One more case in a growing number of cases of recent refugees to the US living in substandard housing.
Makagbeh Konneh, a refugee from Liberia, shares the two-family apartment building with her five children. She lives in the downstairs apartment with four of her five children.
Her oldest son, Sekou Bility, 31, lives in the upstairs apartment. Sekou, who works at a local nursing home, was planning to move before the city condemned the building. He got tired of the landlord ignoring his concerns about the lack of heat in the apartment.
There are so many people living in substandard housing. Many of those homes are in the city’s poorest neighborhoods–North, South, West and Near East sides.
Since this family has been here for awhile, it is not clear whether Catholic Charities placed them in unsafe housing initially, but I was glad to see that someone representing the agency is still helping them.
In Makagbeh’s case, I got a call from Brian Hodgens. Brian volunteered to help the family adjust to life in America after Catholic Charities settled them here in 2005. He’s stayed with the family, helping deal with their landlord problems and other challenges.
The same day Brian called, I got two calls from people who worked with refugees from Bhutan. They were concerned that some landlords were taking advantage of refugees because they don’t speak English and don’t understand the system.
Although the Liberian family has been evicted, they have something going for them, besides an American to help them, and that is they have a job. Refugees in Boise, ID that I’ll tell you about shortly, are about to be evicted and cannot find jobs.