Bidens Ship Returns To Port - Homelessness Up 50%

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Refugees face homelessness all over again in U.S.

Across Washington state and throughout the country, increasing numbers of refugee families — displaced people from war-torn parts of the world — are confronting homelessness all over again in their new homeland.

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"We need to work for the family" Refugees An Na, 56, and her daughter, Oo Meh (also known as "Tutu"), 17, struggle to keep their Kent apartment. As she tries to learn English, An Na hopes to earn money from sewing on a donated machine. Oo Meh dropped out of high school to take a job. Their family was brought to the U.S. after years in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border.

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"There are a lot of us kids in the same situation" Oo Meh, "Tutu," 17, attends math class at Kent-Meridian High School on the last day of school. Money is tight, so she's dropping out to take a job, as a big brother did. She says she'll go to community college later.

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For many unable to find work, the housing shuffle begins when the government assistance they were receiving runs out, or their lease expires and the rent goes up, or the family dynamic changes in a way that they can no longer cover housing expenses.

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Jobs dry up

As invisible as homeless families are in general, refugee and immigrant families are even less likely to show up on the streets.

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Many of them arrived in the U.S. within the past two years. Some lost what low-paying jobs they had when the economy went sour, while others never found work to begin with.

Many came here from other states after hearing that the Seattle area is welcoming and tolerant, that there are jobs and services, that public-assistance benefit levels are higher and the weather less severe.

But once here, they quickly find high rents and years-long waiting lists for public and subsidized housing. And for many, jobs don't materialize, either.

Among the 50 states, Washington has one of the worst job-placement records for refugees, despite $8.8 million spent last year in state and federal funds disbursed through a network of community-based organizations charged with helping refugees learn English and find work.

"They come and they're trying to assimilate into a culture that is entirely foreign and unfathomable for them," said Tamara Brown, housing director for Solid Ground, one of the region's largest service providers for homeless people.

Brown and other homeless-service providers say they sometimes feel ill-equipped to address the myriad challenges facing refugee families and believe more resources should be devoted to making sure refugees don't join the growing ranks of homeless.

"They have so many specialized areas of need — education and serious medical issues, PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], they have large families, we need interpreters to talk to them — the cultural issues are huge."

Desperate circumstances

The Obama administration is conducting the first major review of the nation's 30-year-old resettlement program. But even before the findings are released, the administration is preparing to announce an increase in the number of refugees it will invite into the country next year.

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And the Coalition for Refugees from Burma, an all-volunteer organization of Burmese immigrants, has been scouring the philanthropic landscape trying to find them financial assistance.

"She needs a job; but realistically, she won't be able to find a job anytime soon," said Simon Khin, who quit his software-engineering job to help run that group with his wife and others.

State Department officials acknowledge the current job market is creating a problem for many refugees but say that, as bad as things are in this country, conditions in the camps are even worse.

The federal government is studying how it might resettle people in areas of the U.S. where there are more available jobs. For example, with the recession coming to Washington later than other parts of the country, this region might have been one of those places.

But even in good times the community-based groups that contract with the state to help refugees find work have a poor track record.

In 2007, for example, 48 percent of refugees in the state were placed in jobs at an average hourly rate of $9.25. Last year, only 28 percent found work.

How many Americans would gladly take that $9.25 an hour job? Work two jobs to pay the mortgage? Feed their families? Don't qualify for welfare because they have a house whose value remains overinflated?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2012734072_homelessrefugees30m.html

How long before the US becomes filled with citizens that have no place to go, no welfare, and no hope for the future?