By Ann Corcoran
10/05/2021
“We also know without significant resources, there’s the real prospect of homelessness for some of these families.”
(Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service President and CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah)
So what did they expect with Biden’s careless and illegal airlift of tens of thousands of needy Afghans!
Homeless in Sacramento, a top Afghan resettlement site! Will they soon be joined by Afghans?
How did they not see this coming? From CNN no less:
Refugee groups race to find housing for 53,000 Afghan evacuees
(CNN)Refugee resettlement agencies*** are racing to find housing for the approximately 53,000 Afghans on military bases in the United States who will eventually be resettled in the country, but the groups are facing a strained — and expensive — housing market.
Every year, refugee agencies find houses or apartments for refugees to live once they’re admitted to the United States. It’s a cumbersome process that often happens months before a refugee arrives. But the frenzied evacuation of Afghans from Afghanistan has turned the process on its head, with agencies trying to find housing for refugees who are already in the US with limited funds.
Cry me a river!
“We’re expected as a resettlement agency to do the work over the next three to four months that we did over four years,” said Jenny Yang, senior vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief.
The difficulty is compounded by the fact that refugee agencies were already under strain after years of low admissions under the Trump administration, requiring them to close offices and lay off staff. That meant they also lost some existing relationships with landlords.
The federal government provides a one-time payment of $2,275 for each Afghan an agency serves, of which $1,225 is available for agencies to use for direct assistance like housing and basic necessities, including furniture and silverware. The other bulk of the money is used to cover administrative costs. (Ha! Ha! That means money for the contractors — for salaries, office space, travel and so forth! — ed.)
While outside help and donations might add to those funds, rent remains expensive. The national median rent rose to $1,302 in September, up 15% from a year ago, according to a report from Apartment List, a rental listing site.
It really doesn’t help their case that the CEO of the Lutheran contractor, Vignarajah, pulls down a quarter of a million dollar a year salary! Maybe she could take a pay cut in order to help more Afghans, or better still invite a few to live in her home.
“The housing crisis is essentially what Americans are experiencing but imagine approaching it when you don’t have a nest egg, you don’t have a safe income yet, you have no landlord references or history,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, a refugee resettlement agency.
So far, few Afghan evacuees have left the eight military installations that are being used to house Afghans while they finish processing, ranging from a couple dozen to a hundred a day, according to an administration official.
“It’s obviously going to need to be thousands of people moving off a week,” a senior administration official told CNN.
“We’re also cognizant of the fact that if we move people off too quickly before we have adequate housing and the other wrap-around services that people need set up that they could end up in a situation where they don’t succeed from the start in their new homes, so we’re trying to get the balance right.”
LOL! I love how the Left always figures out a new way to say something for media consumption.
“Wrap-around services”=WELFARE! Taxpayer funded welfare!
There is a lot more information in the CNN report, click here.
BTW, they will likely get their federal payola for housing the Afghans, but it will be to the detriment of low-income Americans, minorities, the disabled, and young people getting started, who will suffer from increased housing costs.
*** Here are the nine federally funded refugee resettlement agencies which have been begging for more clients (refugees) to fill their coffers.
By the way, I don’t know how it is even legal for them to be tasked and paid to resettle parolees — parolees are not legitimate refugees.
[Crossposted from Refugee Resettlement Watch, where you can comment]
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