Archive for the ‘funding’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 5, 2012
The mayor of Lynn, MA is putting out alerts about the fiscal pressure experienced by schools in her city, apparently due to refugee secondary migration. Secondary migration is refugees leaving the city they were initially settled in and, under their own volition, going elsewhere due to a whole number of reasons, e.g. to be near friends and relatives, to find a place that has more or higher paying jobs, to seek a less alien climate, to move to a place with a larger community of people from their ethnic group and/or group of national of origin, etc. The main problem here I think is that federal funds are insufficient to help schools impacted by refugee arrivals – the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s grant, known as the Refugee School Impact Program, doesn’t come close to meeting needs.
An article in The Daily News explains some basic details of the problem in Lynn, although it also shows that the mayor is taking a winding and confused course through government channels, even going to the UNHCR, and gets facts wrong about several of the federal agencies:
…[Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy's Chief of Staff, Jamie Cerulli] said after getting bounced from office to office she finally spoke to Barbara Day with the state department’s office of Refugee Resettlement Administration for Children and Families.
“She said for Fiscal Year 2011 they approved 25 refugees to come to the Lynn area,” Cerulli said. “She also said in 2012 it looks like there is approval for 28 … but that’s such a small number. If they’re not coming from there then where are they coming from?”
Cerulli said Day noted that if immigrants already have family in the area they are more likely to gravitate to the same area. Day was not available Thursday for comment and calls to the U.S. State Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately returned.
Cerulli said she plans to keep digging at the federal and state level to try and determine if Lynn has been officially deemed a haven city while also trying to determine exactly what drives immigrants to Lynn.
Kennedy has always emphasized her administration has gone the extra step to celebrate the ethnic diversity and welcome immigrants to the city and she said she would never deny a child or its family services… Read more here
Posted in Boston, capacity, children, funding, language, Office of Admissions, ORR, school for refugee children, schools, secondary migration, refugee, UN (United Nations) | Tagged: Barbara Day, Judith Flanagan Kennedy, Lynn MA, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR, Refugee School Impact Program, refugees, resettlement, schools, secondary migration | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 21, 2012
After the failure of the effort in New Hampshire to enact a refugee moratorium state law that would allow municipalities to ban new refugees from resettling locally for one year, the local conservative Union Leader newspaper has come out with an editorial calling for a so-called “compromise moratorium”. (Never mind that the proposed law was fatally flawed by singling out a specific group of people and restricting their constitutional right to freedom of movement, and by trying to preempt a federal law that has supremacy.) The editorial staff now says that a compromise would be to “let” refugees resettle to Manchester but ban them from receiving any “city-financed public benefits for two years.”
I find this perplexing because in all the discussions and newspaper articles about the moratorium issue I don’t remember any clear argument having been established that refugees are somehow a burden to city finances. One side of the debate repeated this over and over, I remember, but no evidence was ever offered. Why is this the central concept that they focus on in regard to refugee resettlement? They seem to want to tie together refugees and welfare usage in our minds usage — in this case, the part that is “city-financed”. Yet, is there any real data supporting this concept, or is it just ideologically based without consideration of facts?
According to a July 9, 2011 Op-ed piece in the Concord Monitor by William J. Gillett, chairman of the board of the International Institute of New England refugee resettlement agency, the latest data showed that, “63 percent of refugees in our workforce training program gained employment within 180 days of their arrival.” Then there was the March 16, 2012 article in the Concord Monitor that claimed that a state house floor debate, “focused on the frustration of Manchester officials, who have complained that a flood of non-English speaking refugees had lowered their school test scores and burdened city welfare services.” (emphasis added) Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas also complained that refugee children were lowering local school test results. But what about this welfare thing?
Isn’t most welfare provided at the state level and mostly financed by the federal government? What city benefits is the Union Leader referring to? If you check out the web page for the City of Manchester’s Welfare Department it turns out that the only welfare the website lists is temporary emergency assistance — although there is also mention of a work program and the City’s participation as a screening agency for Manchester Emergency Housing:
The Manchester, NH City Welfare Department provides temporary emergency assistance to city residents for the basic necessities of life when no other resource is available. Assistance is rendered in voucher form only.
The Welfare Department also operates a work program and participates as a screening agency during working hours for Manchester Emergency Housing, a non-profit family shelter… Read more here
The site then directs users to links to the State Division of Health and Human Services for all the typical things that most people think of as “welfare” – Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP), child care, TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), etc.
So, it seems that the Union Leader is claiming that the City’s welfare burden is essentially the temporary emergency assistance that residents use when they are in a crisis. Is that it? If so, how much could this amount to? Apparently there was a spike in the numbers of refugees needing this assistance back in June 2011, but that was twenty-six families. A July 10, 2011 article in the Union Leader indicated that twenty-six refugee families had recently been in the city welfare office looking for help after a cut off of their state rental assistance. But nowhere else from the past ten months of discussion about the proposed moratorium do I see any other facts about refugees’ City welfare usage.
Furthermore, shouldn’t emergency assistance to residents in any city be based on need, not on what class of people or group that applicants may belong to? Restricting it in such a way would, once again, be unconstitutional. This type of talk about “compromise” is not real or constructive.
Posted in funding, International Institute of NE, International Institute of New Hampshire, moratorium / restriction, New Hampshire | Tagged: manchester, moratorium, New Hampshire, refugees, resettlement, temporary emergency assistance, welfare | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 11, 2012
Catholic Family Service in Amarillo has decided to reduce new refugee resettlement numbers by half due to concerns of overload from the local school district, according to an article in the Amarillo Globe-News. Resettlement will now be limited to “family reunification cases” – refugees who are resettling to be reunified with local family members. (The article also gives various confusing numbers for the amount of money the State Department gives for initial resettlement needs (intended as seed money). As of last year the amount was $1800 per refugee, with $700 available for resettlement agency overhead, $900 minimum to each refugee, and $200 that resettlement agencies may redirect to the neediest refugees at the agency. The $1800 was supposedly increased this year, but no numbers yet available.)
Catholic Family Service has lowered the number of new refugees it helps settle in Amarillo to help school officials better handle unique needs posed by refugee children and help the organization meet budget cuts.
Roughly 800 to 900 of the 1,100 refugee students enrolled in Amarillo schools had little to no formal schooling when they arrived in the U.S., and that has created a major learning block, said Kevin Phillips, executive director of student performance for the Palo Duro High School cluster…
…Catholic Family Service, a nonprofit organization, is one of two groups that receives federal funds to help newly arrived refugees settle in Amarillo. Executive Director Nancy Koons said the organization has decided to take in no more than 200 arrivals per year, down from 400 in previous years. Koons said the arrivals will be limited to “family reunification cases.”…
…Koons said [Amarillo Independent School District] principals and school nurses have expressed concerns about the challenges posed by refugee children.
“It seems like we were creating needs by bringing in too many refugees,” she said… Read more here
Posted in Amarillo, Catholic, Catholic Family Service, Amarillo, children, funding, R&P, schools, Somali Bantu | Tagged: Amarillo, Catholic Family Service, refugees, resettlement, schools | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 12, 2012
It’s still not clear to me that the refugee resettlement agencies, as the private sector partners in the US refugee resettlement program, are actually acting as a source of significant private funding for the program., as they so often tout. When I’ve tried to look at the figures I’ve found little information available, and what is available does not show significant private funds. An article in the Utica Observer-Dispatch discusses the changing economic needs of the local refugee resettlement agency — the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees:
UTICA — During the past 30 years, the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees has resettled people from 31 countries.
At its height in 1997, the center welcomed more than 1,000 Bosnians. During the past five years, the center has resettled an average of 500 refugees per year, most of whom have been Karen/Burmese refugees.
As the center continues to welcome new refugees who often become citizens and grow their families here, the Utica area – known as the city that loves refugees – must look at this group and its impact in a new way while it morphs into one culture.
Here’s a look at how the center is contributing to that process:…
…The refugee center devised a plan that would keep it relevant as not only a resource for new arriving refugees but for a community that reflects a change in its cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity.
Foreseeing that need, the board created objectives three years ago focusing on services that would promote cultural identity, increase access to interpreting and cultural awareness training, and provide opportunities for the community to become unified. That led to the creation of Compass Cultural Institute, an interpreting service program and cultural competence training service that’s been active in local hospitals, schools and workplaces.
“If we just depended on financial income coming only from resettling refugees [emphasis added] and continued to do that five or 10 years ago and not try to move in a different direction and provide other services to them, we would be in a different position,” refugee center board President Robert Dicks said… Read more here
Should they “depend” on refugee resettlement for the organization’s financial income or should they be bringing significant private funding to the program? There should be enough transparency in the resettlement program so that we can look at these private funding figures. Secondly, refugees have always needed other services and support beyond the initial resettlement period, so shouldn’t these services have been built into every resettlement agency a long time ago? I know that organizations have to make sure the numbers work but the emphasis should always have been on refugees’ needs.
Posted in former Yugoslav republics, funding, Karen, Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, Utica | Tagged: funding, Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, refugees, resettlement, Utica | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 22, 2012
In 2010, the US Department of State doubled the initial per-refugee resettlement stipend to $1800 (while allowing resettlement contractors to keep $700 of that for overhead). Today they announced (below) that they have raised it again this year. (It would be refreshing if they made some of these announcements before they make the decisions, and not after, to allow for public response). When they decide to give us the rest of the details perhaps they will tell us how much of that increase they will allow for the contractors’ overhead (all of it should go directly to the refugees). If the non-profit agencies – resettlement contractors – actually make real private contributions (once claimed as 25 cents for each dollar given by the State Department, or feds, although no proof offered) then I guess I don’t understand why, at the very least, they can’t pay their own overhead costs.
…We understand that the current economic situation is challenging the ability of federal, state, and non-profit agencies to broadly assist refugees in need. In response, in 2010, the Department of State doubled the per-refugee stipend, and raised it again this year. The refugee admissions program is a public-private partnership. As such, non-profit agencies involved have also increased efforts to raise private resources to support refugees in need. And some businesses are stepping in to assist as well…
Kind regards,
David M. Robinson
Acting Assistant Secretary
Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Read more here
Posted in Assistant Secretary of the PRM, funding, public/private partnership, R&P | Tagged: David Robinson, federal contractors, federal funding, refugees, resettlement | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 17, 2012
There have long been some unsettling practices in the refugee travel loan segment of the US refugee resettlement program. This is yet another aspect of the program that never seems to be covered by the mainstream media, which seems to rely almost entirely on refugee resettlement agencies’ press releases for their coverage of the program.
For those who are unfamiliar, the US federal government covers refugee travel costs to the US via the International Organization for Migration (IOM) – the principal intergovernmental migration organization. As a condition of travel the IOM requires that refugees, before they depart to the US, sign promissory notes to repay the costs of travel via interest-free loans. The IOM, however, has not translated promissory notes in other languages, calling into question whether refugees understand what they are signing. In addition, refugee resettlement agencies earn a 25 percent commission for acting as collection agencies for the travel loans. Agencies have regularly failed to notify refugees of their right to a deferral and/or a write off – in the event of financial hardship – and fail among the various agencies to treat refugees the same. In aprtnership with the IOM they also fail to translate the bills that they send to the refugees.
Furthermore, and more astonishingly, the agencies often fail to take the most minimal steps to work with refugees to help them repay their loans, instead threatening the refugees with draconian measures for failure to comply with promissory note terms, For example the San Diego IRC office warns refugees, “failing to comply with the established payment schedule and terms will result in legal action to collect the amount past due and payable.” Its hard to understand how any of these practices comply with these organizations’ missions as humanitarian entities.
I wrote to the State Department’s refugee office about some of these practices in a series of letters back in 2005, but the office apparently did not take any constructive steps to resolve the problems (when the official I wrote to retired, however, she referred to her office’s “party-hard” habits, including various theatrical productions). In years past I also spoke with an IOM official and he laughed at me for supposedly trying to “make a cause” out of these questionable practices. Now, in a recent comment to our website attorney Zoe Ann Olson at Idaho Legal Aid Services, Inc. tells (see below) about her efforts to assist refugees in Idaho whom resettlement agencies damaged their credit by reporting them to Trans-Union. She’s looking for anyone who has successfully challenged the legality of these loans.
I had a telephone meeting with IOM Head of Office, Brian Graham. IOM is addressing all of Idaho Legal Aid’s travel loan cases directly with me. We found that the agencies were not offering refugees options such as deferrals and or write off of their travel loans and were not treating refugees the same among agencies.
IOM is creating a website with information about the travel loans and eligibility criteria for deferrals and write offs. I told him that I want standard guidance and all agencies must tell refugees the rules from the beginning before they sign a promissory note.
IOM will write off the travel loans with documentation for death, repatriation, bankruptcy, permanent disability (with a Dr’s letter saying the refugee is disabled and can’t work), minor orphans. Case-by-case for incarceration, victims of violence, domestic violence victims and documented financial hardship.
Received deferrals for temporary disabilities and documented under or unemployed.
IOM is going to correct the credit report of all of my clients that were reported to TransUnion for defaulting on their loans because the agencies did not notify them of their right to a deferral and or write off and thus should never have been reported. The issue of damaged credit is still outstanding.
I explained to them that families need to be able to make their own travel arrangements especially if it is cheaper, and translate promissory notes in other languages and the bills too.
They are going to provide better orientation on the travel loan in the refugee country and here with Title VI compliant services.
They are going to redo their computer system to better monitor travel loan collection practices.
I would like to know if anyone has successfully challenged the legality of said loan. The promissory notes are governed by DC law. To collect a debt in Idaho once in default, an entity has to show the person owes the debt and that the collector (IOM) has registered in the State of Idaho to collect a debt. Our clients’ loans have been deferred or written off. Now I am working on the deferrals—hoping to get more write offs and or reduced payments for disputed loans and or hardship. On April 19 and 20, I will provide a fair housing and travel loan clinics in Boise and Twin Falls.
Thank you,
Zoe Ann Olson
Attorney at Law
Idaho Legal Aid Services, Inc.
1-(208)-345-0106, extension 1508
Facsimile 1-(208)-342-2561
310 North 5th Street
Boise, Idaho 83702
zoeannolson [at] idaholegalaid [dot] org
Posted in funding, Idaho, IRC, language, language interpretation/translation, lack of, Office of Admissions, transportation, Travel Loan Program | Tagged: credit, Idaho Legal Aid, internation organization for migration, IOM, refugees, resettlement, Travel Loan, Zoe Ann Olson | 5 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 1, 2012
"An investigation..."
***UPDATE*** February 3, 2012 — Washington Post announces that Komen Foundation ambiguously reverses its decision, here.
Due to a new Susan B. Komen for the Cure (the pink ribbon group) policy to halt funding for any group “under investigation by federal, state or local authorities”, 400 refugee women in Boise will now no longer receive critical annual breast cancer screenings, unless new funding is found. Planned Parenthood was receiving funds, now cut, from the Susan B. Komen for the Cure Foundation for 170,000 clinical breast exams nationwide over the past five years) US House of Representatives right-wing Republicans recently began a politically motivated “investigation” of Planned Parenthood’s so-called use of public funds for abortion. This policy now needlessly pits two leading women’s health groups against each other by rewarding a congressman for merely starting an investigation – no matter the facts in the case, or if there is even any basis for the investigation (that’s like rewarding malicious gossiping and rumor mongering or being found guilty simply for being accused of something). No doubt this unwise Komen policy will affect many more refugee women than the 400 in Boise. An article at Crosscut explains:
Because a Florida congressman demands an investigation of abortion spending, some 400 women in rural areas of Clallam County in Washington face the loss of breast cancer screening. So do another 400 in the Boise, Idaho, area, but they face a worse dilemma: They’re refugee women from Africa and Asia, relocated to Idaho through the International Rescue Committee, and most lack the language skills to look for mammogram providers and other breast cancer support on their own.
For years, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest has used funds from the huge Susan B. Komen for the Cure Foundation to provide cancer screening treatments to women in Clallam County and in the Boise/Twin Falls area, administered by Planned Parenthood’s Puget Sound affiliate in Seattle. But as of this week, under congressional pressure over Planned Parenthood’s abortion assistance, the Komen Foundation has ended its contributions to Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening programs. Nineteen of Planned Parenthood’s 83 affiliates will be affected by the cut, including the two in Idaho and Clallam County. The organization says Komen funds have provided 170,000 clinical breast exams nationwide.
“Komen got bullied by anti-choice politicians,” says Kristin Tlundberg of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, which supports clinics in Washington, Idaho and Alaska, from its office in Seattle. “It’s a shame these two incredibly strong women’s organizations, both working to prevent cancer, have been forced into opposing positions by anti-choice forces determined to harm Planned Parenthood.”… Read more here
Posted in Boise, Congress, funding, health, right-wing, women | Tagged: Boise, Komen, Planned Parenthood, refugees, resettlement, Susan B. Komen for the Cure | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 30, 2012
A reader sent me another article from earlier this month about that recent report by San Francisco State University, and the nonprofit Burma Family Refugee Network, about refugees from Burma living in extreme poverty in Oakland. It has details about a Karenni refugee woman in Oakland who had to give birth at home (because she couldn’t find a ride to the hospital). The director of the International Rescue Committee in Northern California says he would like to see services at resettlement agencies for a longer period than six months. (Bear in mind we are just now making our way out of this severe recession since 2009, and the IRC in Northern California still hasn’t extended services – in spite of the doubling of the US State Department per capita refugee grant 2 years ago — see analysis here.) The article is in the East Bay Express has added details about the problems:
Hae Htoo lives in a one-bedroom unit in East Oakland with five other family members [her husband, brother, and three children]. The twenty-year-old arrived in the US six months ago and hopes to learn English and find a job. But a recent report by San Francisco State University and nonprofit Burma Family Refugee Network shows that refugees from Burma who now live in Oakland, such as Hae Htoo, are facing dire circumstances…
…even…employed [refugees from Burma in Oakland] are living in poverty — 75 percent, according to the report — since jobs may be short-term, part-time, and low-wage. The study also found that some people eligible for welfare were not on it. Another paradox is that 90 percent said they had doctors, but healthcare was still one of their top problems, due to the language barrier. ”Even though they have doctors and insurance, they still don’t get healthcare,” said Jeung. “They didn’t understand how to get an appointment, or if they are given a prescription, how to take their drugs”…
…Hae Htoo gave birth to a newborn daughter just two months ago. That morning, she felt contractions but wasn’t sure if she was going into labor. By the time she was ready to give birth, she could not find a ride to the hospital. She gave birth in the bathroom; her husband caught the baby….Following [a] 911 operator’s instructions as translated by [a] neighbor, Hae’s husband tied one of his shoelaces around the umbilical cord and waited for an ambulance…
Mental health is also an issue; more than 70 percent [of the refugees surveyed in the study] reported stressors that impaired them. (The survey included culturally appropriate answers such as feeling “heaviness” or “head is hot,” mental states that prevent someone from focusing or being able to work). Jeung said mental health issues stem from both war trauma and the acculturative stress of having to adapt to a new land…
…[Ken Briggs, interim executive director of the International Rescue Committee in Northern California] hopes the [IRC] will be able to offer long-term case management in the future…”I would like to see services within the resettlement agencies that provides support for a longer period [than six months], particularly with job search and case management”…
…Hae Htoo…is worried. Her husband will be laid off from his bakery job in three months. “I am worried we won’t be able to pay rent and bills”…
Zar Ni Maung, co-founder of the Burma Family Refugee Network, said that even folks who have been here since 2007 still struggle. Some are exhausting their CalWorks lifetime benefits [The lifetime cap for welfare and CalWorks was recently cut from five to four years]. He fears some refugees will remain a permanent, poverty-stricken underclass.
“They’ve been here long-term now,” he said. “Who’s going to pay for their rent? Who is helping them find a job? A lot of people have been placed [in jobs], but they do not continue going to work or have been laid off. Nobody seems to be looking into why this is happening. They don’t have skills. The issues are here. How are we going to fix it?” Read more here
Posted in IRC, R&P, Burma/Myanmar, Karenni, funding, housing, overcrowding, employment/jobs for refugees, Oakland, housing, safety, economic self-sufficiency, Catholic Charities of the East Bay (Oakland) | Tagged: refugees, karenni, IRC, resettlement, Oakland, International Rescue Committee, interpretation, poverty, east bay, Catholic Charities of the East Bay | 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 Assistant Secretary of the PRM, Cooperative Agreement, funding, neglect, openess and transparency in government, public/private partnership, State Department | 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 12, 2012
Under a new program the City of Seattle will offer job training and educational support to low-income immigrant and refugee youth between the ages of 15-20 who typically have poor high school graduation rates. To pay for the program the City will redirect $315,000 from existing city programs for immigrants and refugees, with another $150,000 in funding added. An article in The Seattle Times has more:
Job training and educational support will be offered to low-income immigrant and refugee youth and their families under a new program announced Tuesday by the City of Seattle…
…The city is looking for established or emerging organizations that can improve the outcomes for immigrant and refugee youth between the ages of 15-20 who typically have poor high school graduation rates, few job skills and little parent support or advocacy…
Advocates say immigrant and refugee teens have a difficult time competing for and landing jobs because of their limited language skills, lack of job training and the gaps in their education because of their family histories… Read more here
Posted in economic self-sufficiency, education, employment/jobs for refugees, funding, schools, Seattle, teens | Tagged: at-risk, graduation rates, job skills, job training, jobs program, refugees, resettlement, seattle, teenagers, youth | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
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