Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago’ Category

Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago opens $3m community center

Posted by Christopher Coen on February 21, 2011

The Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago (ECAC) opened a beautiful, and quite expensive, new community center last year (this sat in my files and I just got to it). Efforts to raise $3 million for the project began in the middle of the recession in 2008, according to an article in the Ethiopian Review. Perkins and Will, the architects that designed the renovation, have information on what went into the project.

…we teamed with the ECAC to develop the organizational and design intent of the renovated facility. The design creates a facility that supports ECAC’s mission & highlights the presence of the ECAC to the broader community of Chicago through architecture, cultural & environmental branding and the interior design. The completed facility incorporates up-to-date systems including mechanical, plumbing and electrical; repairs to the exterior cladding; spacial organization; finishes & furnishings and new signage. here

Of course one wonders why they raised $3 million for this capital investment/improvements project when the agency fails to give minimum required items and services to their refugee clients, as we detailed last April.

A 2007 State Department inspection report also noted the following:

  • The agency placed an Eritrean refugee family of four in a studio (one room plus bathroom) apartment, thus violating occupancy code, which only allows 3 people per room. The apartment also lacked a functional light/lamp in the main room. The family expressed uncertainty over utilities, lease, operation of the smoke detector, and their ability to pay rent and expenses.
  • The agency had not made a home visit to an Iraqi refugee family of five that arrived five months ago, though the government contract requires at least one visit within 30 days of refugee clients’ arrival.
  • The agency put a Pakistani refugee couple in a studio apartment furnished upon their arrival with a bed only. The main room had no lamp or light as required.
  • In two cases, the case notes ended abruptly about seven weeks after the cases’ arrival.

Something tells me we need to start a new category entitled “Lavish New Offices While Refugees Go without.”

Posted in Chicago, clothes, Eritrean, Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, furnishings, lack of, household items, missing or broken, Iraqi, lavish new offices, neglect, Pakistani | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

ECDC’s Ethiopian Community Association in Chicago shortchanging refugees

Posted by Christopher Coen on April 16, 2010

It appears that ECDC’s Ethiopian Community Association in Chicago has now been added to the list of refugee resettlement agency contractors that sign federal contracts to give minimum services and material items to refugees, in exchange for federal money, and then don’t bother to do so. (here).

Tulasa Biswa, 30, a refugee from Bhutan who arrived 13 months ago with her husband and 4-year-old son, reports the following:

Ms. Biswa recalled her family’s arrival in Chicago in February 2009, the coldest winter in more than a decade. No one in the family had a proper coat, and it was the first time they had seen snow. When they entered their Rogers Park apartment, set up by the Ethiopian Community Association, it had only kitchenware and a single bed. Twice a day for the next two months, she and her husband went out looking for furniture left out for trash collection.

“We didn’t have money, and we had an empty house,” Ms. Biswa said.

Okay, so let’s check the State Department refugee contract minimum requirements again, which ECDC signed. In the Operational Guidance to Resettlement Agencies (here) it still seems to list some minimal items that this family should have received, so that they wouldn’t have to go garbage picking, and could instead focus on searching for employment to become self-sufficient.

Ed Silverman (he is the Illinois state refugee coordinator who sat by as the Lost Boys of Sudan refugees were brutalized in Chicago in 2000-2002, here), who directs the Illinois Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Services, then has the audacity to claim this:

What was once a public and private partnership has become increasingly private.

Okay, so how much private funding does the Ethiopian Community Association contribute to refugee resettlement in Chicago? Their form 990 for 2008 reports that they received 64% of their funding from the government. So the public/private partnership is “increasingly” private but still mostly public? Okaaaaay. The 990′s also show that in 2007 they got 73% of their funding from the government (here), and in 2006 69% (here).

Then this:

The resettlement agencies got some relief in January when the United States State Department increased a one-time stipend for food, clothing and shelter to between $900 and $1,100 from $450. But the money is allotted for individuals and cannot be applied to services like the sewing class.

But what is not mentioned is that they actually get $1800 per refugee, and can spend the entire $1800 on each refugee. They can use $700 per capita of it on overhead, but they don’t have to. Instead, they can use private funding for overhead — and yet they don’t. Hmmm.

And what about all the federal money they get from HHS’s ORR for refugees? Oops, they forgot to mention that again.

Posted in beds, Chicago, ECDC, Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, funding, government, HHS, Illinois, neglect, Nepali Bhutanese, Operational Guidance, ORR, State Department | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

 
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