperative Agreement awards (the State Department’s non-competitive grants to the private resettlement contractors), yet how are they being factored in? Why are their no penalties for non-compliance with contract requirements other than the rarely used temporary suspension or removal of an “affiliate” — a subcontractor — resettlement agency?
A friend of our group asked the following question:
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration: I want to repost and answer Cevon Anderson’s earlier question.
Have you performed any financial audits of the numerous resettlement agencies you have found to be not in compliance with State Department cooperative agreement requirements?
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration: Thanks for your question, Cevon. As government officials and taxpayers, we believe strongly that we must be good stewards of our tax dollars. We regularly monitor programs, and our cooperative agreements require quarterly financial status reports and a final financial report be submitted to the Bureau’s Office of the Comptroller. In addition, recipients of our financing must have an appropriate audit performed by independent public accountants in accordance with U.S. Government Auditing standards. That audit must include confirmation that the reported quarterly charges were actually incurred in the amounts and during the periods specified and that the reported charges were not based on average costs, estimates, or predetermined fees.
U.S. Department of State: Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration: Finally, we implement an aggressive monitoring and evaluation program throughout the year, visiting dozens of resettlement sites around the country and our facilities overseas to assure compliance with our standards, rules and regulations.
Yet, when State Department monitors primarily rely on contractors’ own written records as proof of compliance with basic requirements of the State Department contracts (services to refugees), aren’t those records the basis that the audits rest upon? These resettlement contractors’ records are also sometimes left incomplete.
It’s also hard for me to think of these monitoring inspections as “aggressive” when they are so rare, and there are no penalties for non-compliance (again, other than the very rare suspension or termination of a refugee resettlement contractor). How does the State Department “assure compliance with…standards, rules and regulations” when these once-in-5-to-10 years-or-more-inspections show that the contractors quite regularly are not even complying with the “minimum” standards of the contracts? Other federal government agencies make contractors give back contract money when there is proof of lack of contract compliance. Isn’t that the minimum we should expect? Why would private resettlement contractors have any incentive to prevent continuing and future problems in their services when there are no teeth in the government oversight? That just seems like management 101 to me.
Posted in State Department, Cooperative Agreement, funding, Assistant Secretary of the PRM, neglect, public/private partnership, openess and transparency in government | Tagged: assistant secretary, Cooperative Agreement, David Robinson, government contractors, government contrcats, Population Refugees and Migration, PRM, public/private partnership, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 23, 2012
In New Haven three refugee cases, including a family of eleven, were displaced after their apartments were condemned due to broken pipes and black mold contamination. The city housing inspector said his office previously cited the landlord for violations at other properties. An article in the New Haven Independent explains the situation:
When kids living in a Nash Street house kept showing up at the hospital with respiratory problems, city housing inspector Rafael Ramos went to their home and found black mold covered the bedroom walls of an apartment holding 11 Congolese refugees.
Ramos condemned 17 Nash St.‘s first floor on Dec. 22. The family has since been living in a hotel—at the Nash Street landlord’s expense—until they can find another place to live.
This month, Ramos returned and condemned the second floor, removing two other refugees who were living there, after pipes burst on the third floor…
…“In the seven years I’ve been doing this, this has been our most serious problem,” said Chris George, the head of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS). That organization helped settle the Congolese family in New Haven when it first arrived more than two years ago…
…Now IRIS is reconsidering some of its policies, looking to see if the period of supervision of new refugees should be extended to ensure the safety and success of settlements. And the city is looking to work more closely with IRIS to insure that other newcomers to the United States don’t end up in similar straits…
…The property slipped through the cracks of the city’s Residential Licensing Program. That program is designed to ensure that the city safeguards the living conditions of all renters, even if—like some new immigrants—they don’t speak English well or otherwise aren’t equipped to complain about their situation…
…George said he heard about the problems from neighbors. “I visited the family a couple of times. I met with them in the backyard to go over the problems. I never went into the house. I realize now that was a mistake.”…
…on Dec. 22, Ramos got a call from a medical anthropologist working at the Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, who said he had visited 17 Nash St. after kids living there kept showing up at the hospital with respiratory problems.
Ramos visited the house and went into the bedrooms he hadn’t visited earlier. He took pictures of what he found there: Black mold covering the walls, right next to beds where children slept.
Somehow moisture was entering the home through the walls, seeping in and warming up, making it an ideal environment for mold growth. Airborne mold spores were then making the children sick. Ramos immediately condemned the first floor…
…LCI returned earlier this month after pipes burst in the third floor. The furnace apparently broke, lowering temperatures and bursting pipes, Ramos said. LCI removed two single men—also refugees—living on the second floor.
Ramos said LCI has previously cited the [landlord] for violations at other properties. He said what happened at 17 Nash St. is a perfect example of why the residential licensing program is important. “This family didn’t know that they could complain without retribution. They didn’t know we have ordinances in place to protect their health and safety.”… Read more here
Posted in children, Congolese, housing, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), New Haven, safety | Tagged: Chris George, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services, IRIS, New haven, refugees, resettlement, slum lord, slumlord | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 22, 2012
Oh gosh. World Relief, in my opinion one of the public’s most intransigent and problem-plagued refugee resettlement contractors, continues to spread itself out (problems including refusing to hire an interpreter because he was Muslim, partner church staff and members moving into apartment complexes with refugees to “foster deeper relationships”, alienating other partner churches and having refugee clients work without pay, and placing new refugees in other refugee clients’ homes without agreements.) The group will soon open a new office in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and may begin resettling its first group of refugees in February. A reader-submitted announcement about the office opening is found at The Oshkosh Northwestern:
International humanitarian agency World Relief will open an office in Oshkosh this month. With approval and funding from the U.S. Department of State, World Relief has selected the Fox Cities as a Wisconsin base for a nationwide program of refugee resettlement and support.
Longtime Oshkosh resident Norm Leatherwood will direct this office and UW Oshkosh Human Services graduate Sarah Kurer will serve as a case-worker and Resettlement and Placement Program coordinator…
…As an agency partner with the U.S. Department of State for the past 30 years, World Relief has assisted more than 200,000 victims of persecution resettle as legal immigrants in the United States…
…While details are still being finalized, the first group of refugees could move to Oshkosh by the middle of February… Read more here
Posted in churches, evangelical, faith-based, Oshkosh, World Relief | Tagged: Oshkosh, refugees, resettlement, World Relief | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 22, 2012
Slumlords in the Twin Cities continue their wicked ways, with refugees and other immigrants making an easy target. A landlord in St. Paul allegedly used threats in an attempt to silence tenants — who now fear imminent eviction. An article in the Pioneer Press explains what’s happening:
For years, residents of Westminster Court in St. Paul have complained about rodents, bugs and dilapidated conditions at their apartment complex.
During a recent inspection, city officials recorded some 600 code violations at the 1205 and 1225 Westminster St., near Maryland Avenue and Interstate 35E.
Now, residents are walking a tightrope as they beg city officials for help. They just want their homes fixed, tenants say. But if problems persist, they fear the [apartments] could be ordered vacated.
“If they closed [them] down, that would make us homeless,” said tenant Joe Parker.
[It has] become something of a Catch-22 for the St. Paul City Council and other city officials, who are eager to clamp down on the problem properties without unduly punishing the tenants, most of whom are low-income immigrants or ethnic minorities with children.
Tenants say they’ve been paying market rent to put up with failing heating systems, bedbugs, rodents, damaged walls, doors with no locks, piling garbage, mold, poor sanitation and illegally overcrowded apartments.
A Nov. 21 city fire inspection on a handful of units found 48 code violations, ranging from missing floor tiles to extension cords used in lieu of permanent electrical wiring. Those items later were found to be the tip of the iceberg…
…Several apartments were “condemned as unfit for human habitation,” mostly as a result of bedbug infestations
Both are in foreclosure, and city officials say the listed owners – Randall T. Chun and Peggy J. Chun of St. Paul, Mark and Lisa Marie Thomas of Woodbury, and Pelimar Properties of Grand Avenue in St. Paul – have been uncooperative and unresponsive…
…Several tenants said they were notified through an intermediary, a handyman they know only as Roberto, that if they spoke to the city, they would be removed from the [apartments] or referred to immigration authorities.
Resident Halima Eidl, who recalled such threats, said she and other tenants also received a letter from Peggy Chun telling them they would be fined $50 late fees if they stopped paying rent, as several have in reaction to the conditions.
“This money, I don’t want to give it to her. These are human beings,” said Eidl, who said most of her neighbors are Mexican or Somali immigrants. “She’s taking advantage of the people….Last weekend, when I was cooking with my kids, my oven blew up.”… Read more here
Posted in housing, Somali, Twin Cities | Tagged: refugees, resettlement, slum lord, slumlord, Somali, st paul | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 21, 2012
Refugees with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) need specialized and competent care at mental health centers to get back on their feet (why the federal refugee resettlement program doesn’t mandate mental health screening for refugees makes little sense to me). A specialist at a center in Kent, in Washington state, has found that focusing on a patient’s physical symptoms is useful in helping refugee clients. An article at KUOW tells the story of an Iraqi refugee struggling to survive with PTSD (he didn’t get a proper referral until he tried to jump off a roof):
The Kuba family lives in a small ground–floor apartment in Kent…
…But there’s a lot more space here than they had a few weeks ago, when they were living in their car.
Amer Kuba: “I leave my home. And all my stuff in the street cause I don’t have money for truck.”
This is Amer Kuba. He is a refugee from Iraq. At his first apartment, rent was $735. But he only got $560 in refugee cash assistance. It caught up with him, and he was evicted.
Kuba: “I take just my clothes and I sleep in my car almost three month. I drive in night, and my family sleep in car.”
…Amer, his pregnant wife and their young son came to Seattle in April 2010.
Amer says he didn’t leave the house for the first six months. He was afraid al–Qaida would find him here.
Kuba: “And I have psychological problem. And I can’t speak with anybody and confuse all the time and I still inside my house, I don’t go outside because I afraid.”…
…Beth Farmer runs the International Counseling Service, a community mental health center. Almost all of her clientele are refugees from Africa, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East.
Farmer: “If you are already having post–traumatic stress disorder symptoms, you are really poised to fall through the cracks.”
That’s because there is no standardized way to make sure refugees with severe mental health problems are funneled into treatment as soon as they arrive.
Amer didn’t get sent to Beth’s clinic until he attempted suicide. He tried to jump off the roof of the Department of Social and Health Services building in Downtown Seattle.
Overall, Beth says refugees are 10 times more likely to have PTSD than the general population. But it can be hard to get patients like Amer into treatment.
Many refugees with PTSD share his fear of going outside. And that’s only amplified by how hard it can be to find your way around a new city, especially if you don’t have a car or speak the language.
Even the idea of mental health treatment can be scary.
Farmer: “For a long time, people didn’t think that they could address mental health issues because the stigma in the refugee community was so high.”
Getting counseling or psychiatric treatment might be seen as selfish or wimpy, or even dangerous. For some refugees, mental hospitals are a place where political dissidents are sent.
Beth has found that focusing on physical symptoms gets the best results. She starts by asking a patient how they’re sleeping… Read more here
Posted in Iraqi, Kent, PTSD | Tagged: Iraqi, Post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 20, 2012
Last May we read news reports in the Milwakee media that Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan had placed Burmese refugees in an apartment building overflowing with code violations, roaches, leaking sewage, and owned and operated by a known felon involved in child-porn. A local reporter tried to get some answers from the State Department about their contractor, but answers were not forthcoming.
Now, based on a State Department monitoring report of USCRI’s International Institute of Wisconsin (IIW), it appears that agency was violating almost every State Department contract requirement. Monitors visited the usual small sample (too small?) of three refugee cases and found serious failure of the agency in providing minimal contract-requirements in all three cases. Problems ranged from lack of orientation or assistance of any type for a refugee family to refugees in substandard housing.
…[A] Burmese family of four lived in an apartment complex…The apartment visited had a smoke detector that did not work; the bathroom had missing ceiling tiles with pipes exposed, mold around the chalk in the bathtub, and evidence of water leakage; there were exposed wires in the hallway; paint was dirty with holes and nails on the wall…
They told monitors they did not receive any orientation from the agency. The caseworker told monitors that orientation was provided but that he had relied on the 17-year-old daughter for translation…This was not documented in the case file…
…[A] single Burmese Karen woman lived in a room in an apartment shared with a Burmese married couple…Her bedroom door did not have a doorknob or lock. She used a bookcase/dresser to block the door at night. The bathroom had a leaky ceiling. There were two broken windows in the living room and in the kitchen. She reported mice infestation in the apartment, and monitors observed mouse droppings in the kitchen pantry… Read more here
By the way, minors should never be used as interpreters.
Posted in State Department, Burma/Myanmar, Cuban, community/cultural orientation, housing, substandard, pocket-money, dangerous neighborhoods, late health screenings, housing, cultural/community orientation, post arrival, teenagers, rats and roaches, language, home visits, Milwaukee, International Institute of Wisconsin | Tagged: Milwaukee, refugees, resettlement, substandard housing, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 19, 2012
A pair of enterprising immigrant medical professionals in Minnesota are showing that with a bit of help refugee medical professionals can get back into their professions. An article in the Minnesota Post details the story:
…They have treated patients in some of the world’s toughest places: Pakistan’s earthquake-stricken mountains, Burma’s embattled neighborhoods and crowded camps where Bhutanese families sought refuge.
What hundreds of these doctors and nurses haven’t been able to do is treat anyone in Minnesota where barriers to foreign-trained medical workers are formidable.
Now, they are surmounting those barriers — and, in the process, filling serious gaps in Minnesota’s health care delivery — thanks to Dr. Wilhelmina Holder and Stephen Nguyagwa.
From scratch, Holder and Nguyagwa built a ground-breaking system for supporting foreign-trained doctors and nurses in their struggle to win the credentials they need to practice in Minnesota…
Their leadership rose from deeply disappointing personal experience…
…Holder, 64, was a medical doctor whose career was shattered by civil war in her homeland, Liberia, where her father had been the president. Like millions of other refugees, she found herself absorbed for years in the distractions of settling in a new land and caring for the needs of a displaced family. By the time she was free to resume her practice, doors had closed to her in Minnesota, even though she had updated her skills.
“To my amazement, I realized I never would get into residency,” Holder said.
Instead, she channeled her energy into helping others overcome the same obstacles. She knew doctors who were working as taxi drivers and parking-lot attendants even while their communities cried for their professional services…
…Of some 250 medical professionals who have participated in the association’s program, only about 20 doctors have stepped up to residency programs so far, Nguyagwa said. About 20 nurses have gone all of the way to nursing jobs, he said. A few dentists, pharmacists and professionals in other medical specialties also have gone through the program and landed jobs…
…All three Somali doctors who went through the program last year won residency slots. So prospects are bright for this year’s class… Read more here
Posted in Burma/Myanmar, Cuban, economic self-sufficiency, employment/jobs for refugees, health, Minnesota, Nepali Bhutanese, professionals, Somali | Tagged: African & American Friendship Association for Cooperation & Development, medical professionals, refugees, resettlement, Stephen Nguyagwa., Wilhelmina Holder | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
Many refugee resettlement agencies nationwide have resorted to assisting in sending refugees off to distant locations, including to other states, to find employment with meatpacking companies, dairies, etc. The employment rate for Idaho’s employable refugees dropped to only 55 percent in 2009. Jan Reeves, who heads the Idaho Office for Refugees, says his office looked farther afield to find jobs for refugees. (Of course finding far-flung jobs, such as at a dairy in Boardman, Ore., does not come without risks. A refugee died in an auto-accident trying to drive to Boardman in 2010.) The employment rate has moved back up to more than 70 percent. An article in Idaho’s State Impact has more:
