Refugees Make Their Own Decisions
Day 11
The plan and reality did not quite mesh today. There is a great lesson in this. Every refugee family is led by at least one adult. Adults are allowed to make their own decisions.
What happened, you ask? The intention for today was to get the family out to sign a lease for their housing. Normally this is not a choice as we generally procure housing before they arrive. We look for low cost housing so that they will be able to afford it on their own as soon as possible.
But this was not a usual situation. The family arrived too soon relative to our commitment to resettle. We had no opportunity to find housing in advance. In previous situations we have had families stay in our own house until we solved the problem.
This time, our refugee family had relatives in Milwaukee. So they moved in with their relatives. The risk, which we understood, was that they might want to continue to live nearby and not move out to Waukesha. Though not real far apart, the 25 miles one way, is a difficult distance to handle for sponsors. Plus, in this case, they are living in Milwaukee County while we are in, and familiar with, Waukesha County.
Today that risk was made real. We had two drivers on the way to pick up the eight family members and bring them out to see their home and sign the lease. While they were driving in one of our team co-chairs spoke to the LSS caseworker who met with the family at the covert :) orientation meeting yesterday. Apparently the family was adamant that they would stay in Milwaukee.
Since the drivers were already en route we decided to continue on course to bring them to Waukesha to see the place we had picked out for them. We were also able to get an interpreter to have some discussion about their future.
Our minds were made up. If they chose to stay in Milwaukee, we would cancel our resettlement commitment with LSS and take on a new family. Families are arriving in the area every few days so it would not be a problem to get another family. It would just be tough for the current family to continue without a sponsor. It’s not something we would like to do, but carrying on the resettlement with a 50-mile roundtrip per visit, and often a need for 2 drivers, would burn our team out too quickly. That would not benefit anyone.
The drivers arrived with the family and came into our church. The family saw their own picture on the wall along with the sign-up sheet for furniture and other donations. Perhaps that had an impression. After that we walked to the house they would be living in.
In contrast to the 13 people stuffed into a two-bedroom apartment in Milwaukee they will be living with 8 people in a three-bedroom house in Waukesha. I think when they saw how much space they would have, along with a nice bathroom, excellent kitchen, various appliances in the house, and a large backyard for the children, they were swayed. (At least with my cultural bias these are things that would sway my opinion. Whether these are things they found important, I do not really know at this point.)
In just a few minutes of light conversation one of the family members spoke up that they would move out to Waukesha. We offered to give them the night to think about it further and talk about it with their relatives. We did not want to push them to a decision. We do not want them to make a decision they might regret later.
They confirmed their decision. We walked back to a park that is next to church and let the children play while we chatted a little bit more. After that they signed the lease.
It was clearly valuable that the family be exposed to all of the available information, not just the emotion of the original conversation. Once they could see, in a tangible reality, where they would live, and that 25 miles from their relatives is not across the country, and that they will probably get a car someday, and that their relatives can visit, and that there is a Burmese community just a few blocks from their place, it’s not all that bad. In fact, it’s pretty darn good.
Whew! In the end nothing changed or everything changed, twice.
[…] out yesterday’s post at Refugee Resettlement Support where they are giving a day by day description of the resettlement […]