Day: April 8, 2015

Buffalo refugee overload: Is the need for “culturally-engaged health care” coming to a town near you?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It is, if you allow your town or city to become the next ‘welcoming’ community for thousands of third world refugees in desperate need of healthcare.

Buffalo, NY (Erie County) is one of the federal government’s “preferred communities” for refugee resettlement and is, according to this meeting announcement, the largest resettlement site in New York State.  NY is among the top five resettlement states in the US.

Go here for our extensive archive on problems with refugees in Buffalo.  See especially this 2012 post where we learned that the Christian and Jewish population is declining and the Muslim population increasing in and around Buffalo (thanks to Christian and Jewish resettlement contractors listed below!).

When they say “culturally-engaged” healthcare, do they mean that refugees have health issues that are related to the cultural practices they bring to America, like ‘female genital mutilation?’ I see NY is one of the top states for at risk girls! https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2015/03/16/concerned-about-female-genital-mutilation-in-the-american-refugee-population/

Think long and hard about whether your town or city wants to take on the massive (and expensive!) physical and mental health care of thousands of refugees!

From the University of Buffalo News (hat tip: Joanne):

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The University at Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions (SPHHP) will hold the second annual Western New York Refugee Health Summit on Thursday, April 9 …

[….]

Called “Community conversations to build pathways toward culturally engaged health care in Buffalo,” the health summit is being held as part of the SPHHP’s celebration of National Public Health Week.

[….]

Erie County resettles the highest number of refugees in New York State; approximately one third of the state’s 3,700 refugees resettled in Buffalo in 2013. Many arrive in the U.S. driven from their home countries by social and political upheaval, war, and economic or agricultural distress. Even with committed organizations assisting refugees, many barriers exist to obtaining culturally-engaged health care.

The summit will provide a forum where health care providers and refugees can meet and discuss ways to overcome the five main barriers to care that refugees face: coordinating stakeholders, mentoring of providers, mobilizing community leaders, dealing with language barriers and addressing gaps in providing care.  [By the way, “stakeholders” does not apply to you, the taxpayers footing the bill for all of this healthcare and most likely this summit too!—ed]

Participants also will review an online platform that is being developed to better share and coordinate Western New York health resources for refugees.

[….]

Participating community agency partners include the Burmese Community Support Center, Community Health Center of Buffalo, Neighborhood Health Center, H.E.A.L. International, Jericho Road Community Health Center, International Institute of Buffalo, Journey’s End Refugee Services, Inc., Catholic Charities of Buffalo, Jewish Family Services of Buffalo and Erie County, and the UB Schools of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Nursing, Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Public Health and Health Professions, and Social Work.

Wow!  Check it out!  No wonder Buffalo is so overloaded with needy refugees, five of the nine major contractors have offices there!

BTW, when I first posted this handy list of resettlement subcontractors in December, the State Department said they had 180 cities, but I saw yesterday that they are saying 190 cities (so they gained ten more in the last few months!).

CWS  (Church World Service)
NY-CWS-07: Journey’s End Refugee Services, Inc
Address:
Tri-Main Center, 2495 Main Street
Buffalo, NY 14214-2152
Phone:
716-882-4963

DFMS (Episcopal Migration Ministries)
NY-DFMS-07: Journey’s End Refugee Services, Inc
Address:
2459 Main Street, Suite 317
Buffalo, NY 14214
Phone:
716-882-4963

HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society)
NY-HIAS-06: Jewish Family Service Of Buffalo And Erie County
Address:
70 Barker Street
Buffalo, NY 14209
Phone:
716-883-1914

USCCB (US Conference of Catholic Bishops)
NY-USCCB-02: Refugee Assistance Program Catholic Charities
Address:
20 Herkimer Street
Buffalo, NY 14213
Phone:
716-842-0270

USCRI  (US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants)
NY-USCRI-02: International Institute Of Buffalo, Inc.
Address:
864 Delaware Avenue
Buffalo, NY 14209
Phone:
716-883-190

LOL!  I bet they are all competing with each other to bring in the paying refugee ‘clients.’

We have an extensive ‘health issues’ category you might like to visit, here.

As Minnesota goes (demographically), so goes the Nation

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is a long article published originally at Brookings basically warning America that the white population is fading out, getting old, retiring and dying off and we better darn well educate the immigrants in order to replace us in the workforce.

So far, it isn’t going well as we learned just the other day that half of the Somali population of Minnesota lives in poverty.

Here are a few snips from the beginning of the story (I don’t have the time or patience to read it all!).

Refugee resettlement is named as one of the main reasons for the demographic shift in Minnesota (thank Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Service and World Relief renamed Arrive Ministries for that! See here!).

Minnesota and the surrounding states of the upper Midwest are experiencing a demographic revolution. Yet that fact and its significance are just beginning to sink in, which is why many residents of the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area, whatever their own ethnicity, still refer to their community matter-of-factly as “lily white.” And while it’s true that with a 78% Caucasian population the Twin Cities are still far less ethnically diverse than other parts of the United States—among them the far West and Southeast as well as gateway cities and multicultural hubs like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, and Miami—it’s also becoming less true with every passing year. One big reason: immigration.

[….]

As former Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak says, “Our diversity is more diverse” than many other places because the state in general, and Minneapolis-St. Paul in particular, have been hubs of refugee resettlement for decades. The region has twice the share of immigrants from Southeast Asia as the United States as a whole (21% versus 10% of the immigrant population), and five times the share of immigrants from Africa as the nation as a whole (21% versus 4%).

Minnesota is home to Mexicans, Hmong, Indians, Vietnamese, Somalis, Liberians, and Ethiopians. Its people of color also include American-born Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and African-Americans. According to the State Demographic Center, the Asian, black, and Hispanic populations in the state tripled between 1990 and 2010, while the white population grew by less than 10%. This trend will continue: From 2010 to 2030, the number of people of color is expected to grow twice as quickly as the number of whites. As Minnesota and the region go, so goes the nation, which is also becoming ever more diversified, with an overall decline in the percentage of whites, and increase in people of color.

Read it all if you feel like it!

Got a grandchild born today?  When that child is 30, America will be a very different place.