What is the actual contractual and legal obligation for a refugee resettlement agency to provide service to a family it has charged with resettling? What are the consequence if they fail to perform in a satisfactory manner and what recourse does a family have?
(For readers who don't know: Refugees are permanent residents authorized by the US government to be here and who are entitled to “food stamps”.)
FOR NEWCOMERS whose English is poor or nonexistent, meeting the requirement to renew the card every 6 months is challenging and the consequences devastating. It can mean a family is suddenly without food for a month until the renewal form is submitted and approved. The matter becomes more complicated when the family is uncertain whether the agency with the original contract to resettle them here in Greensboro can help them or is contractually obliged to do so. For those who follow such arcana that the Summit-Cone fire revealed, the area seems so murky that we've heard various responses about the length of time an agency helps: (a) until Federal funding for the fam runs out (b) one to three months (c) a year (d) up to five years.
In actuality, answers (a), (b), and (c) seem to refer to the same issue. An agency provides direct monetary support from federal funds as long as the money lasts, and that's dependent on the family size since the initial sum of resettlement money per family seems to be calculated on a per head basis. So, a family of ten has 10x more dollars than the lone individual who arrives. Notice that these packets of money are usually used to pay down several months of rent after basic costs for the family or individual are covered. This, too, is a function of family size. Notice, too, that the cheaper the monthly rent, the more months of rent can be paid down in advance, so putting a large family into the Summit-Cone apartments can make some sense if it reflects agency thinking that housing the family in the same place is more important than the inherent safety of the units like Summit-Cone and its cousins. If you look hard at this system, it rewards the agency, which can report to NC DHHS that another family has been successfully resettled (I kid you not), and it rewards the slumlord, who has a nice hunk of money guaranteed over the next several months, enough to dispense with the usual security deposit and background checks expected of renters.
Answer (d) seems to refer to specially funded programs that agencies may have access to. Meaning, standard federal regulations for such special programs put a limit on eligibility. The individual or family must have refugee status and must be here in the US five years or less.
These explanations might reveal why agencies flutter in and out of refugees’ lives here in Greensboro, claiming at times (as we saw at Summit-Cone) that families were not their clients anymore, and then making a big noise and fuss about how a family was in fact their client and others needed to butt out. In the refugee business there's also the problem of charity and moral positioning which leads these agencies and their supporters to regularly claim the higher ground even when their statements are very, very shaky. Saying that all the refugees at Summit-Cone are “family” may satisfy some members of the church-going public who’ve long believed in a diverse Greensboro, but it doesn’t clarify who or what agency or organization is ultimately responsible and for what duration. Instead, it leaves a giant gray area should a family wish to complain about the quality of service it receives. To whom do they appeal when an agency responds that they are no longer under their care? As we've found, the City of Greensboro and our locally elected officials have scant control and NC DHHS, which provides State oversight (!) seems unwilling to take any action, even if five kids die. And if this is the real problem, then it almost doesn't matter whether an agency can help a family renew its EBT card.
(For readers who don't know: Refugees are permanent residents authorized by the US government to be here and who are entitled to “food stamps”.)
FOR NEWCOMERS whose English is poor or nonexistent, meeting the requirement to renew the card every 6 months is challenging and the consequences devastating. It can mean a family is suddenly without food for a month until the renewal form is submitted and approved. The matter becomes more complicated when the family is uncertain whether the agency with the original contract to resettle them here in Greensboro can help them or is contractually obliged to do so. For those who follow such arcana that the Summit-Cone fire revealed, the area seems so murky that we've heard various responses about the length of time an agency helps: (a) until Federal funding for the fam runs out (b) one to three months (c) a year (d) up to five years.
In actuality, answers (a), (b), and (c) seem to refer to the same issue. An agency provides direct monetary support from federal funds as long as the money lasts, and that's dependent on the family size since the initial sum of resettlement money per family seems to be calculated on a per head basis. So, a family of ten has 10x more dollars than the lone individual who arrives. Notice that these packets of money are usually used to pay down several months of rent after basic costs for the family or individual are covered. This, too, is a function of family size. Notice, too, that the cheaper the monthly rent, the more months of rent can be paid down in advance, so putting a large family into the Summit-Cone apartments can make some sense if it reflects agency thinking that housing the family in the same place is more important than the inherent safety of the units like Summit-Cone and its cousins. If you look hard at this system, it rewards the agency, which can report to NC DHHS that another family has been successfully resettled (I kid you not), and it rewards the slumlord, who has a nice hunk of money guaranteed over the next several months, enough to dispense with the usual security deposit and background checks expected of renters.
Answer (d) seems to refer to specially funded programs that agencies may have access to. Meaning, standard federal regulations for such special programs put a limit on eligibility. The individual or family must have refugee status and must be here in the US five years or less.
These explanations might reveal why agencies flutter in and out of refugees’ lives here in Greensboro, claiming at times (as we saw at Summit-Cone) that families were not their clients anymore, and then making a big noise and fuss about how a family was in fact their client and others needed to butt out. In the refugee business there's also the problem of charity and moral positioning which leads these agencies and their supporters to regularly claim the higher ground even when their statements are very, very shaky. Saying that all the refugees at Summit-Cone are “family” may satisfy some members of the church-going public who’ve long believed in a diverse Greensboro, but it doesn’t clarify who or what agency or organization is ultimately responsible and for what duration. Instead, it leaves a giant gray area should a family wish to complain about the quality of service it receives. To whom do they appeal when an agency responds that they are no longer under their care? As we've found, the City of Greensboro and our locally elected officials have scant control and NC DHHS, which provides State oversight (!) seems unwilling to take any action, even if five kids die. And if this is the real problem, then it almost doesn't matter whether an agency can help a family renew its EBT card.
