Archive for the ‘household items, missing or broken’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on December 5, 2011
Almost two years now after the Kansas City Star – and the Pitch a year earlier – published accounts about Jewish Vocational Service of Kansas City (JVS) placing refugees in substandard housing (here and here), comes word that three former employees of the agency are suing, claiming they were blamed for their supervisor’s bad decisions. The three are suing for discrimination due to their race, skin color and national origin, claiming that their supervisor, Deborah Fiene, who was in charge of housing, scapegoated them for her own poor decisions in placing refugees in extremely substandard and unsanitary housing. The three claim that JVS fired them due to “unsatisfactory job performance” yet they all had received positive evaluations and each promoted less than a year earlier. They claim in their suit papers that Feine was never punished despite evidence of impropriety on her job performance. They also claim that the agency rifled through their desks and stole personal documents, including citizenship papers, while later arguing in court papers that the agency was exempt from the lawsuit because it was a religious organisation. A Kenyen newspaper (one of the accusers originates from Kenya), The Standard, has the story:
A Kenyan US based journalist and two other African immigrants have gone to court and sued a Jewish organisation in the US for racial discrimination.
Peter Makori, a resident of Kansas City who originally hails from Kisii in Kenya and Abdi Murasaal and Bakar Abdalla from Somalia have sued Jewish Vocational Service (JVS) of Kansas City for damages claiming they were dismissed from their employment because their boss, of Caucasian origin (white) discriminated against them due to their race, skin colour and national origins.
The three, through their lawyer, Brian Barjenbruch complained in their suit papers filed in the circuit court of Kansas City Missouri, that a white female employee who was herself not punished committed the mistakes that led to their dismissal from work…
…Makori and Abdallah worked as refugee resettlement case managers at the JVS, while Mursaal was their general manager at the organisation’s Centre for New Americans.
They are seeking…compensation for unfairly losing their jobs and other inconveniences. They claim in their suit papers the fact that their colleague who is white was never punished despite evidence of impropriety on her job performance showed that they were victims of racial discrimination.
The centre works with the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) – a body that is contracted by the US State Department for Homeland Security – to bring refugees to America from turbulent regions around the world….
…The former JVS employees have claimed that their colleague, Deborah Fiene, who was in charge of housing, had allegedly placed refugees in dirty and sub-standard housing, which contravened the regulations of the State Department and USCRI. Despite this, she was not punished but the boss used the three as her scapegoat and summarily sacked them.
They claimed that their complaints against Fiene to the organisation’s executive director, who is also white, that the housing coordinator was putting refugees in poor housing, were dismissed…
…Makori…claimed in his suit papers that a few days preceding his dismissal, his desk at work was ransacked and numerous documents taken away…
…Bakar claimed in his suit papers that his desk was ransacked and several documents, including his citizen’s certificate, which was in his drawers lost. Abdi claimed that the management had ransacked his desk and several documents taken away.
They pointed out their employer had accused them in their dismissal letters that they were sacked because of “unsatisfactory job performance” yet they all had received positive evaluation and each promoted less than a year earlier… Read more here
The case involved more than JVS simply placing refugees in wretched housing. Newspaper accounts reported that refugees were left on their own for medical appointments, and that JVS failed to give a refugee family all sorts of minimum-required household items, while documenting that it had done so.
Posted in faith-based, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, substandard, Jewish, Jewish Vocational Services, Kansas City, Kenyen, medical care, Somali, Sudanese, USCRI | Tagged: Deborah Fiene, discrimination, Jewish Vocational Service of Kansas City, Joy Foster, jvs, refugees, resettlement, scapegoat, substandard housing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on October 29, 2011
The Nickel City Smiler documentary film will be showing next weekend in Buffalo. It gives refugees their own voice, describing their experiences in the resettlement process – something the refugee resettlement agencies regularly ignore, and even suppress.
Screenings are scheduled for:
Friday, Saturday & Sunday (November 4, 5 and 6) at 7pm at the Market Arcade, Film and Art Centre, located a 639 Main Street, Buffalo NY.
Hand-made bags by Karen refugee Ma Dee, who is featured in the film, and other Karen goods will be available for purchase at the screening.
The Nickel City Smiler documentary film is also available for purchase on DVD — here.
Posted in faith-based, housing, overcrowding, household items, missing or broken, Karen, dangerous neighborhoods, housing, safety, Buffalo, Journey's End Refugee Services, Journey's End Refugee Services, International Institute of Buffalo, Catholic Charities of Buffalo, language, Jewish Family Service of Buffalo & Erie County, population levels, using refugees as pawns to boost | Tagged: refugees, resettlement, documentary, Buffalo, Nickel City Smiler, Smiler Greely, dangerous neighborhoods, population decline | 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 July 14, 2011
Chance Encounter Productions (CEP), which produced the Nickel City Smiler documentary, was invited to show their film at the “Building a Movement: Nickel City Film Series” – a series of film screenings by the Heart of the City Community Development Corporation to encourage public discussion and involvement in issues hindering strong, sustainable communities in Buffalo. Nickel City Smiler was to have been the only locally produced film to be shown. It illustrates refugees’ plight with local slum lords, crime, as well as some frustrations with the resettlement agencies.
Having nothing of it, the local refugee resettlement agencies got to work to have the film removed from the film series. CEP reports that Heart of the City later contacted them to say that the film would not be shown. CEP says that Heart of the City admitted that they based the eleventh-hour rejection on the anger that the agencies and other groups of Heart of the City had about the film, and their wish that the public not see it.
Apparently, along with placing refugees with known slum lords, not providing refugees with essential household items, forcing two refugee families to share one small apartment, and not being available to help a refugee woman while her husband was dying, these groups also have no problem engaging in censorship.
Note: The Nickel City Smiler DVD is available for purchase
Posted in Buffalo, dangerous neighborhoods, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, overcrowding, housing, substandard, International Institute of Buffalo, Jewish Family Service of Buffalo & Erie County, Journey's End Refugee Services, Journey's End Refugee Services, Karen, language interpretation/translation, lack of | Tagged: refugee, resettlement, Burma/Myanmar, Journey's End Refugee Services, Buffalo, Karen refugees, International Institute of Buffalo, Catholic Charities of Buffalo, Chance Encounter Productions, Jewish Family Service of Buffalo & Erie County, Nickel City Film Series, CEP | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on July 1, 2011
The Nickle City Smiler refugee documentary film is getting more attention in the media. Part one of a three part series of articles came out today at the Buffalo Rising media website.
…[Scott Murchie] is a filmmaker and director who owns a film company in Clarence, Chance Encounter Productions. He came across Donna Pepero, an employee at Journey’s End Refugee services and head of the Refugee School Impact Program when his company was randomly selected to do a documentary on refugees in Buffalo. The crew, made up of directors Scott Murchie and Brett Williams, and then freelance camera operator Tim Gera, completed an 18 minute documentary, entitled “Refugees: Buffalo’s Next Generation.” But their interest didn’t stop there. They were only telling one side of the story of refugees in Buffalo. There was also another side of the story, the refugee’s side.
Scott says he and his colleagues began to see the true problems the refugees are facing assimilating into American culture when they began their short documentary. It is hard enough for many citizens of Buffalo already living there to get by, let alone someone who just came from another country.
Getting most of their information from resettlement agencies, their first film only showcased some positive points of bringing refugees into Buffalo. As well as many positive aspects to bringing refugees to Buffalo, there are many negative situations as well. In the spring of 2008, Chance Encounter Productions started filming another, much more in-depth documentary. This time as a way to reach out to the community for help. Scott believes that the resettlement agencies are not doing a good job for refugees, in fact he believes that they are
doing a very poor job.
Nickel City Smiler received some interesting feedback. According to Scott, the response was overwhelmingly positive around the community, with people wanting to know how they could offer aid to refugees. The response within the resettlement community was however more mixed. Shortly after my review of Nickel City Smiler was published in Buffalo Rising, I received an invitation from Journey’s End to come speak with them. Of course I accepted the invitation and met with the directors of three of the major resettlement agencies in the area…
The documentary portrays the situation of refugees who are living in poor conditions in the city. For example, there are two refugee families featured, which speak different languages, crammed into a small apartment. A woman, who did not know how to get help for her husband when he was having a heart attack, is suffering with the loss. The film explores why refugees may be having such problems, and what they find is that the resettlement agencies in Buffalo could be doing a better job, well, resettling the refugees in their care.
When I met with three directors from three of the four major resettlement agencies, I asked them about their response to the film. I was curious as to why they were not represented, and I wanted to give them a chance to speak.
They told me that the film was inaccurate, possibly cut and pasted, and misrepresents the agencies completely. When I asked Ann Brittain, director of the Immigration and Refugee Assistance Program of Catholic Charities, about the two families featured in the film who live crammed in one small apartment, she said that was a completely false situation.
“It’s not that they live like that,” Ann said, “they congregate.”
She explained that on any given day you might see a lot of refugees mingling at one house, since they enjoy being together. I met Tikee, one of the fathers living in that apartment, and I do believe that the film represents Tikee’s situation fairly. Is it the resettlement agencies fault entirely? Probably not, but something went amiss for this situation and others like it to have come into being.
Why are the filmmakers and the resettlement agencies bickering? Molly Short, Executive Director at Journey’s End Refugee Services, says there was poor communication between herself and the filmmakers. Scott says the agencies just don’t want to admit their mistakes, and just don’t have the resources to care for all the refugees they bring in… Read more here
Ann Brittain, director of the Immigration and Refugee Assistance Program of Catholic Charities” when asked why her agency placed two families together in one small inner-city apartment claims “they congregate”? Well, yes they do, but what does that have to do with housing two families together? This type of failure to truth tell does nothing to help resolve the problems. The real issue needs to be addressed, e.g. are Buffalo resettlement agencies at over-capacity? Did the resettlement agency have a shortage of housing units at that time, and why?
As far as Molly Short at Journey’s End responding that communication was poor, then what is her explanation for the filmmaker’s first documentary in which they relied mainly on the local resettlement agencies’ information? Was there any miscommunication at that time? As well, improved communication will not resolve many of the facts of resettlement in Buffalo. Refugees have died in senseless violence in the neighborhood. Is it valid to use refugees to repopulate areas of our country that are losing population, when refugees are a known vulnerable group?
Furthermore, resettlement agencies will not resolve their failure to give refugees the minimum-required services, that they freely agree to give via government contracts, until they openly and adequately address the issue. This is particularly true when we are only about one year out from the State Department’s doubling of per capita initial resettlement funding.
Posted in Buffalo, Burma/Myanmar, Catholic Charities of Buffalo, children, dangerous neighborhoods, household items, missing or broken, housing, housing, overcrowding, housing, substandard, International Institute of Buffalo, Jewish Family Service of Buffalo & Erie County, Journey's End Refugee Services, Journey's End Refugee Services, Karen, neglect, population levels, using refugees as pawns to boost, safety | Tagged: Ann Brittain, Brett Williams, Buffalo, Catholic Charities of Buffalo, Chance Encounter Productions, dangerous neighborhoods, government contractors, human rights, Immigration and Refugee Assistance Program, International Institute of Buffalo, Jewish Family Service of Buffalo & Erie County, Journey's End Refugee Services, Molly Short, Nickle City Smiler, refugee, refugee resettlement, refugee resettlement agencies, refugee resettlement program, Refugees: Buffalo's Next Generation, resettlement, Scott Murchie, Smiler Greely, State Department | Leave a Comment »
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 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 »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
