Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘Louisville’ Category

Another apartment house fire, this time in Louisville

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 16, 2012

Slum lords are notorious for failing to address maintenance issues. One result of this is the danger of fire (and here) due to failure of landlords to keep up the premises. A Nepali refugee family found this out the hard way last Wednesday in Louisville. A note at the Catholic Charities Louisville website identifies one of the families displaced by the fire as refugees:

Catholic Charities (Louisville, KY) – The Hari Subedi refugee family of six, resettled by Catholic Charities about a year and half ago, was one of the families displaced in the Buechel Bank Road Apartment fire today. While they and other residents lost everything, there were no injuries due to the fire.

The Subedi family did not need emergency shelter and are currently living with another Nepali refugee family… Read more here

A tenant in the apartment where the fire started said she awoke to a pop and found a socket beside her daughter’s bed on fire. She claims she began telling her landlord of faulty sockets when she moved into her apartment two years ago. The landlord allegedly placed tape over sockets in the apartment’s kitchen and told her an electrician would repair them, yet an electrician never came to the apartment to inspect the sockets. An article at the Louisville Courier-Journal has more:

Officials are investigating a fire that destroyed a building and displaced eight families Wednesday afternoon at an apartment complex in the 2100 block of Buechel Bank Road…

…Chrishawna Johnson, who was asleep in the apartment where the fire started, said she believes the fire was caused by an electrical short.

“I heard a pop and I jumped up,” Johnson said. “When I came out of my room, my daughter’s bedroom was on fire. The socket beside her bed was on fire.”

Johnson said she began telling her landlord — whom she could not identify — of faulty sockets when she moved into her apartment two years ago. The landlord placed tape over sockets in the apartment’s kitchen and told Johnson an electrician would repair them, Johnson said.

An electrician never came to the apartment to inspect the sockets, Johnson said.

A message left at Willowbrook’s leasing office was not immediately returned Wednesday.

No sprinklers were present in the building, and no fire hydrants are on the property… Read more here

Posted in apartment house fires, Catholic Charities of Louisville Inc., housing, housing, substandard, Louisville, Nepali Bhutanese | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Burundian refugee slain at apartment complex in Louisville

Posted by Christopher Coen on August 4, 2011

Another refugee has lost his life at a public housing complex – this time in Louisville. Burundian refugee Karenzo Audace was gunned down while trying to move his family away from a public housing complex because his wife said the suspect was sexually harassing her. The Louisville Courier-Journal has more:

A murder warrant has been issued for a Louisville man accused of shooting a Park Hill immigrant who was moving his family because his wife said the suspect was sexually harassing her.

Jason Majors was arrested Thursday on a disorderly conduct charge after Karenzo Audace’s wife called to complain that Majors had repeatedly made unwanted advances toward her.

“He wanted to have a relationship that she did not wish to have,” said Lt. Barry Wilkerson, commander of the Louisville Metro Police homicide unit. Wilkerson said he believes the pair only knew each other because they lived in the same area.

Audace was gunned down Monday as he tried to pack his family up and move them away from their apartment in the Parkway Place public housing complex to avoid further confrontations with Majors, Wilkerson said.

Audace, 36, died of multiple gunshot wounds, said Rita Taylor, a deputy Jefferson County coroner.

He was an African immigrant from Burundi who lived in Louisville with his wife and their two daughters, ages 8 and 5, and a 3-year-old son.

As police searched Tuesday for Majors, Audace’s friends and family remembered him as an outgoing, caring father and husband who was doing all he could to make the best of his new life in America.

“He’s just so vibrant and had so much energy,” said Lisa Cox, who taught Audace at Jefferson Community and Technical College. “He’s a good person, and I don’t understand why it had to be him.”

Though Wilkerson said he did not believe that Audace and Majors had exchanged words with each other before the shooting.

After he was arrested on the disorderly conduct charge and fleeing and evading police, Majors was released on his own recognizance, according to court records.

Majors has been arrested on several misdemeanors drug charges, most recently in 2009, plus a fourth-degree assault and disorderly conduct in 2003 and a felony second-degree attempting escape in 2002…

…Cox, who had Audace in two classes while he was going through the developmental English as a Second Language program at the community college, said Audace had a zest for learning. He always had questions in class and brought his homework in on time, she said.

In one of his essays, Cox said he had written about the horrors of his life in Africa, where he’d watched his two parents be slaughtered and then was left to get his younger siblings to safety… Read more here

This is now less than two months after an elderly Liberian refugee was hit my a stray bullet and killed at a public housing complex in Buffalo. A Southern Sudanese refugee I knew named James Kuch Mangui, age 24, was also gun downed and murdered in 2004 at an apartment complex in Louisville. In that case it involved mistaken identity and someone looking to avenge his car being scraped in a parking lot.

I think that resettlement agencies should always steer refugees away from public housing complexes known for extreme violence or murders. It’s not enough to just sign them up for public housing and hope for the best when some of these complexes are well-known as extremely dangerous. I know that resettlement agencies will say that they don’t have enough funding to find alternatives, but how true is that? Yes, we all know that there is an epidemic of violence at some public housing complexes, but the agencies could at least direct refugees to safer private market units that accept section 8. The US refugee resettlement program is not responsible for all victims of violence at these complexes, but they are responsible for the refugees they resettle.

Posted in Burundian, dangerous neighborhoods, housing, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Louisville, safety | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Burundian refugee father’s death prompts Thanksgiving help in Louisville

Posted by Christopher Coen on November 24, 2010

This Thanksgiving holiday story in the Louisville Courier-Journal is about everything that is right in refugee resettlement – a helpful resettlement agency, generous volunteers, and ethnic community support. A Burundian refugee father of five succumbs to a parasite in his lungs but his 29-year-old nephew and his wife, as well as compassionate volunteers, step in to help.

Three years after leaving Africa’s violence and the refugee camp where his wife died from complications of childbirth, Sindayihebura Pierre’s dream for his family finally seemed to be taking root.

The Burundian father of five had worked hard to build a new life in Louisville. He’d landed a night factory job. He’d bought a Jeep. And he’d proudly watched his children thrive in public schools.

But in September, 44-year-old Pierre died suddenly from a parasite he’d been carrying since his days in the camps, leaving his children orphaned in a country they still barely knew…Read more here

Posted in Burundian, Catholic, Catholic Charities of Louisville Inc., children, Louisville, volunteers | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Haitian humanitarian paroles recovering in Atlanta, Miami, Durham, Houston, Portland, Ore. & Louisville

Posted by Christopher Coen on July 7, 2010

Haitian humanitarian paroles are slowly recovering from earthquake injuries in Atlanta, Miami, Durham, N.C. Houston, Portland, Ore., Louisville and other cities. An article in the Courier-Journal newspaper profiles two Haitians in Louisville, here.

Paralyzed from the waist down during the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince, [Haitian Miguel Zamor] was resettled in Louisville three weeks ago following surgeries in Miami on his spine, which was crushed by a falling wall.

“We get a lot of help here, my biggest problem is the chair I’m in,” Zamor said through a Haitian Creole translator. Zamor still holds out hope to walk again and return to his family in Haiti.

The 26-year-old Zamor is among a handful of medically fragile Haitians and their family members who since February have been resettled in Louisville. Under the care of Kentucky Refugee Ministries, they are slowly recovering with temporary aid such as housing, food stamps and medical care.

…It hasn’t been easy for the Haitians to adjust to a strange city with few friends. Some are still traumatized from losing the use of limbs or family members. And most are acutely aware that their families are still sleeping under rickety shelters in the poor, quake-damaged nation.

“Some in our family are still not found,” said Zamor, who was cooking food in a Port-au-Prince apartment when the quake brought down his building. He lay buried for hours until his family came to dig him out. He said doctors gave him a 50 percent chance of walking again.

With an estimated 220,000 to 300,000 killed and roughly 1.5 million homeless from the quake, some of the most severely injured were evacuated by the U.S. military to Miami hospitals for treatment. Many remained there for weeks or months.

The most common injuries included amputations, burns, brain damage and spinal cord injuries.

Unable to undergo painstaking and expensive recoveries in quake-damaged Haiti, more than 111 were resettled by Church World Service to cities such as Atlanta, Miami, Durham, N.C. Houston, Portland, Ore. and Louisville. Only two of the 111 have been able to return to Haiti. Other agencies, including the Catholic Conference of Bishops, have resettled other Haitians.

Each was granted “humanitarian parole” from the U.S. Government — typically given to immigrants from countries where sudden conflict or disaster prevents them from returning to their homelands safely — which allows them to stay for at least one year and potentially reapply to stay longer.

…several Liberian refugees recently brought more than six bags of clothing for the Haitians after reading about their plights. And they presented Zamor with a $115 check to help with living expenses.

“We know how it is to face suffering from war and disasters,” said Jefferson Howe, one of the Liberians who came to the U.S. years ago.

Apparently the federal government is resettlement agencies refugee resettlement funds to care for these Haitians while they stay in the US. I suspect the USCIS (formerly known as the INS) will allow them to stay until their injuries heal and Haiti has recovered from February’s earthquake. The USCIS granted Haitians who applied for and received Temporary Protected Status (TPS) 18 months to stay, until July 11, 2011. That will likely be renewed until Haiti recovers. There are just two more weeks left to apply for TPS. Haitian nationals, who have continuously resided in the United States since Jan. 12, 2010 and who meet other TPS eligibility requirements, must file their applications for TPS no later than July 20, 2010.

*UPDATE — the deadline to apply for TPS has now been extended until January 18, 2011.

Final note: the State Department gave Kentucky Refugee Ministries, a CWS and EMM affiliate, generally high marks on their last inspection visit in 2007, here.

Posted in CWS, EMM, Haitian, Kentucky, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Louisville, State Department, TPS (Temporary Protected Status) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 85 other followers