Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
YMCA International Services’ depth of refugee neglect & contract-cheating revealed in new inspection report
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 27, 2011
The State Department finally released another inspection report of YMCA International Services, a Houston USCRI affiliate, three years after we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. I blogged about this case last June.
This report is from January 2008 and reports that YMCA International Services was “non-complaint” with most of the terms of its government refugee contract. That’s a nice way to say “contractual fraud” and “neglect and abuse of refugees”.
Here are some of the highlights of the report:
- All refugee homes inspected had significant roach and/or mice infestation.
- Refugees and YMCA expressed concern about safety of refugee apartment complexes. Refugee families at the Glendale Park Apartments complex reported that people were harassing them on their way to the supermarket and their children were getting into fights on the bus (being attacked?).
- YMCA did not give refugees ready-to-eat food upon arrival.
- Records were in complete disarray.
- Home visits to refugees were almost never documented.
- A Cuban refugee couple only had a bed with one small, thin blanket, a plastic folding table, and two folding chairs. The bed was extremely uncomfortable, if not unsafe, with protruding mattress springs. The family waited over 45 minutes at the airport for the YMCA case worker to arrive, who did not speak their language. YMCA did the housing and personal safety orientation using hand signals. The couple did not feel safe in the apartment complex. They had heard of local robberies and the police had come to their door warning them to.use caution in the parking lot. YMCA took 3½ months to give the family community and cultural orientation.
- Upon arrival YMCA gave an Iraqi refugee couple with a small child only one bed (no bed for the child) with one small, thin blanket, a plastic folding table, and two folding chairs. The bed was extremely uncomfortable, if not unsafe, with protruding mattress springs. The YMCA employee who picked them up at the airport did not speak their language. YMCA did the housing and personal safety orientation in English. The couple did not feel safe in the apartment complex as they had heard of local robberies and the police had come to their door warning them to
use caution in the parking lot. YMCA took 3½ months to give the family community and cultural orientation. There was no ready-to-eat food upon arrival. The family used money they brought from Iraq to buy food until they received their food stamps. Neighbors told them the apartment complex was “risky” and they wanted to move. The family received an electrical bill that began one month before they arrived, but YMCA told them they must pay it. No one from YMCA visited the family until three months after their arrival, and YMCA did not give them a community orientation so they did not even know how to use the bus system. - YMCA placed a Burmese refugee family that arrived in December in an apartment that had a large hole in a ground-floor bedroom window, and the management still had not repaired it two weeks later. The bed YMCA gave them was so uncomfortable that they slept on the floor. No one from YMCA spoke their language at the airport. YMCA did the housing and personal safety orientation in English and hand signals. It was two months before someone from YMCA visited them at home.
- YMCA placed a Burundian refugee couple in an apartment complex surrounded by barbed wire. The only furniture upon arrival was four plastic folding chairs and five beds. For their first two months the family ate their meals on the floor. They pulled couches from the trash. No one from YMCA spoke their language at the airport. YMCA did the housing and personal safety orientation using hand signals. The family needed clothes but YMCA did not offer to help them.
- YMCA caseworkers were enthusiastic! Yipeeee!
- The State Department monitors had to order YMCA to check all fiscal year 2007 refugee cases and compensate refugees for all missing money.
- YMCA fired the Refugee Program Director, Gabriel Gebray, yet allowed the agency’s Executive Director, Jeff Watkins, to keep his job. He apparently got off scott-free.
Here is a question: if an Executive Director of an organization claimed he had no idea how his refugee clients were being neglected, what does that tell you about his performance? Don’t Executive Directors ever look at the records or talk to refugee clients?
I know ignorance is bliss but is it an excuse to not be accountable?
Anonymous refugee said
Please make same investigation about Interfaith ministry because they had some of the same issues. Roach everywhere in the apartments over walls and in every drawer over spoons and forks… The mattresses extremely uncomfortable, switching between flipping the mattress different directions and sleeping on the floor. No blanket for days till questioning. Stranger refugees roommates in a studio or one bed room and when asking the caseworker said not allowed to change because we need to pay the rest of the rent. Bad bad bad orientation. Asking other refugees who arrived few days earlier to take us to bus stop and markets. They didn’t know what to do in the bus, how to pay or how to stop and where. Furniture was not enough. Didn’t help moving from one apartment to another when they were wrong and asked other refugee to do their job. Didn’t explain the lease for refugees before signing it and not even being with the refugee when doing that. The medical exams where to late and took long time even and lost the time should be finished in. The health case worker didn’t check, answer phone in emergence. Some refugee with health problems didn’t get their medicine because they should wait for months till the medicate. Interfaith didn’t try to find solutions. Refugee asked someone in interfaith where to go and what clinic. Didn’t have good English classes, didn’t give or really search for good job opportunities… ans many other issues.. I can keep writing here.
Need someone who can investigate this for real because no one listen to a refugee and they but us in “complainers” boxes
Volunteer said
I am so angry at our government for bringing the refugees into our country and basically dumping them. Houston agencies are handling more refugees than they can possibly assist. I am a volunteer for one of the agencies although I work as an advocate for all the refugees no matter what agency they arrive from.
The refugees do receive monetary assistance and job assistance for 4-6 mos. But they receive little help beyond a short orientation in dealing with everyday life matters. Our government provides the refugees with 8 wks of English lessons. What a joke! Except for the young refugees who received an education while in the IDP camps most of the adults have never been educated in their own country and language. Harris County provide medical coverage, but few of the refugees ever learn how to apply for it because they can’t read the instructions. Those that can read have difficulty finding the time to apply as they are constantly threatened with firing by the companies who hire them.
Agencies teach refugees one bus route and expect that they can now find their way to any place in Houston. The refugees don’t all have computers so how are they to become informed about routes and times. I couldn’t even find my way through Metros website. Thank goodness for Google. These refugees need much more help than the agencies are presently providing. I am just now learning that some refugees have ended up on the street as they have lost jobs, aren’t given assistance in job finding, and can’t pay their rent. Too many, once they are beyond their first 6 mos. receive little help from the agencies, even though the agencies are supposed to assist the refugees for 5 years. Refugees who have lost their jobs are told that they are low priority as the new refugees must be assisted. They are told they most find their own jobs as they are now “established” in the US. Again this is such a joke. Without English they still can’t fill out job forms, even though they now have some job experience. Applications today require computer knowledge, which many don’t have. Communication requires technical knowledge.
How do we expect refugees with little English to maneuver their way through computerized answering services? I speak English and often am not sure which category fits my need. If you’re lucky to select the correct category you’re often faced with 1 hr to 2 hr phone waits for an individual to answer at a Medicaid office. I know. I’ve done this for refugees! How are they supposed to wait when they are working. Our government needs to moniter these agencies to make certain they are performing, but they also have to give them enough funds to work with.
And the refugee above is correct. There are roach infested apartments. I have been in one and personally vacuumed up over a thousand roaches in one small kitchen and then sprayed the apartment when repeated requests to the apartment complex brought no results. Is this the apartments fault totally? No – not when refugees have not received any training in food care and storage. The water supply at some apartments also needs to be examined. Refugees should not have to buy bottled water because the water coming from their taps is discolored.
christophercoen said
Thanks for your comment. Its good to hear from local volunteers in Houston. You should document any deficiences in refugee resettlement services you see and call or write to the State Department’s Office of (Refugee) Admissions. Address it to Barbara Day, who is in charge of monitoring all the refugee resettlement agencies. They ask that you give your name and some way for them to contact you so that they have some way to verify the information. I think it will really help. How many refugees do you estimate have ended up homeless in Houston in recent years?
Also, when I help refugees sign up for benefits I take them to the government office. I foind it usually works faster going there than calling on the phone. They help people in the office first, and those calling second.
I can relate to everything you report. Refugee immigrants who are not educated have a tough time with applications, so the resettlement agency really must show them how to fill those application out (I think showing them how to fill out at least three applications each should be a minumum standard required by the State Dept. contracts with resettlement agencies for resettlement services.
Eight weeks of English is not enough. For refugees just learning English for the first time, it takes several years at least of classes before they gain any fluency. I think most become fluent only after something like 6-7 years of living here.
By the way, there are only certain resettlement services that are required for up to 5 yrs. — employment services and immigration assistance (green cards, bringing family over to join, etc.). These services are provided via HHS’s ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement). But, you have to figure out which local agency has the particular refugee services ORR contract in question. For example, sometimes just one local resettlement agency has the employment services contract, or sometimes it is some other nonprofit, or even a state or county agency that has the ORR contract.