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.