Dr DeHoog’s account is about as close to the truth as will ever be published about the dismal end of the Lutheran Family Services office.
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| ”Curiouser and curiouser”, cried Alice... |
IT’S ALWAYS PLEASANT TO SEE THE TRUTH TIDILY PRESENTED IN MOVIES. But to live in Greensboro means living in a movie which never ends and where the truth is never settled. Our modus operandi has been to forget controversial events and live in a haze, hoping we can avoid future disasters through faith, heart and soul.
Dr Ruth DeHoog of UNCG has rendered a valuable service to Greensboro and to all who are involved in refugee resettlement in the US by the publication of her paper, With Heart and Soul: Closing a Faith-Based Refugee Resettlement Office (Sociation Today, Vol. 9, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2011). Her account is about as close to the truth as will ever be published about the dismal end of the once proud Lutheran Family Services office, after some 30 years of operation in Greensboro, located in Guilford County, North Carolina.
LFS Exceptionalism
DR DEHOOG CORRECTLY concludes that the closing of the office was avoidable. Other resettlement agencies in Guilford have struggled in today's awful economy but they are not operating in the red. Long ago, LFS in Greensboro was the innovative training ground for many highly experienced, respected members of the State's refugee resettlement community. Now, as this emeritus group reaches retirement age, we must seriously wonder who will provide the wisdom, leadership and continuity to restore and repair the damage of the past several years.
It seems the condition that Dr DeHoog could write about recent events was based on granting interviewees “assurance that I would reference them only in general terms” — that is, withhold their names. This is a most curious situation, especially when we read that LFS employees yearned for opportunities to speak openly to the Greensboro community, defend themselves against reporter Lorraine Ahearn's articles, and to question corporate decisions made during the period in question, 2001-2010. When historic events occur in our city, it's good to know who is who. Fortunately, Dr DeHoog's account gives plenty of clues for future historians.*
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| The opposition, apparently. |
Evil Incarnate
CEO SUSAN GIBSON Wise is among the few names that come up. She's the boogie man, the one the reader easily learns to hate. I myself sat in a small meeting in which one of her innumerable VPs from Raleigh explained the LFS closing. Apparently, the executive team around Ms Wise was as cohesive and united and exuded as much esprits de corps as the Greensboro group of soon-to-be-ex-LFS staff members with whom the author sympathizes. Faith-based agencies that today work with refugees seem to generate a culture of fierce loyalty fueled by spiritual mission, often resentful of anyone asking too many questions. The paperwork is drab, semi-computerized, and inefficient. Only a few can rise in such low-paid drudgery, but it's usually not the talented or the innovative, but ultimately the party faithful who prevail, those who excel in bureaucratic detail and arcane language. In such an environment the VP presented her case, concluding she could rest assured knowing Greensboro’s refugees were in the good hands of the remaining agencies. I don't recall anyone asking questions.
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| He could have been an ally. |
Iraqis Without Heat
BUT ALL LFS PEOPLE seem to agree the Iraqi story concerning refugees without apartment heat was overblown. All seem to think Ms Ahearn, reporter from the Greensboro News-Record, made this stuff up. This is a most curious situation. Ms Ahearn had been known for writing sympathetic articles about refugees and their struggles in Greensboro. Why wouldn't local LFS people see the reporter as their ally? Perhaps because she respected the views of refugees and the community members who intervened on their behalf rather than the bumbling efforts by the Greensboro office to cover up its mistakes — mistakes that originated here, not in Raleigh. Subsequently the reporter earned persona non grata status. This certainly reflected the view of some participants at the first Open Space meeting held at Holy Trinity church, who jostled one another out of the lunch line just to avoid her questions. On reflection, it was sad to see responsible figures buy into the industry's culture of them-versus-us.
(2013 Update: Should this 2011 story not make it clear, Lorraine Ahearn’s reportage was critical to documenting the lives of newcomers, alerting the public to the sad state of the Iraqis and the even sadder disorganization of LFS. Today, Ms Ahearn is no longer with the paper — to the loss of its readership and all those who care about refugee and immigrant matters. Many of the old hands — Sr. Gretchen, for one — are retired. Meanwhile, the drumbeat of Greensboro rhetoric, our community desire to make our city a “welcoming place”, a refuge for “strangers”, etc goes on.)
A New Hope?
NOW THAT MS WISE was gone from the scene, could Greensboro have a fresh start? Although we had one less agency in town, Church World Service was ramping up. And soon we'd see the results of the Open Space meeting.
At this point in our story the lights come up and the movie ends. As in the first Star Wars movie, we know there's more to come, but what? A rehash of the same plot? Refugee resettlement and its impact on the lives of refugees and Greensboro residents are mostly controlled by agencies answerable to Raleigh and corporate boards, not local authorities or the many volunteers and sponsors who've contributed the equivalent of millions of dollars in donations and hours over the decades to make Greensboro a welcome place for refugees and immigrants.
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| Those are your friends you’re shooting at. |
Lessons Learned and Squandered
HIPAA REGULATIONS WERE designed in this case to protect refugees' privacy, not organization mismanagement and incompetence. LFS could not operate in a bubble if it was to survive. Yet the circle-the-wagons, siege mentality described in the report recounts self-serving statements and artificial heroics in a city replete with allies, highly experienced former LFS officers, other refugee professionals and sympathetic ears. As one commenter reminds us, in the end it was the refugees in Greensboro under the care of LFS who suffered.
The wonder of the LFS collapse was that public officials did not respond with outrage after they realized how little oversight they had and how completely reliant they were on the assurances of LFS personnel about the health and safety of Greensboro residents. Private refugee agencies contracted by the State to deliver limited services to newly arrived refugees cannot take the place of responsible community building or community-based organizations even though many in Greensboro mistakenly persist believing this. If elected officials and officers of the region's charitable foundations were reassured by the activity generated by the huge July 8, 2010 Open Space meeting attended by hundreds of stakeholders following LFS's departure, they should worry about the ability of local organizations to deliver coherent strategies to improve resettlement. Widely trumpeted ideas like a welcome center for newcomers appear to have gone nowhere.
For many interviewed in Dr DeHoog's article, Ms Wise makes a convenient scapegoat, but I agree with the author's conclusions. Until the entire refugee resettlement community operates with transparency, we cannot expect faith, heart and soul to take its place.
* The Greensboro News-Record has a peculiar policy of selectively offering past articles online, searchable by Google. If the editors choose to not make them public, then apparently Google searches won't point readers to the existence of articles which otherwise are available only through their fee-based archive service. But once there, readers should discover important coverage of the July 8, 2010 Open Space meeting by Lorraine Ahearn.
* The Greensboro News-Record has a peculiar policy of selectively offering past articles online, searchable by Google. If the editors choose to not make them public, then apparently Google searches won't point readers to the existence of articles which otherwise are available only through their fee-based archive service. But once there, readers should discover important coverage of the July 8, 2010 Open Space meeting by Lorraine Ahearn.
The July 10, 2010 Lutheran Family Services letter which offers no explanation for pulling out of Greensboro after more than 30 years. Although their resettlement model had clearly failed, the authors maintain it is the only model that works.
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Related Links from the Montagnard Dega Association’s WebsiteLFS SHUTS DOWN VITAL LEGAL OFFICEThe national agency announced it was closing its 8-person team. The legal services office, headed by Heather Scavone, has contributed critical services for refugees and the reunification of their families. The LFS main office explained that its decision was strictly based on money. The loss of the office leaves a huge gap in services. There has been no word about any local attempts to retain the team or provide similar services. (see News-Record story).LFS CLOSESMDA is saddened to learn Lutheran Family Services will be closing its Greensboro office after decades of service to the refugee community and greater Greensboro. LFS's departure will have a negative impact on us, on the Montagnard community, and all other agencies and individuals working to create a strong, multicultural Piedmont. MDA pledges to do all it can to make sure the transition is smooth and does not add more woes and worries to the lives of new arrivals.REFUGEES GET HELP!A consortium of agencies and individuals came together to help Iraqi residents at Hunters Glen get help. Read the Jan 24 2010 News-Record article.LFS REFUGEE DIRECTOR RESIGNSRead the Jan 8 2010 News-Record article. According to LFS, the resignation was not due to community criticism about refugee conditions. Lovett resigns, Wise will spend more time in Greensboro.ADVOCATE FOR REFUGEES IN OUR COMMUNITYRead the Dec 5 2009 News-Record article on Iraqi refugees facing tough times in Greensboro with little support.LFS CEO RESPONDS TO CRITICISMSSusan G. Wise, CEO of Lutheran Family Services of the Carolinas answers some of the criticisms raised by News-Record stories about refugees' living conditions.
BURMESE REFUGEES FACE HARD LIVES HEREAs Hispanic workers leave the area, Burmese refugees living in Greensboro are recruited to work in the Perdue chicken processing plant in Rockingham.REFUGEES IN DANGEROUS HOUSINGThe story of African refugees placed into Avalon Trace. This Greensboro rental complex is home to many Burmese as well.
