Friends of Refugees

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Archive for the ‘Boise’ Category

Boise mayor’s office and local businesses team up to help refugees

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 4, 2012

The City of Boise has established a plan, known as the Refugee Resource Strategic Community Plan, to help refugees moving into the city in six areas of need – education, employment, health, housing, social integration and transportation. The city works with local businesses and agencies to help refugees with job training, learning English, finding housing, and made city transportation easier to use and help find better ways to connect people to city resources. Currently, more than 100 local businesses and agencies have joined in to help. An article and video report at Boise’s KTVB has more:

BOISE– Community leaders are the people who can make a town feel like a home. That is why in Boise, community partnerships are key to welcoming the refugee population.

Three years ago, the city started working on the Refugee Resource Strategic Community Plan.  Local businesses and the mayor’s office teamed up to help refugees moving into Boise.

Theresa McLeod with the Mayor’s office says Boise’s plan is getting national attention.  Last week, she presented the plan at the Episcopal Migration Ministry conference and says other communities are looking into creating similar programs.

“I think that spirit of collaboration we take for granted in Boise,” said Theresa McLeod, with Mayor David Bieter’s office.

The Refugee Resource Community Plan has formed partnerships in six different areas, education, employment, health, housing, social integration and transportation.

Boise and the Idaho Refugee Center decided those are the most important areas to focus on to help refugees become part of our community… Read more here

Posted in Boise, cultural/community orientation, post arrival, economic self-sufficiency, employment/jobs for refugees, housing, language | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

In Boise 400 Refugee Women Lose Breast Cancer Screenings

Posted by Christopher Coen on February 1, 2012

"An investigation..."

***UPDATE*** February 3, 2012 — Washington Post announces that Komen Foundation ambiguously reverses its decision, here.

Due to a new Susan B. Komen for the Cure (the pink ribbon group) policy to halt funding for any group “under investigation by federal, state or local authorities”, 400 refugee women in Boise will now no longer receive critical annual breast cancer screenings, unless new funding is found. Planned Parenthood was receiving funds, now cut, from the Susan B. Komen for the Cure Foundation for 170,000 clinical breast exams nationwide over the past five years) US House of Representatives right-wing Republicans recently began a politically motivated “investigation” of Planned Parenthood’s so-called use of public funds for abortion. This policy now needlessly pits two leading women’s health groups against each other by rewarding a congressman for merely starting an investigation – no matter the facts in the case, or if there is even any basis for the investigation (that’s like rewarding malicious gossiping and rumor mongering or being found guilty simply for being accused of something). No doubt this unwise Komen policy will affect many more refugee women than the 400 in Boise. An article at Crosscut explains:

Because a Florida congressman demands an investigation of abortion spending, some 400 women in rural areas of Clallam County in Washington face the loss of breast cancer screening. So do another 400 in the Boise, Idaho, area, but they face a worse dilemma: They’re refugee women from Africa and Asia, relocated to Idaho through the International Rescue Committee, and most lack the language skills to look for mammogram providers and other breast cancer support on their own.

For years, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest has used funds from the huge Susan B. Komen for the Cure Foundation to provide cancer screening treatments to women in Clallam County and in the Boise/Twin Falls area, administered by Planned Parenthood’s Puget Sound affiliate in Seattle. But as of this week, under congressional pressure over Planned Parenthood’s abortion assistance, the Komen Foundation has ended its contributions to Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening programs. Nineteen of Planned Parenthood’s 83 affiliates will be affected by the cut, including the two in Idaho and Clallam County. The organization says Komen funds have provided 170,000 clinical breast exams nationwide.

 “Komen got bullied by anti-choice politicians,” says Kristin Tlundberg of Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, which supports clinics in Washington, Idaho and Alaska, from its office in Seattle. “It’s a shame these two incredibly strong women’s organizations, both working to prevent cancer, have been forced into opposing positions by anti-choice forces determined to harm Planned Parenthood.”… Read more here

Posted in Boise, Congress, funding, health, right-wing, women | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Boise resettlement agencies accused of violating the Fair Housing Act

Posted by Christopher Coen on September 6, 2010

A fair housing council in Boise is accusing local refugee resettlement agencies (Agency for New Americans, International Rescue Committee and World Relief) of violating the Fair Housing Act by placing large numbers of refugees in certain housing complexes, isolated from the general community – i.e. de facto segregation.

According to an article in the Idaho Statesman a Boise Bench Apartments manager didn’t know how to respond to an African tribal chieftain refugee who thought that, since most residents were members of his tribe, that he could govern the apartment complex according to tribal law.

…That was about five years ago, and it was a red flag for Richard Mabbutt, head of the Intermountain Fair Housing Council.

It was evidence to him that Boise’s three refugee resettlement agencies – Agency for New Americans, International Rescue Committee and World Relief – were settling too many refugees from similar backgrounds too close together. What’s more, said Mabbutt, agencies were not giving newly arrived refugees a choice about where to live.

Mabbutt says this amounts to segregation, and it violates the Fair Housing Act. The act, established in the 1960s, protects all people – citizens, non-citizens, or those, like refugees, in the process of becoming citizens – who live in the United States.

Mabbutt and the Fair Housing Council have written a letter to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development accusing Boise’s three resettlement agencies of housing discrimination.

“What happens when you segregate people? You get a ‘little Bantu village,’” said Mabbutt, referring to African refugees who represent a quarter of the 760 refugees who came to Boise in the past year.

“How will a refugee get a tip on a good job – or even a minimum wage job in a hotel Downtown – when they only live around unemployed people from the same country?” he asked.

Agencies counter that they’re working with a limited number of housing options, and that settling people with others from similar backgrounds isn’t segregation at all. It’s short-term, transitional housing that creates a sense of security and familiarity for people in strange surroundings…

…Mabbutt said he has no quarrel with people living together as long as it’s by choice “and not by manipulation at the front end,” he said.

Ideally, Moore said, she would give newly arrived refugees a selection of housing choices. But housing new arrivals in hotels or other lodgings while staffers and refugees search for an ideal housing scenario would waste limited money available to refugees.

The State Department, she added, says agencies must house refugees immediately…

…Boise’s three resettlement agencies currently place refugee families in 25 different apartment complexes, said Moore…

…Finding housing is a challenge. Newly arrived refugees don’t have cars. They need to live near stores, schools and city bus lines, Moore said. Not every reasonably priced apartment fits the bill. And some local landlords won’t rent to refugees…

…Refugees in search of housing may also be out of luck if apartment complexes require certain things from potential tenants.

“Refugees often don’t have credit and two years of rental history to show a landlord,” [an apartment manager] said…

…HUD will have to decide whether Mabbutt and the Intermountain Fair Housing Council have a case. Officials say they are still reviewing Mabbutt’s allegations…

If HUD determines a complaint against the three Idaho agencies is warranted, the next step is conciliation.

The Intermountain Fair Housing Council and the three agencies will have to come up with solutions to expand housing options for refugees… here

I’m not sure what to think about this issue. (By the way, Larry Jones from World Relief would not comment for this story). There’s no doubt that finding suitable housing for arriving refugees is not as easy as it is to find housing for American clients. It’s true that they don’t have credit and rental history. On the other hand they don’t have bad credit or a bad rental history such as an eviction either. They are essentially an unknown to an apartment owner/apartment management company. It’s a matter of market forces – supply and demand. Do local apartment owners need or want new tenants, or not?

What I do notice from reading through all the State Department refugee resettlement inspection reports is that when resettlement agencies use huge apartment complexes problems often result. Some of these huge complexes are in need of large numbers of new tenants because of poor reputations. Locals don’t want to live there for a a variety of reasons, e.g. code violations, poor upkeep and maintenance, crime in the area, etc. 

The article then goes on to describe specific problems with the Boise resettlement agencies placing refugee clients with disabilities in apartments that do not adequately accommodate them, e.g. a refugee who uses a walker placed in an apartment with stairs. 

…Housing discrimination because of disability was among Mabbutt’s complaints to HUD.

Mabbutt is working with one refugee with a bad hip. His agency placed him in a two-story townhouse, despite a doctor’s letter stating the man’s need for an apartment without stairs.

Sara Nyaramuhima, 58, a Congolese refugee, has been in Idaho for seven months. Her husband and son were killed in Africa, and she was beaten. She can’t walk without a walker.

The International Rescue Committee, which handled her resettlement, was able to find a ground floor apartment, but the entryway has stairs and an approach of bumpy paving stones. That’s a violation of ”reasonable accommodation” for a disabled person under the Fair Housing Act, Mabbutt said…

…”It’s psychological. I know I have food and a place to stay. But I’m like a prisoner here,” Nyaramuhima said.

Getting out of her house is a complicated process. Nyaramuhima grips her walker, and swings her legs to the ground.

She doesn’t leave her apartment often, except for Thursdays and Sundays when friends from the Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall come to take her to meetings…

…That it’s taken seven months…to meet basic needs like home access and safety for one woman speaks to larger challenges agencies face.

Moore said her agency is notified about two weeks before a refugee arrives. Sometimes the agency receives detailed information about refugees’ medical and disability status, sometimes not.

It’s no one’s ideal scenario to house a woman with a walker in an apartment with stairs, but there’s a waiting list for apartments with ramps and railings and other amenities, Moore said.

Whats makes so little sense to me is why the State Department resettles refugees with known disabilities to communities that don’t have enough apartments to accommodate these clients. The Overseas Processing Entities (OPE’s) supposedly enter this information into a database that the US government uses to assess the incoming refugees. Why not direct fewer disabled refugee clients to Boise? Why are some refugees’ medical problems not shared with the resettlement agencies?

The article also mentions that in 2009 only 55 percent of employable refugees in Boise were finding work.

…The economy isn’t easing anyone’s challenges.

Recent statistics provided by the Boise mayor’s office show the success rate of local refugees has plummeted – from an estimated 90 percent of employable adults working in 2005 to just 55 percent in 2009…

The State Department refugee contracts that the private resettlement agencies sign “require” that 75% of refugees be employed within 180 days. Apparently the State Department wrote that requirement for a non-recession economy, and they have informally relaxed the requirement for now since employment outcomes for new refugees are fairly low throughout the US.

The article also states incorrectly that the State Department gives resettlement agencies only $900 per refugee. In fact they give an average of $1100 per refugee. The minimum amount is $900, and resettlement agencies may redirect an extra $300 per refugee to the refugees most in need within each local resettlement agency, e.g. disabled refugee clients, ill refugee clients, unemployed refugees, etc. (Actually, they get $1800 per refugee, but they can use $700 of it on overhead, such as salaries.)

…The federal government recently doubled the per-capita cash assistance, or one-time “welcome money” meant to help get refugees settled in their new homes from $450 to $900.”

Unfortunately, that’s not helping the refugees who have been here for two or three years,” said Bruce-Bennion.

At one time, Moore said, government support for refugees had no time limit. Support then dropped to 36 months, and fell in steady increments. For the past two decades, the U.S. has offered eight months of support for refugees…

What the resettlement agencies don’t mention, however, is that the U.S. refugee resettlement program reduced the timelines for refugee benefits as the U.S. accepted larger numbers of refugees. There was never unlimited public funds for refugee resettlement, so, as the resettlement agencies kept asking for ever greater numbers of refugee clients, and their friends in Congress kept obliging them, the program had to spread the per capita amount per refugee ever thinner and thinner.

Posted in Agency for New Americans (in Mountain States Group, Inc., Boise), Boise, Congolese, employment/jobs for refugees, funding, housing, Idaho, IRC, State Department, World Relief | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

IRC in Boise sends refugees to Threemile Canyon Farms in Oregon

Posted by Christopher Coen on August 30, 2010

An article in the Los Angeles Times details how the International Rescue Committee office in Boise has helped approximately 50 refugees from Bhutan, Myanmar Somalia, and Sudan to get jobs five hours away at Threemile Canyon Farms a dairy near Boardman, Oregon (Oregon’s largest factory farm, a sprawling 93,000-acre operation). An onion plant near Boardman has also started hiring refugees. The jobs are relatively well-paying and offer benefits, however the remote location and long hours means refugees go without basics such as English classes and refugee support services. Refugees are also packing into apartments since so few housing options exist in the Boardman area.

In Boise, Lana Whiteford, a 27-year-old employment specialist with the International Rescue Committee, was struggling to find work for refugees. Over her year in the position, she had watched as the office went from placing six or seven refugees in service and factory jobs each week to placing none for weeks at a time.

“I had this major gnawing guilt,” she said. “We had people receive eviction letters.”

Whiteford, who grew up in Anaheim, had never heard of Boardman, Ore. Then an e-mail from Threemile Canyon Farms landed in her inbox. “I Googled it,” she said.

She learned that the farm was a five-hour drive from Boise. Agencies like the International Rescue Committee, contracted by the government to help resettle refugees, look for jobs that are closer to their offices, so they can assist with housing, education and other needs. But these were extraordinary times.

…The refugees were told that the farm is unionized, salaries start at $9.45 an hour, and health insurance is provided. In Boise, they could expect to earn about $7.50 an hour with no benefits, and most jobs are part-time, Whiteford said.

…Since last year, the farm has hired about 50 refugees, all new to commercial farming and from countries as varied as Iraq, Myanmar and Sudan.

Rose Corral, the farm’s human resources director, says most have proved to be dedicated workers. The main challenge is communication. About 80% of the 300-strong workforce is Spanish-speaking. Few of the refugees speak much English, either.

The farm offers free English lessons, but most refugees find they are too tired to study after working 9 1/2-hour and longer days. After a few months, some say they speak better Spanish.

…The only problem has been finding housing for the refugees. Most Boardman workers commute from larger cities. But that can be difficult in winter, when extreme weather closes many roads.

So the refugees pack into shared apartments at [an apartment] complex…

Regardless of whether they stay, this quiet agrarian community offers them something many refugees can’t find elsewhere: the chance to become self-sufficient. here

Of course the refugee resettlement program supposedly requires that refugees be resettled to permanent housing that is safe, sanitary and in good repair. Refugees should not have to be “packed” into housing. In addition, the difficulty of attending English classes may pose problems for the refugees’ long-term self-sufficiency. The article also mentions a deadly car crash, which was blamed on a refugee who had tried to overtake another vehicle on a hill.

Many workers have tried to help the newcomers, offering to share food and rides. They collected nearly $3,000 for the widow and children of a Somali man, who was killed shortly after he was hired last year when the car he was riding in crashed into two other vehicles.

Is this the same accident in which refugees in Boardman were traveling back to Boise to visit family members?

Refugees…face long drives to see their families back in Boise. One car-load of refugees this year had a head-on collision, killing one. here

The fact that these refugees are so isolated from any support services gives me pause for concern. Refugee resettlement agencies all over the country are helping refugees to move to distant and remote locations for meatpacking jobs. Even more refugees are simply picking up and moving on their own to these jobs. Burmese refugees in Houston had a bad experience after relocating to a chicken-processing plant in Alabama (here). Refugees in Greensboro have also been relocated to a poultry plant processing plant in Moorefield, W.Va., a six-hour drive away (here). A problem with this is that these locations often do not have needed support services for refugees (English language classes, schools set up to teach refugee children, immigration services for green cards, torture survivors services, etc.), and local entities, e.g. emergency police and medical services, are rarely ready to deal with people who can’t yet speak English.

Posted in Boardman, Boise, Burma/Myanmar, employment/jobs for refugees, housing, housing, overcrowding, Idaho, Iraqi, IRC, meatpacking industry, Nepali Bhutanese, Oregon, secondary migration, refugee, Somali, Sudanese | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

EMM’s Agency for New Americans Under Fire In Boise

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 12, 2010

A refugee resettlement agency in Boise, Idaho has come under fire once again here. Agency for New Americans is at the epicenter of the new report. This follows a case reported in the Boise Weekly in February about a Burundian woman refugee who lost custody of her children after receiving mental health services in pantomime, without an interpreter, at Mountain States Group here (the Agency for New Americans is a part of Mountain States Group).

In the latest report a Congolese refugee named Alexis Mpalirwa (a father of five, who arrived in Idaho with his family just before the recession hit) gives his opinion of EMM’s Agency for New Americans.

[In his modest apartment] used box springs with exposed nails and mismatched bedding cover the floor of the roomhe shares with wife, Josephine.

…Mpalirwa tried to support his family doing temporary jobs such as janitorial work and mowing lawns. Money issues aside, the local welcome for Mpalirwa – as a refugee, as an African – has not always been warm.

At one of several nonprofit organizations where he volunteers so his family can continue to receive Health and Welfare benefits, a co-worker called him a “chimpanzee” when he was having trouble understanding her. Mpalirwa speaks French and Swahili and other African dialects. He’s learning English, but it’s halting.

…His two oldest sons were among those who got food-processing jobs at a nearby onion farm. Unfortunately, the jobs were temporary and his sons are back where they started.

“If they know there are no jobs, why do agencies bring refugees here?” asked Mpalirwa.

…“Agencies take advantage of refugees,” Mpalirwa said. “They play with them until the money’s gone, and then they go away.”

An Iraqi refugee woman reported similar poor treatment.  

Dhuha Ali, a doctor and Baghdad native, speaks fluent English. She left Iraq as a refugee in 2009 with her husband, Salwan Swidan, who’s also a doctor, and their young son.

…Ali and Swidan’s first lodgings in Boise, provided by the Agency for New Americans, contained one bed, a dirty couch, box springs intended as a second bed for the baby, dirty floors, an unusable rusted knife and minimal groceries.

Ali said she and Swidan received inadequate guidance from the agency about such things as where to shop, or how to get around Boise. The guidance they did get was one-size-fits-all – a volunteer came to their apartment to explain how to use a shower curtain and put garbage in a trash can – and not appropriate for urban professionals.

“It was insulting,” said Ali.

Refugees like Ali and Swidan who arrive in the U.S. to find substandard lodging – used towels, blankets with holes, chipped cups – question how agencies use the federal “welcome” money allocated to each refugee to tide them over until full benefits kick in.

…Ali and Swidan found jobs on their own, interpreting for other refugees and at a hospital human resources office, respectively.

“I think the main thing that helped us get jobs is that the agency was not involved,”Ali said.

Ali regrets that her first encounter with the U.S. was through a resettlement agency.

“It was so hard at first,” she said. “In the Middle East, at least you know the rules. Here, I was begging for plates and spoons.”

Why did the Agency for New Americans give the dirty and broken junk to these refugees instead of the minimum-required items of the State Department’s R&P contract? Slobodanka Hodzic, assistant director at the Agency for New Americans said:

  …the federal government provides a list of items the agency must provide for new arrivals. “It’s really bare,” she said – one fork and one knife per person, for example. About 95 percent of the furnishings her agency provides for new arrivals’ apartments are donated, she said.

Oops, she forgot to mention that the list is just for the minimum they are to give the refugees. It’s not like they couldn’t give the refugee family a few extra spoons and knives and plates. But, it’s nice that someone in a refugee resettlement agency finally agrees with us that the list of required items for refugees (here), required to receive grant money via the State Department’s R&P contract, is so minimal. But then why didn’t her agency give at least those minimum things? Broken, dirty junk is not allowed, according to the contracts, but I suppose that’s irrelevant since the minimum requirements of the contracts are never enforced.

I suppose that agencies will blame the current economy for forcing them to give dirty, broken junk to the refugees, but this has been going on for decades now. It happens when the economy is good and when it isn’t good.

The issue of the poor community orientation again comes up here. Would it really be so hard for the Agency for New Americans not to give a simple, one-size-fits-all community orientation to every refugee? In the case of Iraqi professionals the agency could have just asked the refugees what things they had questions about at the apartment, and then showed them around the community to orient them. But they didn’t even do that.

Each time the State Department finds out about problems they treat it as an isolated incident, and feel good about themselves that they are nice and “work with” the agencies to fix “the” problem. Yet, what we see is that these problems are not isolated, and in fact, often seem routine.

None so blind as those who will not see.

Posted in Agency for New Americans (in Mountain States Group, Inc., Boise), beds, Boise, Burundian, community/cultural orientation, Congolese, EMM, employment services, faith-based, Idaho, Iraqi, IRC, neglect, Operational Guidance, R&P, State Department, World Relief | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Burundian Refugee Woman In Boise – Court Places Six Kids Into Adoption Proceedings

Posted by Christopher Coen on February 27, 2010

A Burundian refugee woman client of World Relief is the subject of a case in which a judge terminated her parental rights, and placed her six kids into adoption proceedings (here).

Members of a local World Relief-affiliated church, as well as its pastor, claim the woman’s home was not a safe place for her children. The Court, as well, would supposedly have had to see proof of serious abuse and/or neglect (Court records remain sealed). One claim was that she left the children home alone, but a World Relief-affiliated church previously moved her to a place outside Boise, where no one from her ethnic community lived. How would she have been able to, e.g. drag all six kids to the grocery store with her? (Did she leave them in the care of the oldest child? I’m speculating.) Yet, the refugee woman should have been able to show the Court some change or improvement — assisted by social services, classes in child care, mental health services, and/or other help. What happened?

Well, they placed this refugee woman in psycho-social rehabilitation sessions at Mountain States Group in Boise, which works with many refugees (via its EMM-affiliated Agency for New Americans), yet these sessions took place mostly without interpreters, through pantomime. (The woman speaks Kirundi, the national language of Burundi). Pantomime, obviously, would have been useless.

“….at least two federal civil-rights complaints [have been filed] against Idaho health providers for failure to provide adequate interpretation, which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is investigating….If those charges are substantiated, they could call into question the validity of her psychological diagnoses and land the case in federal court.Health and Welfare’s Bureau of Facility Standards has already agreed that Niyonzima received inadequate help from interpreters at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center and the agency’s Medicaid certification bureau reported to McMillan that psycho-social rehabilitation sessions at Mountain States Group, which provides services to many refugees in Boise, were done in large part without interpreters, through pantomime. Staff at St. Al’s even remarked to the Health and Welfare reviewer that Niyonzima reported hallucinations–at the urging of her church friends–but when an interpreter was eventually called in, it turned out she was complaining of nightmares.

The psycho-social rehabilitation sessions may also have prevented her from visitation with her children while they remained in foster-care. Federal child welfare laws call for termination of parental rights if the children have remained in foster care for 15 out of any 22 consecutive months.

Kathy Tidwell, director at the Child Welfare Center at Boise State’s School of Social Work and founder of Tidwell Social Work Services, which works with Boise’s growing refugee community, said that federal child welfare laws provide strict time limits for terminating parental rights. If children are in foster care for 15 out of 22 months, the case goes to termination. “For many refugees who come here not speaking English, who come as women from countries where the expectations of women are very different, who have trauma histories … 15 months may not be enough time,” she said.

How would this refugee woman have been able to resolve the problems she was having in 22 months if she was receiving incompetent mental health care, and/or was misdiagnosed, and/or if she didn’t even need mental health care?

The question is, why wasn’t World Relief helping to make sure this woman was receiving responsible health care and mental health services? If they had simply monitored her case, they could have identified problems and contacted hospital and mental health services administrators to advocate for proper interpretation services. They also could have monitored the legal proceedings to make sure this refugee woman received competent legal representation. Why did it take someone from a non-World Relief-affiliated church, who met her randomly by just knocking on doors, to step in and help this woman?

The resettlement agencies who give the resettlement program a bad name always say that they are not responsible for refugees after their first 3 months, 4, months, 6 months, or 8 months (take your pick), but the reality is that the resettlement agencies are supposedly the local refugee experts, and after all, they are the ones who resettled her to the area claiming it was an appropriate resettlement site. They should catch these cases where circumstances leave their former refugee clients vulnerable.

The state refugee coordinator is also there to watch what is happening to refugees in the state (in this case Jan Reeves came in the revolving door via Mountain States Group, Inc.). State officials have the power to go into agencies and view their records to find out what is happening to refugees. They can also interview refugees with an interpreter if necessary to find out directly the problems the refugee is experiencing, and not just rely on occasionally looking at agencies’ records and only speaking to resettlement agency staff members.

This case reminds me of the Liberian teenager in Fargo who was meanly mislabeled as aggressive, crazy, and low-intelligence simply because no one bothered to find competent interpretation services for her (see our post here).

By the way, the Burundian refugee woman in Boise should not have lived with church members after initially arriving in Boise. The State Department’s Admissions Office has repeatedly warned World Relief affiliates (here, here and here) that this practice is prohibited. Of course the State Department’s warnings to resettlement agencies, and other slaps on the wrist, have long been ineffective. Most resettlement agencies just do as they wish as there are no real consequences to breaking contract requirements and regulations. Certainly there are no monetary consequences.

Finally, I would like to point out the accountability-shifting in this case that is so rampant in refugee resettlement. In this case the World Relief-affiliated church (a member of the church who was a World Relief volunteer brought the refugee to the church) that worked with this refugee woman claims that their church took no actions; that it was people in the church operating under their own volition.

At [Common Ground Covenant Church in Meridian] –a small evangelical church …several other families, including the pastor, Tom Bowen, began to assist Niyonzima as well….the pastor and three women from the church came to her house and asked her how they could help……..Pastor Bowen said..”[Niyonzima] had approached our church in helping with her kids, and then when she had asked us to no longer do that, we really weren’t involved,”…stressing that it was individuals from the church, not Common Ground, providing the assistance.

But is that really the case since even the church’s pastor was involved? A bigger problem is the resettlement agencies who always blame government oversight agencies. Then we have the State Department that won’t investigate these cases. They claim that we should report problem cases to the VOLAGS or to the state refugee coordinators. Yet, state refugee coordinators in turn tell us that they don’t have to answer to anyone but their governors, the federal oversight agencies, etc. Other state refugee coordinators tell us that we should not ask them to investigate problems, that instead we should ask the board of directors of refugee resettlement agencies to investigate.

So where does the buck ever stop? It seems like just a few people accept accountability in the refugee resettlement field. It is always the responsibility of someone else. This problem is the result of a culture of non-accountability, which I believe is systemic in refugee resettlement. It must change.

Posted in Agency for New Americans (in Mountain States Group, Inc., Boise), Boise, Burundian, child protective services, foster care, Idaho, language, language interpretation/translation, lack of, mental health, revolving door, World Relief | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

 
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