I’ve told you before* about this group in Wisconsin, affiliated with a church, which has taken care of individual refugee families—the old fashioned hard way, one at a time. Well, except this time they took two related families. They have been chronicling their trials and tribulations at a blog called Refugee Resettlement Support.
Jeffrey Kirk’s entry on December 11th reports some bureaucratic snafus that have given them a “bump in the road.” It involves food stamps. Kirk begins:
As you know (if you’ve read previous posts), our two linked refugee families decided to split up nearly two months ago. Then about a month ago, we finished moving the second of the two into a new apartment.
It sounds like that should have been the end of the difficulties. From the perspective of the two families this has been a major relief. There are no quarrels, no ongoing relationship problems. Fantastic!
But there is a problem with “the System,” in this case, one small part of public assistance…
Read the rest of the post for an inside view of the refugee process. And, for readers who will pounce here and say, ‘see this is why we need experienced government (taxpayer funded) contractors to help the refugees get through the welfare bureaucracy,’ I still say no. These volunteers can get it done and they all can learn important lessons about charity and how real charity is hard sometimes.
* Previous posts on this group are here, here and here.