Have you seen that commercial for an insurance company where two agents are making pronouncements as their pants are in flames—you know—liar, liar pants on fire! That is exactly what I thought as I read through this piece in the New York Times last Friday on Manchester, New Hampshire’s refugee problems.
This article is also an example of one of the primary reason that I had to take a break from writing this blog for awhile—I could spend hours and hours taking each paragraph and expounding on it with facts the NYT doesn’t know (and likely doesn’t want to know) and I simply don’t want to do that.
Just read the article yourself and know that Manchester leaders have been asking for years to give them a break on resettling refugees—any city or town can only take so many destitute people when there is no work and no decent affordable housing.
Also, know that Manchester is not the first in the Nation to scream—stop! The NYT does mention Ft. Wayne (IN) and that is because that city and Detroit (MI) have gone beyond any capacity to absorb more poverty. In the case of Ft. Wayne, the health department in Allen County became swamped with cases of HIV and TB. Then there was Waterbury, CT where another International Institute was shut down because of the poor care refugees were getting. Then there is Greensboro, NC—same story. Fredericksburg, VA ditto. The whole state of Tennessee was so frustrated with the refugee overload that they passed a law that seeks to give some control back to the state in determining how many refugees WILL BE DROPPED OFF BY FEDERAL CONTRACTORS for local taxpayers to care for!
Where I live in Maryland the program shut down almost before it got started in 2007 because the contractor couldn’t say how the refugees would live and find jobs in a rural city in Western Maryland. All I can say now is thank goodness it didn’t get a foothold here because those industries that supposedly were going to employ them were closed or are closing.
Bottomline, this article makes me tired — maybe I need to take a break again!
Note to New York Times! Instead of going up to New Hampshire for a story why not stay right at home in New York State and visit the refugee resettlement office run by the same federal contractor that runs the Manchester office. Visit Peter Huston’s blog post about USCRI-Albany and see if you can spot a similar pattern.
See also our archive on Manchester, here.