Archive for the ‘clothes’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on October 30, 2011
It turns out that resettlement agencies in Lancaster, Pennsylvania have not been giving coats or good shoes to refugees as early as the winter of 2009 (even though resettlement agencies sign a contract with the US State Department promising that they will give refugees Appropriate seasonal clothing required for work, school, and everyday use as required for all members of the family, including proper footwear for each member of the family, here). A school district official also visited refugee families and found instances where two or more Bhutanese families sharing an apartment. The two local resettlement agencies, Church World Service Lancaster and Lutheran Children and Family Service of Eastern PA, apparently had not even informed the School District of Lancaster – or at least the School District’s point person for homeless students – about the arrival of the Bhutanese families. An article in the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era covers this resettlement site:
In late 2009, with winter setting in, the children of some Bhutanese families were coming to school without coats or good shoes.
Ken Marzinko, School District of Lancaster’s point person for homeless students, started visiting the parents, and in some cases, found two or more Bhutanese families sharing an apartment.
“I was caught off guard,” Marzinko said of hearing about the refugees and their needs.
Like most Americans, Marzinko wasn’t aware the United States had in 2008 begun taking in 60,000 of the more than 100,000 Bhutanese crowding camps in Nepal. More than 800 now live in Lancaster County, and many more are in the pipeline... Read more here
The most recent State Department inspections of the two local resettlement agencies, from 2006, show other problems. The report for Church World Service Lancaster shows that only 53% of refugee clients were employed after 90 days, even though jobs at that time were quite plentiful in Lancaster, with an unemployment rate of only 3.4% in 2006. Agency staff had also used white out throughout the case logs.
The Lutheran Children and Family Service inspection report also showed that refugees’ relatives who helped with their resettlement did not understand that the agency was ultimately responsible for all contract requirements. Apparently the agency had duped these relatives into believing that they were responsible for the requirements of the agency’s contract (a common occurence according to these State Department monitoring reports). In three of four refugee homes that monitors visited, batteries in smoke detectors were dead.
Although the two agencies, the Lutheran agency being a subcontractor of LIRS, were vested with the State Department contract requirement that each refugee receive a physical health screening within 30 days, refugees were not being screened within that time requirement. Case logs also did not make references to airport reception of refugees and employment referals – as supposedly equired – so that there was no documentation that these services were provided by the resettlement agencies.
Posted in children, clothes, Cooperative Agreement, CWS, employment services, faith-based, housing, housing, overcrowding, late health screenings, Lutheran, Lutheran Children and Family Service of Eastern PA, meeting refugees at the airport, Nepali Bhutanese, Operational Guidance, Pennsylvania, State Department | Tagged: bhutanese, Church World Service, Church World Service Lancaster, CWS, federal contractors, LIRS, Lutheran Children and Family Service of Eastern Pennsylvania, Lutheran immigration and refugee services, refugees, resettlement | 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 21, 2011
The Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago (ECAC) opened a beautiful, and quite expensive, new community center last year (this sat in my files and I just got to it). Efforts to raise $3 million for the project began in the middle of the recession in 2008, according to an article in the Ethiopian Review. Perkins and Will, the architects that designed the renovation, have information on what went into the project.
…we teamed with the ECAC to develop the organizational and design intent of the renovated facility. The design creates a facility that supports ECAC’s mission & highlights the presence of the ECAC to the broader community of Chicago through architecture, cultural & environmental branding and the interior design. The completed facility incorporates up-to-date systems including mechanical, plumbing and electrical; repairs to the exterior cladding; spacial organization; finishes & furnishings and new signage. here
Of course one wonders why they raised $3 million for this capital investment/improvements project when the agency fails to give minimum required items and services to their refugee clients, as we detailed last April.
A 2007 State Department inspection report also noted the following:
- The agency placed an Eritrean refugee family of four in a studio (one room plus bathroom) apartment, thus violating occupancy code, which only allows 3 people per room. The apartment also lacked a functional light/lamp in the main room. The family expressed uncertainty over utilities, lease, operation of the smoke detector, and their ability to pay rent and expenses.
- The agency had not made a home visit to an Iraqi refugee family of five that arrived five months ago, though the government contract requires at least one visit within 30 days of refugee clients’ arrival.
- The agency put a Pakistani refugee couple in a studio apartment furnished upon their arrival with a bed only. The main room had no lamp or light as required.
- In two cases, the case notes ended abruptly about seven weeks after the cases’ arrival.
Something tells me we need to start a new category entitled “Lavish New Offices While Refugees Go without.”
Posted in Chicago, clothes, Eritrean, Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, Iraqi, lavish new offices, neglect, Pakistani | Tagged: ECAC, Eritrean refugee, Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, Ethiopian Community Development Council, Iraqi refugees, Pakistani refugees, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 12, 2011
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) has once again been caught short-changing refugees. It’s affiliate in Lowell, Massachusetts, the International Institute of Lowell, seems to have dropped off refugees in the middle of winter with no warm clotheing, and gave them rusted pots and pans, or none at all. An article in The Lowell Sun covers the topic.
…For more than 100 years, Lowell has been a gateway city. Every year about 250 refugees arrive in the Mill City through the International Institute of Lowell. Some have fled strife in Burma or Congo. Many have come from Cambodia. Lately, about 35 families are from Iraq…
…one thing the Iraqi refugees agree on is Mary Todd, a 74-year-old Lawrence resident and the community’s greatest advocate.
Todd, an organizer with Merrimack Valley People for Peace, threw together a welcome potluck dinner about two years ago, as soon as she heard seven Iraqi families had settled in Lowell.
Todd, a retired career counselor, wanted to help. She sat with one refugee at his home and revised his resume. That’s when she saw the family lacked curtains, cookingware or enough dishes, so she asked for donations. Soon local church groups, business owners and other volunteers wanted to help too…
…Refugees receive minimal supplies. A family of four may receive four forks and four plates. There are no rugs, no curtains, no toasters. Some families use rusted pots and pans. Some have none. Families can be dropped in Lowell in the middle of winter with no warm clothes… Read more here
Yet, the State Department contract documents that cover the minimum services and items that USCRI must give to refugees makes it clear that they must give refugees items that are clean and in good repair – sorry, no rust allowed (supposedly). USCRI must also give refugees seasonally-appropriate clothing for work, school and everyday use – again, supposedly.
Of course the State Department has a philosophy of “cooperation” with resettlement agency contractors, and so they don’t enforce these bare-bones, minimum requirements.
That wouldn’t be partner-like.
Posted in clothes, Cooperative Agreement, household items, missing or broken, International Institute of Lowell, Iraqi, Lowell, Massachusetts, Operational Guidance, State Department, USCRI | Tagged: International Institute of Lowell, Iraqi refugees, Lowell, Massachusetts, Operational Guidance, Rebecca Feldman, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, State Department, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, USCRI | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 26, 2011
Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas (LFS Carolinas) will be getting a new CEO according to the Salisbury Post. Ted Goins will be replacing the infamous Suzanne Gibson Wise, who oversaw the scandal-plagued agency as it lost its State Department refugee resettlement contract last year.
The Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas (LFS Carolinas) Board of Trustees named Ted Goins president and chief executive officer of the agency and its subsidiaries as of Dec. 9.
Current president, Suzanne Gibson Wise, will serve as vice president until her retirement on Dec. 31.
Goins will continue to serve as president and CEO of Lutheran Services for the Aging (LSA) and see both agencies through steps towards affiliation…
…[Wise said] “I am confident Ted will continue to uphold the values of LFS as he has done for LSA.”… Read more here
I was about to write that I can’t believe Ms. Gibson-Wise would have the unmitigated gall to make such a statement, but actually I’m not surprised at all. While Gibson-Wise’s refugee clients went without cold-weather clothing and furniture and lived in apartments without heat, with doors that didn’t close, and with leaking toilets, Gibson-Wise spent the agency’s funds on company paid vehicles, wireless internet in her home, endless Blackberries, a personal commode, and a new $4000 office conference table because she didn’t like the old one. The agency had also been long non-compliant with its State Department refugee resettlement contract.
Posted in clothes, furnishings, lack of, Greensboro, Iraqi, Lutheran, Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas (2), neglect | Tagged: Greensboro, LFS Carolinas, lutheran family services in the carolinas, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement, State Department, Suzanne Gibson-Wise, Ted Goins | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 19, 2010
The approach of winter means that many refugees in cold states will be breaking their arms and legs when slipping on the ice. The main way that resettlement agencies can prevent this problem is to give all new refugees winter boots (with good traction) and instruction that refugees must wear the boots when walking outside in the winter.
A couple of years ago I was helping a Somali refugee in Fargo who had arrived with two young sons. Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota (LSSND) rarely gives refugees proper winter clothing, and more rarely winter boots, but in this case to my surprise they actually gave her boots. Unfortunately she went walking without the boots and slipped on the ice and broke her leg. The injury was extremely painful and took a long time to heal, and the leg is often never quite right again. That same winter an Iraqi refugee woman also slipped and fell several times on the ice. In that case LSSND did not give her any boots, although luckily she was not injured. What scared me the most was several years earlier when I found some Liberian and Sierra Leoneon refugee women in Fargo whom LSSND had not given any boots. One of the Liberian women was pregnant and I imagined her slipping on the ice and going into early labor.
Now I read that a refugee woman in Manchester, New Hampshire broke her arm on a slip on the ice, so I’m realizing that this is not uncommon at all.
Udai Baskota, a newer resident of Laconia and a Bhutanese refugee, also shares his story in the documentary, which also includes Somalian and Iraqi refugees living in the Manchester area…
…Before the film showing, Baskota said he likes living in the Lakes Region now, but it was a difficult transition.
“At first I was scared,” Baskota said. In the documentary, he said he was frustrated at first because of all the cultural differences and the challenges of dealing with his first New England winter. He said that, during that first winter, his wife slipped on some ice and broke her arm… Read more here
I notice each winter that I slip on the ice too, but I always catch myself before I fall. Growing up in a northern state I learned as a child how to tread carefully on ice and how to stabilize myself when I begin to slide. Refugees who arrive here and face their first winter, especially if they are from a warm region and have no experience with ice or snow, are at greater risk from falls on the ice. Many refugees also have weaker bones due to previous malnourished, and are more likely to break bones when they fall. Hence, the absolute need for resettlement agencies to give all incoming refugees proper winter footwear. (The State Department’s Operational Guidance contract requires, “Appropriate seasonal clothing…for work, school, and everyday use…for all members of the family, including proper footwear for each member of the family”).
Posted in Burundian, clothes, Liberian, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Operational Guidance, Somali | Tagged: Fargo, LSSND, Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, manchester, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Operational Guidance, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on August 26, 2010
Catholic Charities, Inc. in Oregon this week dedicated a brand-new 60,000 square foot headquarters in Portland. The building, designed by Lundin Cole Architects, includes a homeless shelter with computers, laundry and shower facilities, an administrative floor with 14 conference rooms, and an oratory with beautiful sculptures of the Holy Family and the risen Christ. A significant part of the complex is an empty second floor that will allow for future growth.
…Catholic Charities will dedicate its new building, the Clark Family Center.
…In less than 18 months, 145 individuals, corporations and foundations, along with funding from investors from a special federal tax credit program brought the project funding to completion…Major gifts came not only from individuals such as Robert Franz and the Clark family including, Maybelle Clark Macdonald, Mary Clark and Mike and Tracey Clark, but also from many of the major foundations in the area including the Joseph Weston Public Foundation, the Collins Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, Regence BlueCross BlueShield and Providence Health and Services. The response was an affirmation of the positive impact of Catholic Charities in our community. Community Funding Group also helped Catholic Charities get a large tax credit for the new building.
In June 2010, the staff and clients of Catholic Charities began to occupy their new home and the activity in the building is teeming.
On the basement level, chronically homeless women, who are assisted by the Housing Transitions program, now have space for meeting with caseworkers, access to computers, and laundry and shower facilities to assist them in preparing for job interviews.
A storage facility exists on the basement level to hold the many donations Catholic Charities needs. Along with helping homeless women furnish an apartment, Catholic Charities Refugee Resettlement services furnishes apartments with household items and furniture when the agency moves a refugee family from war-torn parts of the world to the Portland area.
…For the first time, Catholic Charities will have storage space on site for easy access.
Most program staff will work in open spaces on the third floor and fourth floors. The vital work of the agency is done, however, in the 14 conference rooms located in this space.
…In addition to some program staff, the top floor of the center houses Catholic Charities administration. …with more than 180 employees the need for accounting, human resources, technology services, development and executive management is important.
…A unique feature of the top floor is the Regence Life Learning Center. Internally, the large room will be used for board of directors meetings and employee gatherings.
…Within an intimate area of the Regence Life Learning Center is a unique space – an oratory dedicated to the Holy Family donated by Mark and Leslie Ganz. This chapel-like space, with beautiful sculptures of the Holy Family and the risen Christ, offers the opportunity for quiet reflection for the staff during what can be challenging and stressful daily work.
A significant component of the complex is an empty second floor. This space allows for the development of new programs in the future.
…The Clark Family Center was designed by Lundin Cole Architects and incorporates many green features including sun shades to sunlight, electric car charging stations and permeable pavement. here
The question that comes to my mind, however, is how Catholic Charities is able to raise such sizable funding for this type of complex while seemingly not being able to pay for minimum, basic services for their refugee clients.
The State Department’s most recent inspection report of Catholic Charities, from October 2006, indicates that the resettlement agency placed a Somali refugee family of nine into a three-bedroom apartment. Yet, according to Portland’s occupancy codes a dwelling unit is deemed overcrowded (29.30.220) “if there are more residents than one plus one additional resident for every 100 square feet of floor area of the habitable rooms in the dwelling unit”. The family had arrived 7 weeks earlier and the head of the household said that Catholic Charities had not given them winter coats, hats, or mittens, and that no one from catholic Charities had advised the family about immigration issues or advised them about repaying their IOM refugee travel loans. The family also had no personal hygiene items in the bathroom, and there were no towels anywhere in the apartment even though Catholic Charities represented in the case files that they had given the family towels.
An Ethiopian refugee family of four also indicated that no one from Catholic Charities had provided them with information about their immigration status or about repaying their IOM travel loans.
An elderly husband and wife refugee couple from Cuba that arrived five months earlier was found living in a three-bedroom home crowded with eleven people, all relatives (his son and family had been resettled just 11 months earlier and appeared to be struggling with their own resettlement). The elderly refugee man was suffering from epilepsy, diabetes, and chronic depression, and was hospitalized twice since arriving. His doctor advised him to find a separate apartment due to high activity and noise levels in the house. The couple told the State Department monitors that they wished that Catholic Charities had offered them more support.
The monitors also found that Catholic Charities’ case files were haphazard and disorganized. Of particular concern was lack of compliance regarding services to refugee minors, including lack of post-arrival assessment, home visits, and regular in-person contact with the minor for 90 days after arrival.
I know that refugee resettlement agencies always claim that they don’t have enough public funding for minimum-required services for their refugee clients, but then how are agencies such as Catholic Charities at the same time able to afford multi-million dollar new headquarters?
It would be nice if mainstream journalists would ask some of these tough questions.
Posted in State Department, USCCB, Somali, Cuban, faith-based, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of San Antonio Inc., housing, overcrowding, clothes, Ethiopian, housing, children, immigration assistance, Travel Loan Program, Oregon, Portland, lavish new offices | Tagged: IOM, State Department, refugees, catholic charities, USCCB, resettlement, refugee resettlement program, refugee resettlement, us catholic conference of bishops, Somali refugees, Portland Oregon, Clark Family Center, IOM travel loans, refugee travel loans, Cuban refugees, Ethiopian refugees, refugee minors | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 22, 2010
USCCB affiliate Catholic Charities Indianapolis is yet another resettlement agency that has been out of compliance with their State Department refugee services contract. In other words the public pays for them to give certain minimum services and material items to the refugees, via a government contract, and then they don’t abide by that contract. The consequences? None. The State Department’s Admissions Office merely noted some of their failures and asked them to do better. After all, they are not considered merely contractors, but exalted “partners” — with rights. Rights that apparently include violating basic terms of public contracts if they want to. Catholic Charities Indianapolis is one of the agencies that recently requested yet more government money for their refugee services, here.
The most recent State Department monitoring report for this agency (April 2008) indicates that Catholic Charities Indianapolis failed to properly document services, failed to refer refugees to English classes, failed to give refugees community and cultural orientation, failed to give refugees required pocket-money, and failed to show proof that they gave refugees their share of State Department R&P (Resettlement & Placement) money, here. Refugee case files also contained names of unrelated people (privacy violation), and Catholic Charities Indianapolis did not have any structured training program for its employees, as required.
Catholic Charities Indianapolis for the most part resettles Burmese refugees who have ties to friends and family (often distant relatives) in Indiana. The resettlement program refers to these friends and family as “anchors”, and resettlement agencies often talk the anchors into giving the arriving refugees the minimum-required services and material items that the State Department requires via the refugee contracts. As of February 2008, however, USCCB (US Catholic Conference of Bishops)directed Catholic Charities Indianapolis to treat all their refugee clients as “free case” refugees (refugees with no established ties to someone in the US). In fiscal year 2007 Catholic Charities Indianapolis resettled 393 refugees.
State Department monitors visited four refugees families – a Somali family of eight, and three Burmese families, one with seven members, one with four, and one single man. It immediately became clear that Catholic Charities Indianapolis had not given the refugees even the minimum-required services, which are fairly minimal to start with.
None of the adults were enrolled in ESL (English as a Second Language). Two families said they did not get any community/cultural orientation. The Somali family said they had electric bills of between $500 and $700 per month and did not understand the reason for this (apparently Catholic Charities Indianapolis was not monitoring the family’s situation). One of the Burmese families said they did not have enough clothing for the husband for work, or for the children for school. Also, they were unable to close their sliding door completely and cold air was coming into the apartment (in April). The couple was also very concerned about having enough income to pay rent and utility bills.
The adults in the second Burmese refugee family that monitors visited said they were also concerned about paying the rent, and neither of them was working. The husband said that Catholic Charities Indianapolis did not do anything to help him find a job, and although he did not speak English, he said that no one from Catholic Charities Indianapolis told him where to take ESL classes. He said he didn’t even know how to take the bus.
The third Burmese refugee home visit was to the single man. Although he had arrived five month earlier he said that Catholic Charities Indianapolis did not give him any of his R&P money ($425 at that time) until the day before the State Department monitors visited! He said Catholic Charities Indianapolis didn’t even give him any pocket-money (the refugee contract supposedly requires this). He also said that they didn’t give him any orientation. He had no idea about 911 emergency procedures, and had no idea how to bring his wife and children to the US.
Of the 11 other case files that monitors inspected, four lacked refugee client signatures indicating receipt of R&P money (in other words there was no proof to show the refugees ever received the money at all). Seven files contained names and personal information of unrelated persons. Pocket money was not given to any of the refugees. In addition, case files often lacked signatures and dates, all contact with refugees was not recorded, and there was no distinction between money spent for the State Department R&P services and money spent for HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) refugee services. Therefore, there was no way to account for the R&P money.
Catholic Charities Indianapolis is one of the resettlement agencies that geared up for larger numbers of arriving refugees this year, here.
Posted in State Department, ORR, USCCB, R&P, Burma/Myanmar, Somali, Indiana, reform, faith-based, funding, employment services, Catholic, transportation, community/cultural orientation, public/private partnership, pocket-money, immigration services, clothes, ESL & ELL, employment/jobs for refugees, late health screenings, Indianapolis | Tagged: Burma/Myanmar, Catholic Charities Indianapolis, ESL, Indiana, Indianapolis, pocket-money, R&P, refugees, resettlement, Resettlement & Placement, Somali, State Department, us catholic conference of bishops, USCCB | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 16, 2010
We just received a State Department inspection report from April 2007 which shows that Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas (LFSC) in Greensboro was already neglecting their refugee clients a year-and-a-half before they got caught by the local media (here). Previous coverage is here, here and here.
As usual the State Department’s Office of Admissions enacted no penalties whatsoever. They advised the resettlement agency’s national partners (Church World Service, and Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service) to do their own monitoring instead. This wolf-guarding-the-chicken-coop “self-monitoring”, which has proved so disastrous in the financial and oil industries as well, then led to the situation we had at the end of 2009 and early 2010 with refugees in Greensboro still being placed in dilapidated apartments, scrounging dumpsters for furniture, and wearing shorts and flip-flops in December, three months after they arrived.
According to the report LFSC Greensboro was in “partial compliance” with their State Department refugee contract documents (yes, they are federal contractors, not non-contractor “partners”). Refugees were found in poor quality housing, lacked necessary furnishings, had incomplete resettlement orientation, and there was poor case file documentation. Three of four refugee families visited were found in poor quality housing and lacked furnishings (that’s 75% of the sample). All four families did not seem to have undergone a complete orientation (100%), and three of the four could not name their case worker (75%).
A Burundian refugee man had furniture in his apartment that was in such extremely poor condition that State Department inspectors had to ask him about it. He indicated most of it came from dumpsters. He said he asked LFSC for a mattress several times, but they ignored his request, and after two weeks he found himself a mattress in the trash and brought it home (think bed-bugs). His window was cracked, he had no idea who his LFSC case worker was, and had not received any immigration information (the requirement to tell the Department of Homeland Security when he got a new address, how to get a green card, etc.). He said he wanted to go to Georgia because LFSC wasn’t helping him (this is what is known as “secondary-migration” and resettlement agencies and stated refugee coordinators are quick to complain to the federal government that they need more money to deal with it, but look at this case for why it so often occurs).
A Liberian refugee and his son also did not know who their case worker was, and did not receive any information on immigration issues.
A Montagnard (Degar – indiginous Vietnamese) minor female refugee who arrived to join her parents was found in a poor condition two-bedroom apartment (occupied by the family prior to the minor’s arrival) which was crowded with seven family. She had to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the living-room with her parents.
Another Montagnard refugee woman with four children who arrived to join her husband did not have any heat because of dismantled baseboard heating units which emitted a bad smell (gas leak?). The family did not have adequate clothing storage and had only three chairs for six people. She also had not received any orientation from LFSC.
Is it really a surprise that this agency then continued on in its ways for another year-and-a-half before things got so out of hand that community members started complaining, and a newspaper started covering what was happening? They got caught neglecting refugees in April 2007 but there were no significant consequences. The agency would not have shut down if it had not been caught, and would probably still be abusing refugees. Suzanne Gibson-Wise, the negligent CEO of LFSC, probably just went on about her arrogant ways — buying blackberries, getting wireless internet installed at her home, sitting on her personal commode. Where are the teeth in the State Department’s inspection process? No serious consequences means nobody cares. Isn’t that obvious?
The problem is that nobody learns from these incidents. The system trashes refugees’ new lives in America, the volags continue on in their negligent ways, all the while doing little other than advocating for more public money with inadequate accountability requirements, and the government agencies continue to keep up secrecy so the American public won’t understand what the problems are.
We need change we can believe in.
Posted in beds, Burundian, Christian, clothes, community/cultural orientation, Cooperative Agreement, CWS, employment services, faith-based, funding, furnishings, lack of, Greensboro, housing, overcrowding, housing, substandard, immigration services, Liberian, Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas (2), Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas, Montagnard/Degar (indigenous mountain people), North Carolina, State Department | Tagged: Burundian, Church World Service, CWS, Liberian, lutheran family services in the carolinas, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Montagnard, volag, volags | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
