Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘former Yugoslav republics’ Category

Resettlement Agencies Sources Of Private Funding, Or Depending On Resettlement For Financial Income?

Posted by Christopher Coen on March 12, 2012

It’s still not clear to me that the refugee resettlement agencies, as the private sector partners in the US refugee resettlement program, are actually acting as a source of significant private funding for the program., as they so often tout. When I’ve tried to look at the figures I’ve found little information available, and what is available does not show significant private funds. An article in the Utica Observer-Dispatch discusses the changing economic needs of the local refugee resettlement agency — the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees:

UTICA — During the past 30 years, the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees has resettled people from 31 countries.

At its height in 1997, the center welcomed more than 1,000 Bosnians. During the past five years, the center has resettled an average of 500 refugees per year, most of whom have been Karen/Burmese refugees.

As the center continues to welcome new refugees who often become citizens and grow their families here, the Utica area – known as the city that loves refugees – must look at this group and its impact in a new way while it morphs into one culture.

Here’s a look at how the center is contributing to that process:…

…The refugee center devised a plan that would keep it relevant as not only a resource for new arriving refugees but for a community that reflects a change in its cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity.

Foreseeing that need, the board created objectives three years ago focusing on services that would promote cultural identity, increase access to interpreting and cultural awareness training, and provide opportunities for the community to become unified. That led to the creation of Compass Cultural Institute, an interpreting service program and cultural competence training service that’s been active in local hospitals, schools and workplaces.

“If we just depended on financial income coming only from resettling refugees [emphasis added] and continued to do that five or 10 years ago and not try to move in a different direction and provide other services to them, we would be in a different position,” refugee center board President Robert Dicks said… Read more here 

Should they “depend” on refugee resettlement for the organization’s financial income or should they be bringing significant private funding to the program? There should be enough transparency in the resettlement program so that we can look at these private funding figures. Secondly, refugees have always needed other services and support beyond the initial resettlement period, so shouldn’t these services have been built into every resettlement agency a long time ago? I know that organizations have to make sure the numbers work but the emphasis should always have been on refugees’ needs.

Posted in former Yugoslav republics, funding, Karen, Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, Utica | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Bridge Refugee Services Inc. in Knoxville gets a new director

Posted by Christopher Coen on August 17, 2010

A notice in Knoxvillebiz.com announces that Bridge Refugee Services Inc. is getting a new director:

Jennifer Ward Cornwell has been promoted to executive director of Bridge Refugee Services Inc. here

Who is this Jennifer Ward Cornwell? I looked her up and couldn’t find much of anything. Then I found a Facebook page with her name, which indicates that she just graduated from Furman University in 2007, and only just got a graduate degree this year. How is it possible that someone just out of school could be qualified to be the executive director of a refugee resettlement agency? (Although we hope she’s highly qualified and we wish her the best of luck, especially for the refugees’ sake.)

I suppose I should not be surprised by this at all in a field that also regularly employs people as caseworkers who have no experience working with refugees, and who often do not have masters degrees in social work. In fact you’re lucky as a refugee if your case worker even has a Bachelor’s degree in social work. But even in that case most of these people do not have a clue how to network with businesses to help refugees find jobs.

The other thing that resettlement agencies do is hire almost anyone who arrived here as a refugee themselves, and maybe has a college degree or worked for an NGO before they arrived in the US. But having been a refugee in no way automatically qualifies someone as a good case worker. I suspect that resettlement agencies hire refugees mainly for their foreign language abilities. Yet those skills often don’t help for long. Bosnian and other refugees from former-Yugoslavian republics are found all over the refugee resettlement field working as caseworkers and in other positions, and have language skills that are now fairly useless for the new set of refugees arriving these days. Although resettlement agencies are quick to tout the former-refugee experience of their caseworkers I think we should always ask, “but is this person a good case worker?”

Getting back to Bridge Refugee Services Inc., I just realized that we have a US Department of State inspection report for the agency from 2006. Bridge’s services leave a bit to be desired. Of all the refugees in the four families that the inspectors visited only one refugee was working. A Sudanese refugee family had arrived six months earlier yet the father was still unemployed even though he spoke good English. Refugees had to live in transitional housing for weeks – e.g. in a motel, a shelter, and in a host family’s home – before Bridge transferred them to permanent housing (this is a violation of basic requirements). Bridge also did not give ready-to-eat meals to all refugees upon arrival, as required. Files were often disorganized, incomplete or contained inappropriate documents. Caseworkers also did not know that refugees do not need social security cards to get a job, so the refugees were left to wait for months until social security cards arrived. I’m always struck with how we keep going year after year with the same basic mistakes being made over and over.

Bridge Refugee Services Inc. has had a several publicized problems this year — problems that the State Department inspectors obviously did not detect. See our previous coverage here, here and here.

Posted in Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services, Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services, Christian, CWS, EMM, employment/jobs for refugees, Episcopal, faith-based, food, former Yugoslav republics, housing, Knoxsville, Liberian, Meskhetian Turks (Ahiska
Turk), State Department, Sudanese, Tennessee | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

CWS & EMM Syracuse affiliate, Interfaith Works, placed refugees in deplorable apartment complex

Posted by Christopher Coen on July 25, 2010

An article in the Syracuse Post-Standard details a refugee success story — a Bosnian man who is now a police officer and home owner. Apparently refugee resettlement agencies resettled more than 3,000 Bosnians in the Syracuse area and another 6,000 in nearby Utica.

When I read the article I noticed that the resettlement agency, Interfaith Works, a CWS and EMM affiliate, placed the refugees at the notorious Vincent Apartments on Smith Lane.

…The former InterReligious Council refugee program, which is now the Center for New Americans Refugee Resettlement Program at Interfaith Works, helped set up his family, and many other Bosnian families, at the Vincent Apartments on Smith Lane in Syracuse…here

According to media accounts Vincent Apartments is one of the properties owned by Longley-Jones Management Corp. at which the company illegally removed asbestos, exposing workers and residents to the cancer-causing particles.

A Syracuse company admitted Tuesday that its workers illegally ripped asbestos out of 98 apartment buildings across Onondaga County, potentially exposing residents to the cancer-causing material for up to 15 years.

Longley-Jones Management Corp. of Syracuse, Central New York’s largest manager of commercial and residential real estate, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to eight felony charges and agreed to pay $4 million in fines.

About $3 million will pay for the cleanup of remaining asbestos, which in some cases was left exposed inside apartments and communal laundry rooms, prosecutors said.

The case involves some of the Syracuse area’s most prominent apartment complexes, including several historic buildings. The largest apartment buildings are the Skyline Apartments, at James and Lodi streets in Syracuse, the Vincent Apartments near Syracuse University and Springfield Garden apartments near Le Moyne College in DeWitt.

…Federal investigators are trying to notify former and current residents of the affected apartments. But prosecutors said they likely will never know the names of all the residents exposed.

“We can’t identify, let alone notify, all of the people, ” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Benedict, who prosecuted the case.

“We’re having a dickens of a time tracking down some of the people who lived in these buildings, ” Benedict said. “Over 15 years, we don’t know who has been in and out of the buildings.” here

Refugees who lived in the following apartments should pay particular notice, although basement and laundry areas were also effected.

Vincent Apartments, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111 Rony Lane, and 101-111 Smith Lane, Syracuse

Here are some reviews by former Vincent Apartments tenants:

- Really poor services

Rated 1.0 out of 5.0 By gao – Oct 23, 2009

The management is a mess and the maintenance is horrible. I signed up automatic payment but I still got charged late fee because they messed up my credit card information. Generally need to wait for days before they come to repair things, even for emergencies. A big chunk of ceiling material just fell off in the bathroom and water from upstairs drips down. I called them yesterday morning and nobody shows up yet. here

- Reviewed by: Anonymous

Review Date: 7/26/2009

Rented: From 2008 To 2009

This place is filthy, loud, and dangerous. I lived with a roommate, our apt. was burglarized, my license plates stolen off my car, and other tenants cars were broken into as well. Things that maintenance promised to repair never were, snow and ice not cleared during winter and hallways are disgusting. here

A 2006 State Department monitoring report for the former InterReligious Council, now Interfaith Works, noted the following about an apartment visited by monitors:

…[in a situation involving] a Liberian single mother, monitors observed broken glass, trash and graffiti around the building and in the corridors. The hallways were dirty, an upper floor window was open without screens, the entrance buzzer did not work, and a metal stairway banister was broken. Another resident in the complex indicated to monitors that the complex was substandard and dangerous. Monitors were told that there had been a fire on the first floor and gunfire heard on several occasions. Although the refugee’s apartment was clean and reasonably comfortable, the toilet was not working and the bathroom sink was clogged. The family was missing one bed frame, which the mother described as having been given but not replaced when the original mattress and frame had been discarded for having bedbugs…here

Posted in beds, Christian, CWS, EMM, Episcopal, faith-based, former Yugoslav republics, furnishings, lack of, housing, housing, substandard, Interfaith Works, Interfaith Works, New York, safety, State Department, Syracuse | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Refugees accuse International Institute of Boston of placing them in expensive apartments

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 19, 2010

Once again refugees are complaining about services they received at a USCRI affiliate, in this case the International Institute of Boston (here).

Many refugees are angry at resettlement agencies, such as the International Institute of Boston, that brought them here. They accuse the institute of placing them in apartments that are too expensive for their meager benefits, and then abandoning them.

Carolyn Benedict Drew, International Institute president, instead blames the refugees, saying they are rich and expect too much. Apparently Ms. Benedict Drew prefers that all refugees be poor, uneducated people with lower expectations of what her agency should do for them.

Carolyn Benedict Drew, International Institute president, said she agreed that the financial assistance was inadequate but also said many of the Iraqis came from well-to-do families and had higher expectations than refugees from poorer backgrounds.

“If somebody has been in a refugee camp all of their life, and has never really used a fork and spoon, that’s a very different expectation in coming to America than somebody in Iraq who was a physician and did very well,’’ Drew said.

But of course refugee resettlement agencies don’t get to pick who is a refugee. Refugees are people who are fleeing oppression, and some of them are educated and/or middle or upper social-economic people. They tend to ask more questions and are a bit less easy to intimidate, i.e. they’re “uppity”, in the minds of some of the resettlement agencies.

As usual Bob Carey, director of resettlement and migration policy at the International Rescue Committee (IRC), then tries to blame things on the government. He also feels he can speak for the refugees:

“They’ve been shocked at how little support they get.’’

Mr. Carey, do you ever tell your refugee clients that they should also be expecting support from your organization and not just the government? Do you ever tell them that you’re not adding much private funding? Instead, after successfully lobbying Congress to double the State Department contract money you now want to get even more goodies via your partner government agency, HHS’s ORR.

By now the private refugee resettlement “charities” have long since learned that they don’t have to offer much of anything on their own. Instead, they know they can just do a poor job and then effectively lobby the federal government to fill the “void”. For example, with the arrival of another refugee group that has many professionals, Iraqi refugees (like many of the former Yugoslav republics refugees before them), resettlement agencies are now spinning their lack of even minimum adequate help to these refugees as the fault of insufficient U.S. government funding.

Resettlement agencies are calling on federal and state governments to increase cash assistance and its duration. They also want professional re-certification programs that would enable refugee doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals to work in the careers in which they were trained. Until these measures are taken, they say, the federal government should provide money for emergency housing.

If they really believe that the government should give funding for all needs then what exactly is the point of involving charitable groups in the refugee resettlement program? As supposed charities shouldn’t they be offering these services on their own? Anyone can help professional refugees to try to re-certify just by, at the very least, Googling how to do it and then making an effort.

Our group has even done this for Iraqi refugees who couldn’t get any help from their particular resettlement agencies. It really doesn’t need more funding, it just means that we use our time differently to help these refugees. Instead of spending a lot of time and effort directing them to a series of no-skill or low-skill jobs resettlement agencies could instead help the refugees to write a good resume, and then direct them to jobs related to their field and to places to get take classes to prepare for re-certification.

If they were thinking along these useful lines, instead of always just demanding more government funding, they would also direct professional refugees to resettlement sites where they could  take higher level courses in their professional fields. For example, last year an Iraqi periodontist with a doctorate named Faiz Al Berqdar, 60, (he had an extensive collection of degrees, research articles and academic writings) was resettled to Salt Lake City by USCCB, and when he needed to go back to school to complete classes in areas where the U.S. considered his Iraqi education ”deficient” he learned that there was no dental college in Utah (here). He and his family then moved back to the Middle East where he immediately got an academic job in Syria. What sense does that make?

Posted in Boston, former Yugoslav republics, funding, government, HHS, International Institute of NE, Iraqi, IRC, Massachusetts, ORR, USCRI | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

 
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