Refugees “just dumped off” in Chattanooga; try to communicate with neighbors

This must be refugee-news-story-dump day.  Just when I have other things I have to do, and thought I could get away from the computer, along comes one more story that should be posted today (hat tip to a friend from TN).

From the Times Free Press:

Evariste Simbananiye has a furnished apartment but prefers squatting on the floor. Photo: Dan Henry

Evariste Simbananiye lives in a fully furnished apartment in Boynton Terrace but prefers squatting, as he did in his native Burundi, to sitting in a chair.

Simbananiye, 64, is among a handful of refugees from at least three countries who live in or near the public housing facility. They’ve been there since 2007, but Boynton residents say some refugees still don’t have the support they need to adjust to a new culture and language.

Another Burundi refugee has had so many apartment fires that some residents say he shouldn’t use the stove. Instead of using a pot or pan to hold his cooking food, he holds it directly over the electric burner, much as he would have done with a fire in his homeland.

Before coming to the United States under a federal resettlement program, these refugees may only have known life in a refugee camp. Once here, they often cling to their old way of life because they can’t communicate well enough to understand and adapt to cultural differences.

“They were brought here and just dumped off,” said Bennie Haynes, president of the Boynton Terrace Resident Council.

The result can be friction with neighbors, and even public safety or health problems.

One of the things Boynton Terrace residents say needs to be communicated is not to use the bathroom in public places like the elevator.

So, I wonder why Bridge Refugee Services is closed (did the State Department shut them down? hmmmm!)

Two people from Burundi and one from the Sudan live in Boynton Terrace, said Haynes. Two families from Cuba and another from the Ukraine live in Boynton or other public housing buildings, according to Bridge Refugee Services.

The federal program to relocate refugees has closed, so no more are expected to come, said Marina Peshterianu, coordinator of Bridge Services.

Thousands of refugees fled war-torn Burundi in 1972. Some spent 30 years in refugee camps before being resettled here and elsewhere.

Between 2005 and 2008, Bridge brought about 80 of the Burundian refugees to Chattanooga.

Most have since relocated to other areas, said Peshterianu.

Simbananiye is 64 years old, has been here for going on 6 years, is unemployed and can’t speak English!!!!  He obviously lives off of the kindness of the US  and Tennessee taxpayers!

So, I guess one day we will be paying for his nursing home care too and the poor nurses won’t understand what the heck he is saying.  So much for Christian charity brought to you by Church World Service!

Endnote:  Back in 2007, Bridge, a subcontractor of CHURCH WORLD SERVICE, was the subject of one of the first posts I wrote at RRW and it was about the agency filing a lawsuit (with CAIR and the ACLU) to block the FBI from getting some information it wanted on Iraqi refugees who had passed through Tennessee.

Shall we call Lexington, KY “Little Congo?”

Sure sounds like it.  Don’t tell Professor Kotkin that these new immigrants didn’t ‘find their way’ to Lexington, Kentucky as the result of all the buzz back in Kinshasa about the great economy for ‘new Americans’ in “the horse capital of the world”.

Red states are being turned blue through refugee resettlement.

Once a seed community has been established and no one complains, more will arrive. 

From WEKU-FM (hat tip: Robin)

They aren’t coming from Syria yet!

As refugees flee the civil war in Syria, few will probably settle in the Commonwealth.  Barbara Kleine with Kentucky Refugee Ministries [subcontractor of  one of the top nine federal contractors Church World Service—ed] says many displaced Syrians still remain within that nation’s borders.  “There are just multiple layers of security checks before people are admitted to the U.S. and that can takes months up to years really.  So right now, there is no process in place that is processing Syrian refugees who are outside the country,” said Kleine.

But, they are going to “welcoming” Lexington from the Congo:

Congolese on the march! ‘Finding their way’ to Lexington, KY with the help of Church World Service!

Meanwhile, the number of immigrants from the African nation of Congo who settle in central Kentucky is expected to grow significantly.  Kleine says about 800 Congolese ex-patriots now live in Lexington.  She predicts they’ll attract even more refugees from that war-torn nation.

“When there is a community of say Congolese or Bhutanese in your community and you can prove to the State Department that you have the language capacity and the community support to welcome those refugee, then you are able to continue to resettle that population,” added Kleine.

Kleine says the new immigrants could arrive in the Lexington-area this coming fall.  Over the last five years, she says Lexington has become one of the nation’s most popular destinations for refugees from Congo.

Trying to make Lancaster, PA a model for refugee resettlement?

That appears to be the goal of a new consortium of resettlement agencies and ‘stakeholders’ who have been roundly criticized in the past for “dumping refugees on Lancaster.”

Before you read the latest news from the overloaded city, be sure to check out this detailed post from last May which centered on testimony sent to the US State Department by a resident of Lancaster who charged that Church World Service (one of the top nine federal refugee contractors) was dumping refugees there.

They wouldn’t need to build this coalition or have a pow-wow if everything was peachy in Lancaster.  From Lancaster Online:

With a significant number of refugees coming to Lancaster County in recent years — including 560 in the 11 months from October 2011 to August 2012 — a Lancaster County Refugee Coalition has been formed to better coordinate services and support.

Susan Dicklitch, director of The Ware Institute for Civic Engagement at Franklin & Marshall College, said the coalition grew out of a conference hosted by F&M last March.

Sponsored by The Ware Institute, Church World Service of Lancaster and a student organization at Franklin & Marshall, the conference brought together more than 200 providers, employers, landlords and others who work with refugees, in such areas as health care or English literacy, she said.

“The idea was to provide a forum for those who interact with resettled refugees,” Dicklitch said.

Church World Service and Lutheran Refugee Services are the two agencies that resettle refugees in Lancaster County. Most of the recent arrivals have been from Bhutan, Myanmar (Burma), Iraq and Cuba. Refugees in the past have also come from Russia, Turkey, Sudan and Somalia.

During the conference, participants analyzed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of how the county is resettling refugees, she said.

“We got a real sense of how to move forward” by doing that, Dicklitch said.

Previously, there hasn’t been enough communication among agencies and providers, or a centralized effort to streamline the resettlement process, she said.

By agreement with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, resettlement agencies have 90 days to provide core services to refugees, such as finding housing, Dicklitch said.

The goal of the Lancaster County Refugee Coalition — with The Ware Institute and CWS as the main partners —is to optimize the resettlement experience during that 90 days and beyond, she said, with an aim toward making this area “a national example” of how to integrate refugees.

Why Lancaster?  Because (we are told) that big manufacturing businesses need cheap/captive labor (they don’t say it that way but I do), there is apparently a good supply of welfare and healthcare and supposedly they have adequate affordable housing (or so we are told).

Today, refugee resettlement agencies view the county as an ideal spot for several reasons, Dicklitch said.

There’s a sizable manufacturing base here that allows for lower-skilled jobs, she said, and the cost of housing is relatively affordable.

Also, public transportation and health care resources are available, Dickitch said.

Not enough churches to help!

Then here is the one line in this lengthy warm and fuzzy story that made me laugh—they can’t find enough churches to help!

In addition, there traditionally have been a large number of co-sponsors (such as churches) for refugee families, although that number has been shrinking, she said.

Why shrinking!  How could that be?   It’s because when a church discovers the huge and overwhelming time commitment involved with dealing with excessive numbers of third worlders who don’t speak English, have very little education, don’t know how to live in modern countries, have enormous health care and transportation needs, the church “volunteers” burn out!

We saw that happen in Hagerstown, MD  in 2007 when this very same Church World Service and its subcontractor Virginia Council of Churches suddenly brought a couple hundred needy refugees (over-flows from Lancaster, PA btw) to the city.  A few churches and the local mosque immediately jumped on the opportunity only to mostly burn-out a few months into the project—the “charitable” work was going to be foisted off on to the county if the whole resettlement program hadn’t been abandoned.

So, how do you find an optimum number of refugees for a community—each refugee family should be sponsored and taken care of by a church or some other charitable organization on that organization’s dime.    In that way, the carrying capacity of a city will quickly be determined.  And, frankly, the refugees might then have a shot at assimilating into American life.

For more on Pennsylvania refugees and stats, go here.  Also, type ‘Lancaster’ into our search function here at RRW, we’ve got a lot.  You might especially like this post about the woman responsible for ‘transforming’ Lancaster.