Archive for the ‘Illinois’ Category
Posted by Christopher Coen on April 30, 2012
The said purpose of the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR’s) Matching Grant Program (MG) is to place refugee clients in jobs which will enable their household units to meet self-sufficiency within 120 to 180 days (in this case “self-sufficiency” is defined as not accessing public cash assistance, although the household units may use other forms of welfare, e.g. SNAP/food stamps, Section 8 housing assistance, etc.). The MG supposedly works to speed up the process of self-sufficiency by offering programs, support, and incentives to refugees, making the transition to self-sufficiency faster and easier. Its called “Matching Grant” because participating agencies (private contractors) agree to match the ORR grant with cash and in-kind contributions (goods and services) from the “community”. The ORR awards $2 for every $1 raised by the refugee resettlement agency from non-federal sources – including state and local support, United Way contributions, and in-kind support from other local and volunteer organizations – up to a maximum of $2,200 in federal funds per refugee. So, self-sufficiency is the goal, but what are the results?
The Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights refugee resettlement agency in Chicago is one of the contractors that the ORR monitored to assess how well resettlement agencies are helping refugees using the Matching Grant money. In the past Heartland Alliance’ use of US Department of State refugee grant money, as well as a human trafficking grant from the US Department of Justice, left much to be desired. Now, it seems that a ORR MG Program Analyst noted deficiencies in Heartland Alliance’s use of the MG program grant as well, according to a newly released 2005 inspection of the agency:
…Case Notes – …The reviewer found little detail of services being provided, particularly in cases where clients did not become self-sufficient…
…Asylee Payments – Some asylee cases were found to be missing required monthly payments…
…Housing Provision – ORR observed a number of cases [where] full rental payments were not provided for the required time period, although needed. This forced clients to supplement the rent payments with their MG cash…
…Job Development – The reviewer found little evidence of true job developments on the part of [Heartland Alliance]. The program employment outcomes appear to be the result of fairly intense case management coupled with relatively independent clients who find their own jobs. In cases where clients have a family or a strong community base to assist in the employment search, this system seems adequate in assisting clients to become self-sufficient. However, few to no modifications to that procedure were evident in dealing with free cases [refugees with no local family or ethnic community support] that do not have a strong community base to assist, or other instances where such assistance is necessary. Such sub-par employment services were particularly evident in low English level refugee clients. The [Heartland Alliance] employment rate for CY2004 was 50%. USCRI national average for CY2004 was 85%; the national MG average was 72%… Read more here
This last figure seems to point to a problem at Heartland Alliance and not MG Program weaknesses. Yet, it also shows how dependent government inspectors are on contractors’ own written records in assessing compliance with government grants. Aside from the problems noted, what comes to mind is to what degree the contractor’s written records match refugee clients’ reports about services received, however, the inspection report shows no comments from the clients (as opposed to the State Department’s reviews of refugee resettlement grantees).
Nevertheless, though the national average for refugee employment in the MG program was 82% that year, Heartland Alliance’s refugee clients in MG only achieved a 50% employment rate. Much of that 50% appears to have been refugees finding employment on their own or with the help of family or community.
Posted in asylees, Chicago, economic self-sufficiency, employment services, employment/jobs for refugees, Heartland Alliance, Matching Grant program, ORR | Tagged: Chicago, grant, inspection, Matching grant, monitoring, Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on March 20, 2012
After the accidental drowning of an African refugee boy last summer on the Mississippi River in the Quad Cities area of Illinois, local organizations assisting refugees (not the local resettlement agency – World Relief) asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District for African language water safety information. The Corps has now responded with a water safety program to teach immigrants how to stay safe while enjoying recreation in or near the water in the US. An article at the official homepage of the US Army has more:
ROCK ISLAND, Ill. (March 19, 2012) — The drowning of an African immigrant last summer on the Mississippi River resulted in a request for African language water safety information that will help prevent such a tragedy from happening again.The 11-year-old boy was from Burundi, Africa. He moved to the U.S. four years ago and to the Quad Cities two years ago. The Church of Peace in Rock Island, Ill., and the Community Resource and Learning Center of Moline, Ill., work with refugees to educate, train and prepare them for new lives in local communities.
After the drowning, these organizations contacted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Rock Island District to provide water safety programs to teach immigrants how to stay safe while enjoying recreation in or near the water in America.
This information program presented challenges in both culture and language…
…”We found that the programs were more successful by creating presentations with some key word translations and having a native translator on site to communicate our water safety message in their language,” said Lou Ann McCracken, a natural resources specialist with the Mississippi River Project… Read more here
Related: Arizona Daily Star – Refugees learn swim skills in free program
Posted in drowning, Quad-Cities, World Relief | Tagged: african, Army Corps of Engineers, drowning, interpreter, Moline, Quad-Cities, refugees, resettlement, river, Rock Island, water safety | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on February 18, 2012
Refugees who either have no credit history yet or whom resettlement agencies ruined their credit by reporting them to credit bureaus for unpaid travel loans can find it difficult to find jobs. That’s because employers practice credit history discrimination, and Chicago’s City Council is now taking a look at this practice. A lawyer with the Illinois attorney general’s office told the council’s Human Relations Committee that a troubled credit history has no relationship to poor job performance or theft on the job. Employers can also refuse to hire people for being unemployed – no questions asked. An article in the Chicago Tribune discusses a City Council proposal to prevent this sort of discrimination:
Rejecting Chicago job applicants because of credit history would be banned in most cases under a proposal a City Council committee endorsed Thursday…
…Under the city measure, applicants who believe they have been wronged can take the less costly and simpler route of filing a complaint with the city Human Relations Commission.
The proposal, put forward by freshman Ald. Ameya Pawar, 47th, also would ban employment ads that say the unemployed cannot apply.
“People have been discriminated against simply on the basis of credit history or for simply being unemployed, and as a result, qualified applicants are being denied jobs,” Pawar said. “Every job seeker, regardless of their credit history, deserves a fair shake.
“And this kind of discrimination has profound impacts on seniors, single-income households, immigrants, refugees and parents re-entering the workforce and finally veterans,” he said…
…A union representative, an employment coordinator for a human rights group and a lawyer with the Illinois attorney general’s office all told the council’s Human Relations Committee that a troubled credit history has no relationship to poor job performance or theft on the job.
The officials also cited studies that indicate about a third of credit reports contain errors… Read more here
***UPDATE*** – Feb. 24, 2012 – Shelly Banjo writing for the Wall Street Journal reports that more than a dozen states are considering making it illegal for companies to discriminate against the unemployed:
“More than a dozen states are considering legislation to make it illegal for companies to discriminate against the unemployed. State lawmakers say they see the bias turning up in a nation with an 8.3% unemployment rate: Companies that explicitly advertise that they won’t hire someone who isn’t currently employed. The proposals from Connecticut to California range in scope from banning advertisements that require current employment to allowing unsuccessful job candidates to sue businesses under the same discrimination laws that apply to bias on the basis of religion, race, gender or national origin…” Read more here
Posted in Chicago, economic self-sufficiency, employment abuses, employment/jobs for refugees, Travel Loan Program | Tagged: bad credit, Chicago, City Council, credit history, discrimination, economic self sufficiency, Human Relations Committee, refugees, resettlement, unemployment | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on January 26, 2012
This topic seems to fall under the “Do not do” section of the best practices category. According to the State Department resettlement contracts, resettlement contractors are not to place incoming refugee cases in temporary housing, rather they should place refugees in their own permanent housing, e.g. an apartment rental, upon their arrival. Nevertheless, some contractors do this despite the requirement (I understand that once in a while refugees arrive in the US on short notice from the State Department, but what other excuse contractors are using for use of temporary housing I am not aware of). According to a July 2009 monitoring inspection, World Relief Aurora – an affiliate of World Relief in Aurora, Illinois – is one of the contractors that government inspectors found which have failed to place refugees into their own housing upon arrival. In this case, the agency placed refugees into the homes of unrelated refugee host families.
Monitors visited four refugee families and found that none of the adults were working yet, even though they were eager to work — one family had been in Aurora for four months, and another refugee man three months earlier. In addition, none of the refugees had received an initial health screening, which the Operational Guidance contract document requires be done within 30 days of their arrival. With regard to the housing:
…All of the refugees that monitors visited except [an] Iraqi family had been placed with unrelated refugee host families for a few days when they first arrived until they could sign leases for their own apartments. No form of written agreement showed what the host families had agreed to provide or for what period. The affiliate assured monitors that they provide bedding and other supplies, and that families usually volunteered. The Burmese Chin refugee told monitors that his bed and other items belonged to a previous tenant who had moved away. A case note in his file also revealed that the affiliate had asked the refugee to pay a previous tenant’s rent share for a period before the refugee moved in. The young Karenni refugee did not understand what furnishings were his to keep if he moved out… Read report here
Here is a snippet from a February 2010 posting which shows World Relief has long-placed refugees into non-permanent housing upon arrival.
… [a] 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…
Posted in best practices, Chicago, Cooperative Agreement, faith-based, housing, Karenni, late health screenings, Operational Guidance, World Relief | Tagged: best practices, Cooperative Agreement, inspection, monitoring, refugees, Relief Aurora, resettlement, World | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on November 13, 2011
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the largest refugee resettlement contractor in the U.S., has adopted a more combative style after failing to get their way on various government social services contracts. After refusing to recognize a new civil union law in Illinois, state government officials stopped working with Catholic Charities on adoptions and foster-care placements. Then, when the USCCB continued to refuse to simply refer human traffic victims – who are often raped and forced into prostitution by their captors – to the full legal range of permissible gynecological and obstetric care, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decided not to renew the group’s human trafficking grant. The Bishops have decided to ignore critical social justice issues, such as the increasing poverty rate during these hard economic times, while pursuing a so-called religious liberty under attack agenda. They still don’t seem to get the fact that most non-Catholics – and no doubt many Catholics as well – no longer trust them after years of bruising revelations that many dioceses moved clergy involved in sexual abuse of children among parishes without alerting parents or police. An Associated Press article has more:
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops meets Monday in Baltimore for its national meeting feeling under siege…
Many Catholic academics, activists and parishioners say the bishops are overreacting. John Gehring of Faith in Public Life, an advocacy network for more liberal religious voters, has argued that in a pluralistic society, government officials can choose policies that
differ from church teaching without prejudice being a factor.
“Some perspective is needed here,” Gehring, a Catholic, wrote on his organization’s blog…
…The Health and Human Services Department [HHS] recently decided not to renew a contract held since 2006 by the bishops’ refugee services office to help victims of human trafficking…the women are often raped and forced into prostitution by their captors.
Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the bishops, has called the decision discriminatory and a case of “ABC,” meaning anyone but Catholics. [HHS agency] officials vehemently deny any bias and say the sole criteria for evaluating potential grantees was which group could best serve the victims. Administration officials note that the vast network of Catholic social service nonprofits, including the bishops’ conference, receives hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding in amounts that have increased in the last couple of years…
…Scott Appleby, a prominent religious historian at the University of Notre Dame, says many church leaders have recently adopted “a more pugnacious style, much more of a kind of culture-wars attitude.” At the same time, the bishops’ have been stung by their loss of public influence from the sex abuse crisis and the years of bruising revelations that many dioceses moved guilty clergy among parishes without alerting parents or police.
“The church no longer receives deference or the hands-off attitude that it once had for many years. That’s gone,” Appleby said…
Critics of the bishops view the closer focus on religious liberty as another sign that church leaders are turning inward and away from promoting the church’s teaching on social justice.
Steven Krueger, national director of Catholic Democrats, pointed to the agenda released ahead of this week’s meeting, which included no public discussion of poverty despite the state of the economy. In the 1980s, the bishops issued an influential pastoral letter on Catholic principles and the economy, which church leaders reaffirmed in statements and education programs over the next decade.
“I think this certainly will represent to a vast majority of Catholics a tone-deafness on the part of many, many bishops,” Krueger said… Read more here
Posted in Catholic, churches, faith-based, health, HHS, human trafficking, Illinois, sexual abuse, USCCB | Tagged: Catholic Bishops, catholic church, Catholic social service, government contractor, Health and Human Services, HHS, Human trafficking, Scott Appleby, sexual abuse, USCCB | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on October 9, 2011
Middle-aged Iraqi refugee men talk about life in Chicago – working for $25 per day, paying high rents, and long distance walks to shops. Listen to their comments at Immigrant Connect Chicago:
Listen as Haya Hussein, a family caseworker for Arab American Family Services, translates the problems of these three Iraqi refugees. The issues that these refugees face are common issues in many different communities.
Mohammad Alfahmawy speaks about the benefits the refugees are supposed to be receiving, compared with those he received in Iraq.
Thamir Almadhi discusses the cycle of the language barrier holding him back from getting a good job. Though he has a survivor job, he still can’t pay his bills and goes further into debt.
Kamil Alghzzawi speaks of two other problems refugees face. The first is rent, which can be a bigger problem than health care for many refugees, who in most cases receive Medicaid, but do not get much cash assistance to pay rent.
Another problem Alghzzawi and other refugees face is that of transportation. He lives in the suburbs of Chicago where there is limited public transportation, and he cannot afford a car. Listen to their statements here
Posted in Chicago, employment/jobs for refugees, housing, Iraqi | Tagged: high rent, Iraqi, language barrier, low wages, refugees, resettlement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by nancylee1 on October 8, 2011
Whether coming from extreme poverty or a professional career that allowed them to live comfortably, most refugees here find themselves with a menial job that pays next to nothing. Just as airport travelers have little choice other than to pay the expensive concession stand prices throughout O’Hare and Midway airports – operated by retailers with lucrative city contracts – so do refugees have little choice but to accept the low paying airport jobs. As someone who worked for an airline for 16 years I can also attest to the fact that working in an airport is stressful no matter what job you do. Chicago is not cheap, and refugees working the airport jobs also have long, expensive commutes, while struggling to pay high rents.
Although Chicago city contractors have long had to pay living wages, a legal loophole allowed airport concessionaires to avoid the requirement. The retailers, however, may finally have to pay their employees a “living wage” of $11.18-an-hour if Chicago aldermen pass a new ordinance, according to article at Progress Illinois:
As the City of Chicago prepares to let out a wave of contracts for food and retail shops at O’Hare and Midway airports, new legislation seeks to ensure that concession workers at both facilities — the folks who pour the coffee, ring up book sales, fry hamburgers, and the like — are not unceremoniously dumped as the process moves forward.
The “Stable Jobs Stable Airports Ordinance” (PDF), in fact, would remake labor relations for concession employees should it it make it through the council thicket and find the signature of the current or next mayor of Chicago. It also stands out as one of the most significant expansions of the Chicago’s living wage rules since those stipulations were added to city code in the late 1990s…
…O’Hare and Midway concessions are lucrative, as anyone who has purchased a meal or a magazine while waiting for a flight out of Chicago knows well. In a request-for-proposals (PDF) for 22 specialty retail and services concessions at O’Hare, for example, the Department of Aviation reports that total sales for the 63 food, specialty concessions, news and gift stores, and duty free shops in the airport’s terminal one totaled $82.8 million in 2009. O’Hare has three terminals, of course, with 160 outlets in all, this RFP says. A “concession open house” for food and beverage slots at O’Hare and Midway, scheduled for tomorrow, will kick off a different bidding process.
Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward), one of the chief sponsors of the new ordinance, pointed out this morning that the concessions operators have a “captive audience” as fliers wait to board and often get multi-year contracts to run their outlets. Such business conditions mean concessionaires should be able to pay its employees a living wage, even if that means a price increase for some items… Read more here
Let’s hope that the ordinance passes so these workers and their children are not victims of a society that cares little for the 99%, while enriching the 1% who control most of the money.
Posted in Chicago, economic self-sufficiency, employment abuses, employment/jobs for refugees, Illinois, Refugees in US, Uncategorized | Tagged: aiport jobs, Chicago city contractors, living wage, low wages, minimum wage, refugee labor | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 23, 2011
Human trafficking is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by improper means for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation”. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act became law in 2000 to help organizations offer services to survivors of trafficking, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) has awarded millions of dollars in grant money to organizations claiming to give services to trafficking victims. Yet, recent audits of six grant-receiving organizations show that they had more than $2.72 million in unsupported, unallowable or questioned costs. An audit of Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights in Chicago, which the DOJ awarded $2 million, revealed that this refugee organization did not have adequate documentation for $902,122 in salaries and $174,479 in fringe benefits. An article in InfoZine has more:
Six audits completed between 2007 and 2009 reported more than $2.72 million in unsupported, unallowable or questioned costs of the $8.24 million total the Department of Justice awarded to the six grant recipients.
“These select individual audits signal to me that there is a bigger problem,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. “The inspector general audited seven trafficking grantees and found serious problems in all seven.”
During the hearing on the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which provides grants and resources for trafficking victims, advocates, law enforcement and prosecutors, Grassley questioned whether the Department of Justice is awarding money to the appropriate organizations.
“Holding grant programs accountable will help to ensure that services really go to those in need,” Grassley, the senior Republican on the committee, said in a statement. “Before we reauthorize another dollar, we need strong oversight language included in legislation – to ensure that failing grantees will not be rewarded with additional taxpayer dollars.”
Human trafficking is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by improper means for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation,” according to the National Institute of Justice’s website.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act became law in 2000 to help organizations spread awareness, provide services to survivors of trafficking, investigate trafficking and support the prosecution of traffickers.
Not all grant recipients appear to be handling their money appropriately, however. One audit discovered that the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs in Chicago, which was awarded $2 million, did not have adequate documentation for $902,122 in salaries and $174,479 in fringe benefits… Read more here
Posted in Chicago, Dept. of Justice, funding, Heartland Alliance, human trafficking, invalid or improper expenses, public/private partnership | Tagged: Department of Justice, grant, heartland alliance, Human trafficking, questionable costs, refugees, resettlement, Trafficking Victims Protection Act, unauthorized expenditures | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christopher Coen on September 8, 2011
A suburban Chicago church, the Wheaton Bible Church, partnering with the World Relief refugee resettlement contractor has found a “window” in their efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity. They term this conversion strategy “immigration engagement theology” and are implementing it via their MOVE Initiative. So committed are they to converting the refugees, several staff and church members have moved into the Wheaton apartment complex where World Relief placed 15 Iraqi families, claiming they want to foster deeper relationships with the refugees. The story is found in the September 2011 issue of Christianity Today:
Shortly after our son Paul graduated from high school this spring, we put him on a plane with seven other students for a two-week trip to France and Italy. Their trek, led by four adults, was a small piece of Wheaton Bible Church’s (WBC) MOVE Initiative, a relatively nascent project defined by its mission and ministry to Muslims both in suburban Chicago and abroad…
…Locally, the MOVE Initiative reaches out to about 15 Iraqi families in a nearby apartment complex through a partnership with World Relief. Several staff and church members have moved into the complex to foster deeper relationships, which typically begin with relatively simple tasks when the refugees arrive: picking them up at the airport, stocking their fridges, running errands, and meeting other practical needs involved in resettlement.
“We’re just meeting needs and building relationships,” says local-impact pastor Chris McElwee. “They’re not strangers to us. They know us and trust us, and they’re interested in spiritual things.” At least a couple of the Iraqi men have been visiting WBC in recent months, attending worship services (with their Arabic/English Bibles in hand) and taking part in a discussion group.
Our new MOVE missionaries, who recently arrived in France, will take essentially the same approach: helping refugees resettle, meeting needs, and building relationships. The hope is that as the friendships grow, so will opportunities to share the gospel…
…Greater Europe Mission president Henry Deneen says the relatively recent influx of Muslims to Europe has affected his ministry’s overall strategy. It still reaches out to native Europeans, but “there’s a window of time here, especially with all the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, that immigrants are flooding into Europe.
“Several European governments—particularly France, Germany, and the UK—are saying that the experiment of multiculturalism … has failed,” he says. “So you have a perfect storm—immigrants flooding in, and governments saying it’s not working. We’re saying, what a great place for the Lord Jesus to be.”
Thus, Wheaton Bible’s efforts to reach out to Muslims in France. Says Bugh, “It’s all part of a larger immigration engagement theology that’s worked for us.” Read more here
Posted in Chicago, churches, converting refugees, evangelical, faith-based, Iraqi, Islamic, World Relief | Tagged: Chicago, Chris McElwee, conversion, Emily Gray, Henry Deneen, immigration engagement theology, missionaries, MOVE Initiative, multiculturalism, proselytization, refugees, resettlement, WBC, Wheaton, Wheaton Bible Church, World Relief | 2 Comments »
Posted by Christopher Coen on August 18, 2011
While the State Department and their private resettlement agency partners continue to resettle refugees to large urban environments – many in dangerous neighborhoods with expensive, roachy apartments and poor schools – refugees continue to out-migrate. Lynn, Massachusetts and Chicago’s north and northwest suburbs are two areas seeing fairly heavy secondary migration (Lynn is also a primary refugee resettlement site). NPR’s WBUR has the details about Lynn.
LYNN, Mass. — With ts cheaper rentals and abundance of public housing, the city of Lynn has become a magnet for families displaced by an ailing economy. This includes a growing number of immigrants — many of whom are refugees seeking a better life…
…the population has grown by almost a third. The city has become a popular destination because of its access to public assistance programs and to public housing.
Lynn is also one of the few cities in Massachusetts where the United Nations High Commission for Refugees relocates people from all over the world. Families who have endured war and famine come from countries as far away as Sudan, Bhutan and Iraq… Read more here
Chicago Public Media WBEZ explains the situation in the Chicago area. Although Chicago’s suburbs are home to established Iraqi populations, resettlement agencies like Heartland Alliance and RefugeeONE continue to resettle Iraqis into the intercity away from their already established relatives:
The Uptown neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side is an established hub for refugee resettlement. There are many agencies there, and refugees opt to live nearby. But recently more refugees bypass Chicago altogether and head to the north and northwest suburbs instead. Those communities are discovering these new populations in their schools, and suburban educators are having to adjust to meet the unique needs of their newest arrivals…
…WANGERIN: We were seeing fewer and fewer Iraqis actually come to our office and avail of our services.
Greg Wangerin is with RefugeeONE, in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. He started to notice the difference in 2007, when the number of Iraqi refugees spiked. Now, Iraqis are the largest group of refugees coming to the Chicago area.
WANGERIN: We began to examine why, and we noticed that this was the circumstance, again because they were coming to reunite with relatives up in that area.
Chicago’s suburbs are home to established Iraqi populations. They came as a result of the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s, and Operation Desert Storm in the 90s. Wangerin says there are other reasons Iraqi refugees are heading to suburbs… Read more here
Posted in Boston, Chicago, dangerous neighborhoods, Heartland Alliance, Iraqi, RefugeeONE (formerly, Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries), RefugeeONE (formerly, Interfaith Refugee & Immigration Ministries), school for refugee children, schools, secondary migration, refugee, State Department | Tagged: Chicago, Greg Wangerin, heartland alliance, Iraqis, Lynn, Massachusetts, RefugeeOne, refugees, resettlement, State Department, Uptown | 5 Comments »
Christopher Coen
Melissa Sogard
nancylee1
