Every one of you working in your local communities and questioning plans for either expanding the number of refugees in your city or where new sites are planned, pay attention! Do what this housing authority member did—don’t take the contractors word on the economic benefits that refugees supposedly bring to your town or city.
I’ve been begging for years for someone with an economic/business background to thoroughly debunk (with a focused economic study) this illogical notion that bringing more poor people to a poor and struggling city benefits the city economically! I’ve suggested Utica, NY as the case study location.
This meme along with the propaganda that no refugees have been involved in Islamic terrorism are the two major talking points the refugee industry advocates peddle.
Here is Vermont Watchdog. You too can do this!
Gail Johnson, a Rutland resident and Board of Aldermen hopeful, likes to confirm her facts. This practice grew out of necessity when, as a U.S. Navy finance officer, she was in charge of payroll for an entire naval base in Charleston, S.C.
Now, a member of the Rutland Housing Authority commission, Johnson continues to fact check. “Whatever I say or do, I have proof. I back it up. I expect others to do that as well,” she said.
Johnson never thought she would find discrepancies in a letter by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) to the Rutland Board of Aldermen, but she did.
[….]
In October, the Board of Aldermen sent a letter to USCRI, asking for justification of Rutland’s selection as a refugee relocation site. The agency still has not released the original grant application, which is supposed to spell out in detail Rutland’s suitability. Instead, USCRI CEO Lavinia Limon responded to the board in December, sending a letter that cited numbers of available jobs and housing.
Limon said that, as of Nov. 28, 2016, The Vermont Housing Data showed “284 housing units available for rent in Rutland City.”
Johnson noted that the 284 figure could be a result of expanded search parameters, to potentially place refugees in rent-to-buy situations, homes or condos. However, USCRI only places refugees in apartment rentals. [However, because the numbers coming in now are so astronomical, we are hearing refugees being placed (against federal regulations) in hotels!—ed]
However, when Watchdog checked the site on Jan. 11, only 23 housing locations are listed in Rutland City. Of those listed, none have availability.
[….]
“I’ve worked with people from many backgrounds. I’ve studied Arabic. Refugee settlement is a wonderful humanitarian effort,” she said.
But she said she becomes concerned when settlement agencies claim refugees will be beneficial to Rutland’s economy.
“They say that bringing in refugees is good for our economic recovery. I don’t know that that’s the solution. What I do know, in a bigger sense, is that the logic behind improving our economic recovery in Rutland by bringing in low-income people to generate business, it’s not a logical economic model,” she said.
Instead, Johnson contends, Rutland’s unemployment and lack of affordable housing makes bringing low-income refugee families into the city counterproductive from an economic standpoint.
Please read the whole story, Ms. Johnson found many more discrepancies in Lavinia Limon’s letter.
See my previous post on Rutland where I said Ms. Limon was setting this up (with the New York Times help) to use as a cudgel against Donald Trump should he stop the flow of Syrians after January 20th.
See our many posts on the Rutland controversy, here. And, learn more about Lavinia Limon and USCRI by clicking here.