Archive for the ‘furnishings, lack of’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 27, 2012
A single mother of a refugee family from the Central African Republic finds herself alone and isolated (a condition correlated with refugee suicides) five months after resettlement to Portland via Lutheran Community Services Northwest. Interviewed about six weeks after her arrival, she only knew how to get to the grocery store and to an organization which offers employment training and referrals, though her resettlement agency was required to give her community orientation. The family’s apartment is sparsely furnished, with not enough heat to stay warm and little light (this, though the State Department’s Operational Guidance contract document supposedly requires resettlement contractors to provide refugees with one lamp per room unless installed lighting is present). An article in the Portland Tribune describes the refugee family’s initial resettlement to Portland:
Monique Detoloum…[a] new Portland resident has found peace for herself and her four children, after surviving a reign of terror in the Central African Republic and six years in limbo in neighboring Cameroon…
…Monique and her children arrived here in late October, settling in East Portland. They are among the 944 refugees from more than a dozen nations who resettled in Oregon last year, mostly in Portland. Nearly 60,000 refugees from around the world have landed here since 1975. That’s an average of 135 newcomers a month, a steady stream of foreigners who are gradually expanding the Portland area’s ethnic mix and forever changing its complexion…
…Somewhat arbitrarily, since Monique had no family or connections here, she was assigned to Portland, aided by Lutheran Community Services Northwest.
Agency staff picked up Monique’s family at the airport, found her housing in an apartment on Southeast Division Street near 126th Avenue, helped enroll her children into David Douglas schools, arranged medical screenings and financial support.
Within her first week in town, Monique was referred to East Portland’s Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization [IRCO], which offers employment training and referrals, among other services…
…Interviewed about six weeks after her arrival, Monique knew how to get to IRCO and the Winco grocery store on Northeast 122nd Avenue, but hadn’t ventured further on her own. She was too flustered to think about going downtown, feeling pretty helpless without any English skills…
…Now, after five months, here she is still having trouble adjusting to cold weather. She just experienced her first snow, and says she doesn’t like it.
The family’s two-bedroom, one-bath apartment is sparsely furnished, with little light and not enough heat to stay warm…
…Monique has found a Baptist Church she wants to attend. But she says she is feeling isolated here, with no friends to talk to, only her children…
…Refugees rarely go back to their home country, Tauch says, but they do move around once they’re here, especially to find work. In January, a recruiter came to town and offered seasonal jobs to 52 Portland-area refugees at a Kodiak, Alaska, cannery, Tauch says. Last year, a Nebraska employer offered 100 permanent jobs to local refugees… Read more here
Posted in alienation-isolation, Central African Republic, furnishings, lack of, housing, language, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, mental health, Operational Guidance, Portland | Tagged: Central African Republic, Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, irco, isolation, Lutheran Community Services Northwest, Portland, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 29, 2012
This is an extra scene from Nickel City Smiler, a documentary film about Karen refugees in Buffalo. Donna Pepero, head of the Refugee School Impact Program in the Buffalo Public Schools, talks about a resettlement agency in Buffalo that dropped off a refugee family to an apartment furnished with just part of a sectional sofa – not even any beds:
Posted in Buffalo, Burma/Myanmar, Catholic Charities of Buffalo, furnishings, lack of, International Institute of Buffalo, Jewish Family Service of Buffalo & Erie County, Journey's End Refugee Services, Journey's End Refugee Services, Karen | Tagged: Buffalo, documentary, Donna Pepero, Nickel City Smiler, Refugee School Impact Program, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 29, 2011
The pro-refugee documentary Nickel City Smiler, which refreshingly does not do the usual towing of the line of refugee resettlement contractors, is now set for an early November showing in Buffalo. The documentary film, produced in Buffalo, chronicles the life of a Karen refugee family (from Burma/Myanmar) after they have been resettled to a tough inner-city Buffalo neighborhood. The film documents the refugee family’s hardship and their incredible determination to one day live in peace and ensure a better future for their children.
Local refugee resettlement contractors were involved in having the
documentary removed from a neighborhood film festival last summer.
The film will be shown at:
Note: The Nickel City Smiler DVD is also available for purchase.
Posted in Buffalo, Burma/Myanmar, Catholic Charities of Buffalo, dangerous neighborhoods, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, housing, substandard, International Institute of Buffalo, Jewish Family Service of Buffalo & Erie County, Journey's End Refugee Services, Journey's End Refugee Services, Karen, population levels, using refugees as pawns to boost, safety | Tagged: Buffalo, Burma, documentary, federal contractors, inner-city, Karen, Myanmar, neglect, Nickel City Smiler, refugees, resettlement, Smiler Greely | Leave a Comment »
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 June 30, 2011
Time and again when I’ve found refugees living in deplorable conditions and receiving sub-par resettlement services I’ve noticed government agency partners working in unison with private resettlement contractors to stonewall, and to whitewash refugees’ complaints. An article by a journalist at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation illustrates this same phenomena at work on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Government oversight staff and their contractors’ primary concern seems to be protecting their reputations and careers, and secondarily, concern for refugees’ welfare. Instead of spending their time asking themselves why they’ve failed refugees they instead focus their energy on defense, PR, and silencing refugees’ voices. Here is an exerpt from the article:
Four months after he touched down in Australia, Clement Saidi says he’s finally arrived…
The flight from Tanzania, where Clement and his family [Congolese refugees from a pygmy tribe] had spent 12 years in a refugee camp, should have meant an end to squalor.
Instead, the Humanitarian Resettlement Program provided them with what was effectively slum housing.
Theirs was among five homes found by an Ernst and Young report commissioned by the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen to be in a ‘state of disrepair’.
One of these homes was deemed uninhabitable. There was ‘no hot water, holes in the roof, window panes missing in a bedroom for children and wholly inadequate heating’…
I found Clement, his wife and three of their children. My meeting with them was arranged by Sister Diana Santleben, a feisty refugee advocate. She’s had a series of battles with Navitas, the company which holds the contract for refugee resettlement services in the Hunter region. She and the local MP Sharon Grierson have for years been raising concerns about the service provided, and now she says openly that she’s on a mission to get the company out of the refugee housing business.
I was there to follow up on the recommendations in the Ernst and Young report. I wanted to meet for myself some of the people affected.
Simple, right? Apparently not.
Clement Saidi’s story almost didn’t make it to air.
After I interviewed him I called Navitas, whose subcontractor Resolve FM was until very recently responsible for accommodation services for refugees in the region.
The Ernst and Young report on the services they provided did not, in Chris Bowen’s words, ‘make for pretty reading’.
In addition to the inadequate housing, rents were often well above market rates and there were suggestions that refugees had been overcharged for repairs and utilities. The Department of Immigration was criticised too, for its management of the issues.
The Minister put the contractors and Departmental staff on notice, ordered a forensic audit of Resolve FM and a nationwide review of refugee resettlement services.
When I called Navitas the reaction was defensive. The company accused me of not having had consent from the refugee family to interview them. This was before they even knew which family we were talking about. They found out soon enough, by calling around all possible suspects. Navitas suggested Sister Diana had forced Clement Saidi into speaking to me. I replied that I had indeed obtained informed consent.
I clearly identified myself, did not misrepresent the ABC and informed Clement when the recording began and ended.
The company said it was very concerned about the fact that no interpreter was present at the interview. Clement’s English is limited, but I was confident I would be able to use small sections of the interview to illustrate his story…
I found myself getting a lecture from Navitas on what it meant to interview someone who has limited English.
The refugee may not have expressed himself correctly, the company said. It was important to treat these people with respect. Did I understand how his knowledge of English compared with mine? Refugees were vulnerable, the company said.
After I talked to Navitas, they talked to Sandi Logan. Mr Logan is the Immigration Department’s spokesman…
My experience with Clement Saidi was increasingly beginning to suggest that the Immigration Department and its contractor see similar threat levels even when the media speaks to a refugee who is not in detention.
“Shd we be concerned?” Sandi Logan tweeted. “Journalist w nun i/views African refugee today. No informed consent provided. Refugee says journo ‘was from department’.”
This seemed to indicate that the Department was prepared to go public with an accusation solely on the word of Navitas, without asking the journo concerned – me.
Mark Colvin tweeted back to ask Logan if he’d checked this version of the events with the reporter. “We’re emailing,” Sandi Logan tweeted and promptly sent me an email.
In it, he gave a briefing on multicultural settings and expressed his concern about my treatment of Clement Saidi, because he said he was “responsible for our service providers’ clients’ well-being in their media interactions.”
It was hard not to be sceptical. Where was the concern when these same people were languishing in appalling over-priced and over-crowded accommodation?…
Whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of that discussion, let’s be clear.
Clement Saidi has been accepted as a refugee…
His days of not being free to speak should have ended the moment he set foot in this country…
Refugees like Clement Saidi are people, with faces and voices – and opinions – of their own.
Isn’t it time the Government – and the companies it pays handsomely to look after them – stopped trying quite so hard to stop us seeing and hearing them?
Barbara Miller is a reporter with ABC Radio Current Affairs and regular contributor to AM, The World Today and PM. Read more here
Hear the radio report and read a related article on the ABC Network.
Posted in Australian refugee resettlement prgm, Congolese, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, neglect, openess and transparency in government, public/private partnership, Sudanese | Tagged: Australia, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Barbara Miller, Chris Bowen, Clement Saidi, Congolese refugees, Department of Immigration, Diana Santleben, English proficiency, Ernst and Young, government contractor, human rights, journalist, media, Navitas, Newcastle, public/private partnership, refugee, refugee advocate, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, Resolve FM, Sandi Logan, SHARON GRIERSON, slum housing, slum lord, slumlord | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 14, 2011
I submitted a question for George Rupp, president and CEO of the IRC, for his interview today by the PRM’s Assistant Secretary Eric Schwartz.
“Why does the IRC partner with local churches in their attempts to convert Bhutanese refugees to Christianity, for example, IRC’s partnership with The Word at Southern Hills church in Abilene, Texas?”
Unfortunately this comment seems to have magically disappeared from the list of submitted questions (funny how that works). Yet, I base the question on a news article from Abilene that I linked to in January. Personally I think that these refugees’ Hindu and Buddhist beliefs are serving them just fine and I don’t understand why our government and its contractors, therefore we as a society, are partnering to give these new Americans a new religion, which they haven’t requested.
So then I submitted another question, which this time they actually posted:
“A 2007 State Department PRM monitoring report for the IRC office in Baltimore indicates that the IRC and another resettlement contractor frequently placed refugees into an East Baltimore apartment complex that had evidence of questionable maintenance and security standards (housing that is safe, sanitary, and in good repair is supposedly a State Department refugee contract requirement). Monitors also noted that the IRC had failed to give a three-member Meskhetian Turk refugee family a crib and other supplies for their infant son. I note, again, that these items are listed as “minimum” required items in the State Department contracts. Why does the IRC fail to meet so-called “minimum requirements” of their obligations to refugees in the public/private partnership?”
The State Department did not select this question for use in the interview — of course — yet this question was also based on a document – one of the State Department’s own monitoring reports – so it’s not like I just make this stuff up. Again the State Department doesn’t want to discuss the issue.
I think there’s an obvious problem here when our government feels free to filter out substantive questions that it may not feel comfortable with, or which may not convey the message it wishes to control, but isn’t the supposed intent of our constitutional democracy to allow public input? I think we need to be concerned when a part of our US Department of State feels free to disregard that fundamental principle.
Posted in State Department, PRM, Nepali Bhutanese, Meskhetian Turks (Ahiska
Turk), Christian, Eric P. Schwartz (former Asst Sec.), Assistant Secretary of the PRM, churches, neglect, housing, substandard, household items, missing or broken, public/private partnership, furnishings, lack of, openess and transparency in government, children, Abilene, Buddhist, Hindu, Baltimore | Tagged: Abilene, Assistant Secretary of Population Refugees and Migration, Baltimore, Buddhist, censorship, Christian, constitution democracy, Conversations with America, conversion, Eric Schwartz, George Rupp, Hindu, International Rescue Committee, IRC, Meskhetian Turk, monitoring report, Population Refugees and Migration, PRM, public/private partnership, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, State Department, The Word at Southern Hills | 4 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on June 12, 2011
Hello?
We get a glimpse into resettlement experiences of two Iraqi refugee
cases assigned to resettlement contractors in Salt Lake City, Utah, in articles in KSL Broadcasting and Deseret News. An Iraqi woman arrived to an empty apartment. She turned a broken TV that she had scavenged on its side as a makeshift table. An television journalist forced out of the country with his wife and children by Iraqi militia members reports that although the family spoke no English at all, no one met them at the Dallas airport during a flight connection, nor did anyone meet them at the airport once they arrived in Salt Lake City. Instead, a security guard referred them to the airport FBI office.
…Suhad Kudhair and many in her “large family” in Iraq had English language skills and worked with American companies, which labeled them as disloyal to Iraq and attracted threats to their lives, mostly from Iraqi militia. She and her two sons fled to Egypt in 2006, where the process of accomplishing refugee resettlement to the United States took three years. “I told them I have a sister in California. They said California was too expensive, and I was going to Utah.”…
…Once in Utah she worked long hours on a farm, at a day care, as a medical translator, and now works for Catholic Community Services doing what a lot of other Iraqi refugees do once they are established: She is a case manager for new refugees who are in the process of resettlement.
She knows as well as anyone what it is like to arrive in a strange country at the end of 36 hours on airplanes to a place where there are no friends, no family, no job and an apartment with no furniture.
Kudhair said she scavenged a TV set that did not work properly but made a makeshift table when laid on its side. Turned on, the picture tube made an interesting blue glow in the room that people found curious enough they would take pictures of it when they visited the apartment… Read more here
And this about the Iraqi television journalist and his family who were
also resettled to Salt Lake City:
My name is Mohammed Mushib. I live in Salt Lake City, but I was born in Baghdad and lived there until 2007. In Baghdad, I was a television journalist. In Salt Lake City, I am a refugee. Once I reported stories, now I am part of a story…
…I had a nice house, a nice car, and my wife Faeza and I started our family…
…In 2003, the war started. Iraq was in chaos. We did not have a government for one and a half years, so the people established security units for each neighborhood. I was a security guard in my neighborhood. In 2005, the civil war started. The militias killed many people. I lost friends, I lost relatives, there was death all around…
…In February of 2008, the United Nations told us that we could go to the U.S. as refugees…
…We, along with about 20 other families, flew to Turkey, on to New York, then to Dallas, then to Salt Lake City. The other families went different ways in New York, we flew alone to Dallas. We spoke no English. No one met our plane. I saw a salesclerk at the airport who was wearing a hijab. She was from Somalia, and she only spoke a little Arabic. I was very relieved and grateful for her help – she gave us cake and cola and a banana, which she paid for – that I cried. God sent her to us at that moment.
We arrived in Salt Lake City, no one met us. I found the exit, there was no one except a security guard. who pointed me toward the FBI, which I knew from movies. They told me that our contacts from the International Rescue Committee were outside! They took us to a motel for the night, and after 1 or 2 hours of sleep, there was a knock on the door. It was a woman who spoke Arabic and identified herself as the person whose name I had gotten from my brother. She brought us food and welcomed us to Utah. In the morning, our case worker, Travis, took us to our apartment and to WalMart to shop, and our new life began… Read more here
The good news is that Utah and the Salt Lake community has actually taken proactive and creative efforts to help refugees who have advanced skills and degrees – so different from what we saw in nearby California when Iraqi SIVs (Special Immigrant Visa holders) were arriving in Sacramento in late 2009. (In that case state refugee coordinator Thuan Nguyen gave us endless excuses and misreferrals in our attempt to aid two Iraqi engineers whom a resettlement contractor had referred to low-skill, low-pay jobs. In one case that involved a job at a distant food market beginning at 5am before buses operated, and in another case involved a set-up at a gas station where the resettlement contractor first took a relative in to be interviewed before coming out and canceling the SIV refugee’s interview.)
Efforts in Utah involve the New-American Academic Network, which seeks to place refugees with professional credentials in jobs and training that will help them to find proper employment for economic self-sufficiency.
…”As particularly the Iraqi population was coming into the valley, we were experiencing sort of a new phenomenon in the sense that many of the Iraqi population or individuals had training — undergraduate, graduate and professional positions,” said Rosmarie Hunter, special assistant to the president for campus community partnerships at the University of Utah.
“They were coming over as engineers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, but were coming here and being resettled in much the same way where they were going into entry-level positions,” she said, which left some unable to afford to live here, or unable to afford professional testing and retraining needed to work in their profession.
“People were going back, and perhaps in very unsafe circumstances,” Hunter said.
The New American Academic Network was created to help those professionals re-certify to work in their fields of expertise. NAAN is a partnership between the University of Utah, University Neighborhood Partners, the International Center, Workforce Services and resettlement organizations in Utah.
“The main problem is the financial problems for the refuges,” said Muthana Maktouf, also from Iraq. “The NAAN program tries to find other help, other resources, started to find internships for the students.”… Read more here
Posted in Catholic Community Services of Utah, economic self-sufficiency, education, employment/jobs for refugees, furnishings, lack of, Iraqi, IRC, meeting refugees at the airport, professionals, Salt Lake City, SIV (Special Immigrant Visa) immigrants, Utah | Tagged: Catholic Community Services of Utah, human rights, International Rescue Committee, Iraqi, IRC, NAAN, New-American Academic Network, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, Salt Lake City, SIV, Special Immigrant Visa, Thuan Nguyen, University of Utah, Utah | 3 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 31, 2011
The Australian refugee resettlement contractor scandal in Newcastle, New South Whales continues to unravel. An article in the Sydney Morning Herald reveals that not only will the federal government do a forensic audit of the financial management of the resettlement contract, but that the resettlement contractor was also involved in the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq during dictator Saddam Hussein’s rule. This should be a cautionary tale for each case in which one of the US volags is caught violating contracts and abusing refugees — it is simply a matter of time before it happens again or gets worse if it is not rigorously and openly addressed.
A company accused of ripping off refugees was taken over by Trevor Flugge just days after it began its controversial government contract.
Mr Flugge paid $55 million for ACL Pty Ltd, the company which became Navitas English Pty Ltd, after it won the contract to resettle refugees, a business in which it had no previous experience, in Newcastle.
It did not go well from the start. Within months, the company and Mr Flugge were named in a Senate estimates committee hearing over the way the refugees were being treated in the resettlement program, which is responsible for housing and welfare.
The federal Labor MP for Newcastle, Sharon Grierson, told Parliament that within six months, serious problems had emerged. A two-year-old boy had died, refugees were left without enough food, and others had been left alone and given the triple-0 emergency number to call, even though they spoke no English.
A wheelchair-bound man was housed in a first-floor apartment with no lift.
Ms Grierson said those complaints, which stretched back six years, had never been addressed. She told The Sun-Herald this week that there were now allegations of theft, rorting of rents and neglect of the refugees.
Mr Flugge quit as a director of Navitas after the oil-for-food scandal erupted in 2006 and pictures of his gun-toting days in Iraq were splashed around the country.
A refugee advocate, Sister Diana Santleben, has consistently flagged the substandard housing that refugees were being forced to live in, at times without adequate heating or facilities or bedrooms.
The Department of Immigration renewed the contract with Navitas English in March. But when the Minister for Immigration, Chris Bowen, was told about the problems he ordered an urgent investigation. Last week he released a scathing report by Ernst & Young into Navitas English’s treatment of the refugees in the Newcastle area.
The report found families were living in unsafe and unacceptable conditions. Many were in overcrowded accommodation and were overcharged for rents, while the quality of the basic household goods they were given was poor. The review has sparked a nationwide audit of refugee resettlement programs.
Mr Bowen has asked Professor David Richmond, AO, to conduct a review into the department and its processes as well as a forensic audit of the financial management of the contract. He has also asked for a report on whether any departmental staff were in breach of their obligations under the public service code of conduct.
He has put the contractor, Navitas English, and the subcontractor, Resolve FM, on notice about expected standards, particularly when dealing with vulnerable people… Read more here
Now, there have been tens of dozens of US refugee resettlement contractors caught neglecting, abusing, and ripping-off refugees in the US refugee resettlement program during the past 15 years, and never once did I encounter a case in which the federal government agency “partners” ever once did a forensic audit. In almost every case refugee resettlement agency and government oversight agency partners stonewalled the media and members of the community and whitewashed findings. Only in the most extreme serious cases, and usually only once the media became involved, did the State Department and/or it’s refugee resettlement contractor discontinue the contract. Yet, charges were never filed, restitution was never made to the taxpayer, and almost never were refugees compensated for the abuse.
I think its clear that the US refugee resettlement program needs to take some lessons in democracy and government accountability from our friends in Australia.
Posted in abuse, Australian refugee resettlement prgm, Catholic, Congolese, fractious relationships with volunteers, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, housing, substandard, neglect, openess and transparency in government, State Department, stealing money from refugees, Sudanese | Tagged: Australia, forensic audit, government contract, human rights, Newcastle, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, State Department | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 23, 2011
ABC Newcastle reports that the Australian federal government has now released an investigative report about a refugee resettlement contractor’s neglect and abuse of refugees in Newcastle, in the Australian state of New South Whales. The government has now called in police to investigate the horrendous, substandard — albeit expensive — housing that the contractor placed Sudanese and Congolese refugees into. The Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has also ordered an audit of refugee housing across the country
The Immigration Minister says New South Wales police have been called in to investigate some problems with services provided to refugees in the Newcastle area.
Chris Bowen has released a report into the housing for refugees in the area and says it does not make for pretty reading.
He says some refugees had received substandard services including accommodation with no hot water, holes in the roof and window panes missing in a bedroom.
“The report identifies some instances of substandard housing, rental charges not necessarily related to market conditions, inappropriate charges for property damage, poor quality household goods and identifies that there have been less than healthy relations between service providers and local community groups,” he said.
“I have instructed my department to undertake an immediate action in relation to the findings of the report.”
He says he has ordered an audit of refugee housing across the country because he needs to be reassured it is up to standard… Read more here
This case amazes me as I’ve investigated, read reports about, and seen dozens of similar cases in the US, with refugee resettlement agencies placing refugees in deplorable housing, and never once did the government oversight agency (the Admissions Office in the State Dept’s Bureau of PRM) ever call in police to investigate. Nor was any oversight report made available immediately, as the Australian government has done in this case. Media organizations in the US have had to sue the State Dept. simply to abide by the law – the Freedom of Information Act – and release documents.
It seems like the US has a lot to learn from Australia. I’m ashamed of our government’s oversight of our national refugee resettlement program, in which they have left fundamental problems of accountability and oversight linger for decades.
***UPDATE*** — May 24, 2011 – Calls for Australian refugee contractor to be stripped of contract. Sister Diana Santleben says investigation report left out significant details.
***UPDATE*** — May 24, 2011 – Australian refugee resettlement contractor accused of stealing from refugees
***UPDATE*** — May 26, 2011 - Radio interview of whistle-blower Sister Diana Santleben and Australian Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.
Posted in abuse, Australian refugee resettlement prgm, Catholic, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, openess and transparency in government | Tagged: Australia, Congolese refugees, human rights, New South Whales, Newcastle, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, substandard housing, Sudanese refugees | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on May 1, 2011
Slumlord housing in Newcastle, Australia
Reports of a refugee resettlement private contractor abusing and neglecting refugees deepen in Australia as an investigation began. We first covered the case a month ago, in posts here and here. (Australia has been in transition from a refugee resettlement program centered on government agency services to a new arrangement with private contractors, similar to how we resettle refugees in the US.) Aside from both a Catholic nun’s and an MP’s (Member of Parliament – equivalent to a US Congressperson) previous allegations that a resettlement contractor placed refugees in severely substandard housing with exorbitant prices – and then did a cover-up to fool investigators – now come reports of resettlement case workers stealing money from Congolese refugee clients. Another allegation is that the resettlement contractor did not take a young, pregnant refugee mother to a doctor until she gave birth to her child – “No early sort of prenatal services at all”, says the local MP. Read and listen to the following radio program about the case from media outlet ABC Newcastle:
MARK COLVIN: Staff at one Australia’s biggest providers of refugee services have been accused of stealing money from newly arrived refugees and providing them with sub-standard housing at exorbitant rents.
An investigation into the allegations started in the New South Wales city of Newcastle today.
There’d been persistent complaints from refugees and advocates before the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, announced the inquiry into the company, Navitas.
The final push came when the local Labor MP
put in a call to the Minister and convinced him to act.
But the Minister’s investigation comes just one month after the Government renewed Navitas’s lucrative refugee services contract.
Wendy Carlisle reports.
WENDY CARLISLE: Congolese refugees who’ve been re-settled in Newcastle say it’s been a grim experience. Exorbitant rents for houses in atrocious condition. Smashed windows, leaking gutters, broken awnings, ripped carpets, no hot water and in some cases, no functioning toilets…
…SHARON GRIERSON: Things like a young mother about to have a baby who had never been taken to a doctor or any medical service until the birth of her child. No early sort of prenatal services at all…
…WENDY CARLISLE: For the last three days, investigators from Ernst & Young have been in Newcastle, interviewing the 20 families in the care of Navitas; a company which has won tens of millions of dollars worth of Government contracts in migrant and refugee settlement services around Australia.
Kwabo Balende from Newcastle’s Congolese community says refugees have been complaining about Navitas for years but the Government hasn’t listened.
KWABO BALENDE: Before this contract to be renewed we started complaining because we didn’t believe that this contract can be sent back to these people.
WENDY CARLISLE: And it’s not just the accommodation that’s causing concern. Kwabo Balende alleges that Navitas case workers have been stealing money from the refugees when they withdraw money for them from ATMs.
KWABO BALENDE: Now when she wanted to pick money from the ATM machine she asked the caseworker to help me and the caseworker asks for the password. He asked me how much do you want? The lady say I need 100. When the caseworker come to the machine he pick out 200, he put 100 in his pocket and he give back 100 to the client. Some of them are stealing money and it is very serious case here… Read more here
…and another ABC Newcastle article here:
A refugee support worker says interviews with refugees this week in Newcastle have been an “eye opener” for the firm investigating claims they are being poorly treated.
Ernst and Young is due to conclude interviews today with refugee families who say they have been provided substandard accommodation, with little access to support services.
Sister Di Santleben says refugees are happy they have finally had a chance to explain their plight to the authorities.
“If you thought up a plan that would disempower people, make them isolated, increase their sense of insecurity, all those things, this system has lead to those outcomes,” she said… Read more here
I hope that Australians will begin to view this website to see what they’re in store for with their new refugee resettlement program that focuses on private contractors and light government oversight.
Posted in abuse, Australian refugee resettlement prgm, Catholic, Congolese, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, late health screenings, public/private partnership, Sudanese | Tagged: Australia, catholic, Chris Bowen, Congolese refugees, Di Santleben, Diana Santleben, Ernst & Young, government oversight, human rights, KWABO BALENDE, Navitas, New South Whales, Newcastle, private contractors, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, resettlement, SHARON GRIERSON, slum lord, slumlord, substandard housing, Sudanese refugees | Leave a Comment »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
