Archive for the ‘beds’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 14, 2011
An unnamed resettlement agency in San Diego doesn’t seem to meet even the minimum requirements of its government refugee resettlement contracts. An article in the Los Angeles Times mentions the IRC, but does not identify it as the agency in question. Luckily Owliya Dima, an Ethiopian woman who arrived in the US 30 years ago as a refugee, tries her best to fill in for the negligent resettlement agency. What she finds, however, is that what kills refugees the most when they come here isn’t the lack of tangibles, its the loneliness. Perhaps this explains the number of suicides in newly resettled refugees, and the importance of connecting refugees to their cohorts.
Owliya Dima scanned the bare apartment, noting the only new items the family owned: six white pillows stacked on two box springs that were missing their mattresses.
In the living room were three mismatched sofas donated by a church. One of the few items in the kitchen was an old skillet that the refugee family had brought from Iraq. The father, Hussam Zabiba, held up a handful of miniature shampoo and soap bottles for Dima to see. “Hotel,” he explained.
Dima, an Ethiopian Muslim who had been a refugee herself nearly three decades ago, moved through the two-bedroom Anaheim apartment with an Arabic interpreter, compiling a list of needed items. “Iron? And vacuum cleaner?” she said, making a note to herself about what to look for when she scoured garage sales the next weekend.
Years of war and famine in the Middle East and Africa have brought waves of Muslim refugees to the United States. The newcomers have often found themselves in communities that are ill-prepared and, at times, unwilling to help.
And so, much of the task of caring for newcomers has fallen to volunteers like Dima. She is a one-woman resettlement agency…
…“Why I want to connect people, it’s not to fill stomachs, it’s to fill the emotional need,” Dima said. “What kills people when they come here isn’t the lack of tangibles, it’s loneliness.”… Read more here
Posted in beds, Ethiopian, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, Iraqi, IRC, Islamic, San Diego | Tagged: Ethiopian, International Rescue Committee, IRC, Owliya Dima, refugees, resettlement | 8 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 9, 2011
FALLING APART: Diana Santleben outside a refugee house in Newcastle. – Picture by Peter Stoop
There is more information about the refugee situation in Newcastle, Australia, on the 1233 ABC Newcastle website. One paragraph has some apparently goofed-up sentences, so I have attempted to correct it. It sounds like the Navitas consortium had “problems” in the previous three-year contract period, and these are now re-emerging.
Ms Grierson says she is concerned some of the allegations against Navitas of exploitation and abuse are bordering on criminal and she is calling for Commonwealth intervention.
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“We’re investigating every one of these allegations,” she said.
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“My advice to is there [were?] serious complaints…at the beginning of [the previous?] contract delivery for the first couple of years and now it’s re-emerging.
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“People in the service delivery area tell me that they had all just given up and would sit them out, and just couldn’t believe that these people would be awarded another contract.”
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A local volunteer, John, who has been supporting Sudanese refugees in Newcastle says some of their claims about their accommodation are damning.
“It’s embarrassing and it’s not good,” he said.
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“People do live unfortunately in squalor and they are disappointed and they feel that they are second class citizens because, for whatever reason, they’re not good enough to get the kind of lifestyle [that] we in Newcastle enjoy.
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[A nun named Sister Diana Santleben] works with the Josephite Refugee Support Network based at Penola House in Hamilton.
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She told [1233's Jill] that one of the refugee families this week had new lounge chairs delivered, their shower was fixed and they were given new appliances.
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“They’d lived two months in this house with a shower that didn’t work and lounge chairs that were ripped and filthy,” Sister Diana says.
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“The stove didn’t work, the washing machine didn’t work at all.
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“The mother of the family is nine months pregnant and she’s got seven children and she has to do all the washing by hand.
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“It was filthy when they first arrived two months ago, the garbage was overflowing, there still is rubbish all over the yard, broken furniture all over the yard from previous tenants.”
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Sister Diana says the family were happy on Wednesday this week that their service provider had delivered new furniture.
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The immigration department inspected the house yesterday.
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“I went there again this morning and I was gobsmacked,” she says.
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“The lovely new furniture is all gone.”
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The sister says the refugee family don’t speak English so don’t understand why the new furniture was removed, apparently by the same person who delivered it, and the old, damaged and dirty furniture returned.
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The couch allegedly delivered to refugee family, then taken away the next day.
To me this shows the importance for those everywhere who care about refugees, going to visit them at their homes to speak with them and see how they’re doing. One tends to sometimes discover some of the most amazing things. In fact, if you read through our US State Department refugee resettlement agency inspection reports you’ll discover that US government contractors have engaged in similar conduct — minimum-required furnishings suddenly delivered the day before government inspectors arrive, basic paperwork that had never been done during the service period suddenly filled-out the a day or two before inspectors arrive, etc. What you won’t read in the US government reports is other things we’ve found through our own investigations – resettlement agency staff telling refugees that they will send them back to their home countries if they make any “complaints” (e.g. why isn’t anyone helping the refugees to look for jobs), resettlement agency officials who visit refugees during the evening to tell them to shut-up and not say anything to government inspectors (a local journalist told me that a resettlement agency official in Fredericksburg, VA also said
this to a refugee in that refugee’s native language — French —
in front of a volunteer, whom he was unaware also understood French), a resettlement agency director in Toledo who placed refugees into apartments infested with rats told a community volunteer that the refugees were “pigs” and attracted the rats, etc.
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I’m also curious to know if Australia has the same problem that we have in our system — government contracts awarded to companies and organizations based on those entity’s political power, not based on those organization’s ability to deliver good services for the taxpayers’ money.
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**UPDATE** - Refugee support advocates seeking legal advice on taking refugee resettlement contractor to court for alleged breaches of its government contract to appropriately resettle refugees.
Posted in Australian refugee resettlement prgm, beds, Catholic, Congolese, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, neglect, public/private partnership, Sudanese | Tagged: Australia, Australian College of Languages, Australian refugee resettlement, charities, Chris Bowen, Commonwealth, human rights, Josephite Refugee Support Network, MP Sharon Grierson, Navitas, New South Whales, Newcastle, privatization, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, Resolve FM, Sister Diana Santleben, slum housing, slum lords, slumlord, Sudanese refugees | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 8, 2011
For ten years I’ve heard rumors that the refugee resettlement program in Australia is better that the American resettlement program. Refugees in Australia were often reporting to their American relatives (refugees resettled to the US) that in Australia they were better taken care of than refugees are here. They said that the resettlement period — the time during which they learn the new language, culture, laws, customs, get job training etc. — was longer in Australia, thus giving them greatly needed extra time to transition.
Unfortunately it turns out that the Australian government decided to alter their refugee resettlement program by privatizing much of the program. I don’t know the specifics but I assume it was an effort to reduce public costs. Now, however, come reports of private companies in Australia that are neglecting refugees and providing them with negligent services.
An article in the Australian newspaper The Newcastle Herald covers the current situation for refugees in Newcastle, a medium-size city 100 miles north of Sydney in the Australian state of New South Whales. MP (Member of Parliment) Sharon Grierson has been receiving reports from refugees and Australian volunteers who say that a subsidiary of the the private education company Navitas, known as the Australian College of Languages, has partnered with another company called Resolve FM to place refugees in decrepit and dilapidated slum housing. Grierson has called upon the Australian Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Bowen to open an investigation.
NEWCASTLE refugee families are paying up to $580 a week to live in homes that refugee support workers say are only fit for demolition.
They have also complained that many families are sent to live in houses that are in a filthy states and unsuitable for their needs.
A dossier of photos showing broken plumbing and furniture were recently sent to Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Bowen to support the claims.
‘‘I recently went to visit a family who were sitting on the most appalling, filthy, ripped lounge I have ever seen except at the tip,’’ volunteer refugee support worker Sister Diana Santleben said…
…Newcastle MP Sharon Grierson met with a delegation of refugee families and support workers last Friday.
‘From the photographs shown to me, I would only describe these [properties] as slums,’’ she said.
‘‘You wouldn’t live in them and neither would I.’’
She has asked Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Bowen to investigate the allegations… Read more here
Posted in Australian refugee resettlement prgm, beds, Catholic, Congolese, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, neglect, public/private partnership | Tagged: Australia, Australian College of Languages, Australian refugee resettlement, Chris Bowen, human rights, MP Sharon Grierson, Navitas, New South Whales, Newcastle, privatization, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, Resolve FM, Sister Diana Santleben, slum housing, slum lords, slumlord | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 16, 2011
It looks as if the Catholic Diocese of Arlington switched from one type of disorganization to another from 2008 to 2010. A new State Department inspection report from 2008 indicates that the agency was placing refugee clients in Fredericksburg in housing with roach infestations, leaking windows and ceilings, and even demanded that a refugee sign an apartment lease without explaining it to her. She refused to sign it. A Burundian refugee father said that he appealed to the agency for six months to help him find a job but only worked about three days cleaning up shops.
Yet, two years later in 2010 local churches and volunteers were observing some very different forms of refugee neglect. Now, the agency was placing refugees in apartments without food or furniture and not giving refugees help with transportation. What is the rhyme and reason to these fluctuations?
If we assume that the State Department inspections — usually as rare as once in ten years — are at all effective, then what does it mean if noting one set of problems, and hopefully addressing them, simply leads to a sprouting of different problems?
One thing I know is that the State Department has no penalties for resettlement agencies’ failure to abide by even the minimum requirements of the government contracts. Could it be that the resettlement agency personnel sulk and pout over any criticism, and then temporarily fix the problems and then slack off on other minimum requirements? The reigning philosophy at many resettlement agencies seems to be that all problems are caused by 1) insufficient government funding (don’t raise the issue of the private funding they are supposed to raise to augment the public funding), 2) they don’t like having to do documentation of the services they claim to give refugees (who does like doing intensive paperwork?), 3) refugees are just so needy, and 4) hey, we just set up a new satellite office, so things won’t run well for a few years (what? refugees won’t even get food and a few used furnishings? why not?).
Whatever is happening, this case shows the limited effectiveness of current oversight in which 1) there are no penalties for failure to abide by contract obligations, 2) inspections are pre-announced, and 3) inspections are so rare that new problems can emerge in as a little as a few months or a year or two and the government inspectors won’t know until they come back ten years later.
It looks like we’re sorely overdue for a revamping of these inspections.
Posted in State Department, Burundian, faith-based, volunteers, employment services, Catholic, fredericksburg, Catholic Diocese of Arlington, churches, food, beds, transportation, community/cultural orientation, housing, substandard, fractious relationships with volunteers, furnishings, lack of, language interpretation/translation, lack of, Iranian, cultural/community orientation, post arrival, rats and roaches | Tagged: Burundian refugees, Catholic Diocese of Arlington, fredericksburg, inspection, Iranian refugees, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, State Department, U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops, USCCB | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 10, 2011
Greg Wangerin, Executive Director of RefugeeONE (fka IRIM)
The Gapers Block -- a Chicago-centric web publication – has an article reporting about refugee clients of the refugee resettlement agency RefugeeONE (formerly known as Interfaith Refugee and
Immigration Ministries, and InterChurch Refugee and Immigration Ministries), an affiliate of CWS, EMM and LIRS. An audio interview details the abuses the couple suffered in Sierra Leone. When the US government resettled them to Chicago the woman shoveled snow into garbage bags and put them into the dumpster because she didn’t know what else to do with it. An elderly Somali man arrived and told her, “just push it to the side.”
But what about this resettlement agency? It turns out that they recently rebranded themselves as RefugeeONE, after long being known as Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries (IRIM). Why the name change? Sometimes I worry that these agencies think they can rid themselves of past errors and weaknesses (wrongdoings?) by essentially becoming a completely different agency, in the public’s mind at least, via a name change.
So what is in the agency’s past? It turns out we have an old State Department monitoring report of IRIM, when the agency was under the directorship of someone named May Campbell. This is the most recent available inspection report (which tells me that they are just about ready for another once-in-ten-years inspection, or the Admissions Office has been illegally holding back reports from our FOIA’s. It’s either one or the other.)
Let’s see — 1) Placed a refugee in an apartment with a leaking bathroom ceiling and a broken door lock, and another in an apartment with a “water problem” (normal for Chicago low-income apartments after all), 2) left a refugee family, including an elderly woman, to sleep on the floor of their apartment for almost five months (until the day before the pre-announced monitoring visit – funny how that works). It turned out that the eleventh-hour delivery of beds (two single beds for four people) was the only home visit the case worker did (supposed to be done within 30 days, not at 4.5 months), 3) apparently didn’t bother to give another refugee family any chairs or couch, lamp, or a bed for their one-year-old child — just a dresser, three tables, and a double-bed (???), 4) no table or lamp for another family. [Check out so-called "minimum-requirements" in Operational Guidance to see why this is cheating the refugees and the taxpayers], 5) staff were not meeting with refugee families to make sure that they were giving them basic services and meeting their essential needs.
The refugee family that was sleeping on the floor of their apartment also reported that their employer was taking advantage of them by requiring them to make up bathroom break times at the end of the day. Apparently IRIM (now RefugeeONE) did nothing to help these refugees with this blatantly unfair treatment. No doubt the excuse would be that the agency ”didn’t know about it” (yet aren’t these contractors paid to know what’s happening to their refugee clients? If the only people watching over these refugees in their first several months don’t know what’s going on then who would? No one.) Apparently the refugee clients also reported that the agency had not told them what to do — via required community/cultural orientation – in the event that they experienced unfair, exploitive or illegal labor practices. By the way when I made a trip back to Chicago in 2001 some Lost Boys of Sudan” refugee clients of the Heartland Alliance agency told me that coworkers at an O’hare airport baggage handling company where they worked where screaming at them and physically threatening them. They said they told their Heartland Alliance case workers but nothing happened. Things just seem to keep happening when government monitors are away — for 10 years at a time.
On a last note, in 2009 journalists at the Chicago Tribune quote RefugeeONE’s current director, Greg Wangerin, saying,”I’m ashamed. I feel like I’m selling a lie”, in reference to all the problems in refugee resettlement during the recession. Here’s my question: Do these private refugee resettlement agencies ever look to themselves when pointing the finger of responsibility?
Posted in State Department, CWS, Operational Guidance, Sierra Leonean, faith-based, Christian, beds, community/cultural orientation, Chicago, housing, substandard, furnishings, lack of, housing, Episcopal, Lutheran, Baptist, home visits, employment abuses, RefugeeONE (formerly, Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries), RefugeeONE (formerly, Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries), RefugeeONE (formerly, Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries) | Tagged: Chicago, Church World Service, Church World Services, CWS, EMM, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Greg Wangerin, heartland alliance, human rights, Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, IRSA, LIRS, Lutheran immigration and refugee services, Lutheran Immigration and Refugees Service, May Campbell, refugee neglect, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, RefugeeOne, refugees, resettlement, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 4, 2011
A refugee client of Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston, an affiliate of CWS and EMM, wrote to us today about deficient services at the agency. The refugee reported the following problems:
Here is a 2001 inspection report for Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston (the most recently available inspection report, which means they have not been inspected in quite some time).
Posted in Texas, faith-based, Christian, churches, beds, transportation, community/cultural orientation, housing, substandard, Houston, insufficient assistance with daily tasks, furnishings, lack of, employment/jobs for refugees, late health screenings, housing, rats and roaches, Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston, Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston | Tagged: Ali Al Sudani, Church World Service, CWS, Elliot Gershenson, EMM, Episcopal Migration Ministries, houston, Interfaith Ministries, refugees, resettlement | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 3, 2011
There is a new State Department monitoring report that we acquired via a FOIA that documents neglect of refugees. The State Department cited the Houston-based refugee resettlement agency, Alliance for Multicultural Community Services, an ECDC affiliate, for “partial-compliance” with their State Department refugee resettlement contract. Findings include:
- The Alliance had placed all three refugee families visited at home by monitors in housing with problems, including serious mold, roach infestation, and a serious plumbing problem that forced an Iraqi refugee family to move.
- A Burundian refugee woman did not know how to use either the stove or a thermostat in her apartment.
- The Burundian family’s second bedroom had no furniture, so the couple’s infant and 2-year-old toddler had to sleep in the parent’s room.
- The Burundian refugee family and a Burmese refugee family reported that the Alliance failed to give them required living-room furnishings, so the families had to garbage-pick sofas and chairs from dumpsters.
- The Alliance did not give refugees pocket-money, as required.
- The Burundian refugee family — with the infant and toddler — reported that the Alliance did not give them food or supplies for their infant upon their arrival as required, and that the Alliance did not use child safety seats when transporting the family to appointments.
- The Burmese refugee family reported that the Alliance did not have interpretation at the airport upon their arrival or during orientation. The Alliance finally hired someone who spoke their Karen dialect over four months after their arrival.
- Orientation to health care services in the area appeared to be incomplete, as both the Burundian and Burmese families expressed anxiety over their children’s medical needs and uncertainty about how to handle emergencies.
- The Burundian and Burmese families expressed anxiety over their prospects for self-sufficiency.
- The Alliance did not provide any structured training plan to new employees, as required.
- Refugee client case note logs contained minimal information, and often failed to record home visits. Monitors were often unable to verify that the Alliance provided refugee clients with the minimum-required services of the State Department refugee contracts (see contract documents – the Cooperative Agreement and Operational Guidance).
- Monitors noted Insect infestation in one or more refugee apartments.
- Monitors noted that the Alliance did not give some refugee(s) a ready-to eat meal upon arrival after long intercontinental flights, as required.
Then there are these comments about the Alliance from 2010. Note that three years after this State Department monitoring the Alliance is still putting refugees in substandard housing, etc.
So, in other words, the State Department noticed all these problems and three years later many of the problems have not ceased. What does that tell us about the effectiveness of the State Department monitoring trips? The State Department does not use any penalties for resettlement agencies’ they find in “non-compliance” or “partial-compliance” with the so-called minimum requirements of the State Department refugee contracts. Resettlement agencies don’t have to give back any of the government contract money they received for agreeing to provide minimum services and then not providing them.
Posted in Alliance for Multicultural Community Services, beds, Burma/Myanmar, Burundian, children, Cooperative Agreement, cultural/community orientation, post arrival, ECDC, food, furnishings, lack of, health, home visits, housing, housing, substandard, Houston, Iraqi, Karen, language, language interpretation/translation, lack of, meeting refugees at the airport, Operational Guidance, pocket-money, rats and roaches, State Department, Texas, transportation | Tagged: Alliance for Multicultural Community Services, Burmese refugees, Burundian refugees, ECDC, Ethiopian Community Development Council, houston, human rights, Iraqi refugees, Karen refugees, Kassahun Bisrat, refugee neglect, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, State Department | Leave a Comment »
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?
Posted in beds, Burma/Myanmar, Burundian, clothes, community/cultural orientation, Cuban, dangerous neighborhoods, food, furnishings, lack of, home visits, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, Houston, Iraqi, language, language interpretation/translation, lack of, meeting refugees at the airport, rats and roaches, safety, State Department, USCRI, YMCA International Services | Tagged: Gabriel Gebray, houston, Jeff Watkins, refugee neglect, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, State Department, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI, YMCA International Services | 3 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 24, 2011
We recently received a new batch of State Department refugee resettlement agency monitoring reports. According to a 2007 monitoring report monitors found that Catholic Community Services Seattle (CCS) was only in “partial compliance” with it’s resettlement contract. Problems included the following:
- A Burmese refugee family of five lived in a two-bedroom apartment with their 19-year-old niece. The sleeping space did not seem adequate for this family, and two children did not have beds (note: the Operational Guidance contract document requires that agencies make sure housing has an appropriate number of bedrooms/sleeping areas and beds for refugee families). The 19-year-old and two children slept in one room with a six-year-old sleeping on the floor. The husband, wife, and a three-year-old child slept in another room, with the three-year old on the floor. The family said that they would like beds for the children, but there was not enough floor space. None of the beds had bed frames, as required. The family told monitors that car seats were not used for the children when the agency picked them up at the airport.
- A single Burmese male refugee lived with four roommates in a two-bedroom apartment. He expressed concern that no one had talked to him about a job or about his finances. He walked one hour to class and back and said he was not shown how to take public transportation. He slept in a room with two others. He did not have a bed frame and he stored his clothing on his mattress and in a plastic basket on the floor.
- A Burundian refugee family of six was living with a grown daughter in a two-bedroom apartment. There did not seem to be an appropriate number of bedrooms for the family. In one bedroom, a 19-year-old daughter, a four-year-old granddaughter, a seven-year-old son, and another grown daughter slept in three beds that they pushed together forming one bed due to lack of floor space. The husband, wife, and 11-year-old child slept in the second bedroom. The family also said that they needed cold-weather clothing for the children.
- A Somali refugee mother with two minor children said that CCS did not give her much help, especially when she requested transportation help for health appointments for her children.
- Case notes were so poor that monitors could not determine whether CCS had given refugees required services and/or material items.
If any of these issues seems small or petty, they are not. The State Department only requires refugee resettlement agencies to give refugees certain minimum-required services and material items, which are quite minimal (check out Operational Guidance). To not even meet these minimum requirements is 1) contract fraud, and 2) unethical (especially for a so-called faith-based agency, and 3) just wrong to do to these refugee people who have suffered so much already and need a few basic items and services to try to start a new life in America. Secondly, the taxpayers should be getting what they’re paying for.
Posted in State Department, Operational Guidance, Burma/Myanmar, Somali, Burundian, faith-based, Catholic, beds, transportation, community/cultural orientation, housing, overcrowding, clothes, furnishings, lack of, children, Seattle, Catholic Community Services Seattle | Tagged: Burmese refugees, Burundian refugees, Catholic Community Services, refugee neglect, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, seattle, Somali refugees, State Department, us catholic conference of bishops, USCCB | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 20, 2011
Jewish Family Service of Seattle is conducting a lavish new expansion project while seeming to have little money for basic services for refugees. According to CHS Capitol Hill Seattle Blog the $3.6m project is actually a downsized version of what the organization originally planned for.
Following key approvals of permits by the city last week, East Madison is about to see the start of its third major active construction project. An important provider of social services throughout the region, Capitol Hill’s Jewish Family Service this month start work on a $3.6 million project to build a 19,000 square foot expansion on the parking lot adjacent to their current offices at 1601 16th Ave… Read more here
Yet, according to the most recently available State Department monitoring/inspection report for Jewish Family Service of Seattle the agency did not give refugees the minimum-required services required by a State Department contract. The agency did not bother to visit many of the refugee clients at home, even though they are only required to visit one time within 30 days of the refugees’ arrival. Monitors found one refugee man sleeping on the floor of a living room because the agency had not provided a bed. The agency claimed the refugee’s brother said he had an extra bed for the refugee, but since they had not visited the refugee they did not realize that this was not the case. The same refugee also said the agency never gave him an orientation and that they did not have anyone on staff who spoke his language, Farsi. He also said that he had a kidney stone but was not receiving adequate services, partly because each time he went to the hospital he saw someone different. Apparently Jewish Family Service of Seattle was not monitoring his case adequately.
Monitors also noticed that the agency had one of the lowest employment rates for refugees in the country. It also became clear during the monitoring review that more than half of the cases had not received a home visit, although many of the files contained a cursory home visit form that thay had completed only a week or two before the visit, despite the fact that many of the refugees had arrived four to five months earlier. Monitors later learned that they had completed these ”home visit” forms not during a home visit but during a phone conversation with the refugee.
Posted in State Department, faith-based, beds, Jewish, furnishings, lack of, employment/jobs for refugees, language interpretation/translation, lack of, Seattle, Iranian, Jewish Family Service of Seattle, home visits, lavish new offices | Tagged: Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, HIAS, Jewish Family Service of Seattle, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees | Leave a Comment »
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