Our refugee resettlement funds are used up, the Matching Grant program is finished, and job prospects are thin.  This is the first time out of 7 resettlement efforts that we have failed to find at least one member of the family an ongoing job before funds were exhausted.

Now what?

In Wisconsin, this family is eligible for W-2 (Wisconsin Works), which is a welfare-type program.  We have worked hard to avoid this, but now it is our only option.  We’re not happy about this because the W-2 program is quite challenging for an English-language-limited person to succeed and requires an extremely time consuming effort from us as the co-sponsors.
 
There are several subsets to the W-2 program and our refugee family is eligible for only one of them.  It is called CSJ placement – Community Service Job placement.  This is where an individual works a 40-hour week at a job site doing community service in exchange for $673 a month.  English classes will count for 4 hours a week, making his obligation 36 hours per week of community service.
 
Normally, the work done at a job site by the client satisfies the hours requirement.  However, W-2 won’t place him at a work site right away.  They wait for at least 30 days so he can look for a job. 

Looking for a job is his full time obligation and it must be documented each week.  In this case, he must look for a job and document his search to equal 36 hours a week he would normally be working.  Think about that for a moment and let it sink in…  He must do some type of search activity for employment that adds up to 36 hours per week for the next 4 weeks! 
 
He can look in the newspaper, he can look online, he can fill out applications and he can go on interviews.  His drive time does not count except for the time spent BETWEEN appointments, not to and from his home.

So, imagine yourself in this position.  You can’t read English or understand the employment section of the newspaper, you don’t know how to go online, you don’t drive and you also don’t have a clue how to fill out an application, or how to call for an interview.  How do you go about fulfilling your 36 hours of required activity?  Could you even meet this requirement if you weren’t limited by your understanding?

The caseworker does not help you do this – at least his caseworker made it very clear that she would not help.  There are resources out there like free classes on how to interview and write a resume, but think of the amount of English you would need to complete such a class.  And yet it is imperative that each Friday by 4:30 he accounts for 36 hours of documented job searching time.
 
Oh, and one more thing.  He must complete 4 full weeks of this BEFORE getting a full payment of $673.00, which would come out to less than $4 per hour.
 
It will take 4 volunteers, if we can get that many, an extra 9 hours a week on top of regular refugee resettlement activities to pull this off.  That’s going to be tough.  But we’re 3 weeks in now.

Why am I sharing this with you?  I want you to understand that refugee resettlement can be gratifying.  It can be quite rewarding to help another person take back control of their life.  Yet, it doesn’t always go as planned.  Sometimes we have to adjust.  Sometimes we have to venture into areas that are uncomfortable or unknown.

Sometimes we have to face the systems that our society has put in place that we would rather avoid.  Systems like W-2 are, on the one hand life saving, and on the other hand so messed up that those who are not trying to screw the system have trouble making any progress at all!

All of this reinforces the importance of helping refugees become self-sufficient quickly.  We don’t want to mess with public support because it’s too messy and inefficient.  That path should truly be the last resort.

Can I have an Amen!?

In our current refugee resettlement project we took a step forward today with the establishment of a checking account.  As soon as refugees have some money they can call their own it is time to get started with a banking relationship.

Our family just received their first matching grant funds.  We took these checks along with social security cards, I-94 cards, and a member of the family to sign the paperwork.  Fortunately the process was smooth today because the banker who helped us had worked with other refugees in the past.  Therefore she knew what she was doing.  We’ve had tougher situations when the banking employees have no idea what to do with an I-94 card.

We deposited most of the money but held back a little so the family would have some cash on hand.  We also tried to explain that $25 had to go to pay for checks so the amount remaining in the account did not match the original value of the checks.  We’ll have to explain in greater detail when we have access to an interpreter.

We had a couple options available to us today.  The first was whether we wanted basic checks or duplicate checks.  While duplicate checks costs more, they are worthwhile.  You will be teaching the family to write the checks on their own.  With a duplicate of the written check remaining you have a reference to make sure they are issuing them correctly and recording them accurately.

We second option was a choice as to whether or not we would get ATM cards right away.  Sometimes in the past we declined them, only to discover that the family learned about them from someone else and started requesting them from us.  This time we agreed to get them right away.  A powerful advantage is that the family can go grocery shopping without taking cash.  The can use their food card and their ATM card to cover all expenses.  The process to using each one is the same – swipe card, punch in pin number.  Therefore training is easy.

Next we’ll have to explain finances in greater detail and show how to keep a check register up to date.

8/20

Today we had our third consecutive weekly team meeting.  We always start with a team meeting each week for several weeks.  It’s important to make sure than we’re all on the same page.  Only a few team members were available for the team meeting tonight.

8/21

Today was an important step in the resettlement process.  The matching grant coordinator from LSS came out to get a signature from a refugee family member in approval of the matching grant.

With the paperwork signed, the family is now poised to receive some money each month for the next 3-4 months.  This money allows them to cover basic expenses while searching for employment.  The advantage for us, the resettlement team, is that we don’t have to deal with state welfare services during this time frame.  If employment is gained within a few months we will never have to deal with the welfare system!

The family went grocery shopping again today.  This time they were shown how to use their food assistance card.  It works much like a debit card as it can be swiped through the credit/debit machine and the money is accessed with a pin number.

The family needed toilet paper.  This is not covered by the food card.  A good lesson in this for the family is that they cannot just buy anything they want and expect that its expense will be covered.

8/22

One of our team members went to the house today and showed them how to use their lawn mower to cut their grass.  Safety is always important so this was also part of the discussion.

While at the house our team member also opened the discussion of employment.  He had some initial discussions with family members regarding job skills.

Yesterday provided the first notice from the Social Security Administration.  We received notice that they were processing the applications for the youngest two children.  Isn’t that great?  Those that need it least are being processed!

Well, with that prelude, we are nearly shocked into unconsciousness today.  The social security card, yeah the actual card, arrived today for the male most eligible for employment!  We never received notice that it was being processed, and yet here it is. 

There are seven cards to go, but because we have one, the world has just opened up.  Employment, assistance, even acquiring telephone service just got easier.  It’s a great feeling to reach this important milestone in every resettlement.

Another event that took place today was the meeting with the family and their case worker to discuss the matching grant program.  Even though we’ve been through this before, every detail was explained again.  I’m sure this is more for the family’s benefit than ours. 

One side effect of the matching grant program with a family of eight (well, two families of 4) is that they will receive a suitable starting level of monthly income.  Of course the hard part is that we’ve got to have sufficient in-kind contributions of time, mileage, funding to meet our obligation in the process.  Typically this has not been a problem for us as time is valued nicely.  Furthermore we’ll be paying rent, most likely in full, or nearly so, for the second and third months and then contributing at lower levels for several more months.

There is still activity at the house preparing it for move-in day.  Did I mention earlier that there was a wood-burning stove in the place?  We had that, and the brick platform it was on, removed for safety and liability reasons.  We are grateful to the volunteers that gave their time to take on this project which even includes patching the roof.

Excitement is building for the imminent move-in.  Even our team member who attended the matching grant meeting said that the family was rather smiley and excited about the upcoming move.  Phew!

This is the first chance we’ve had to get the resettlement team back together since the family arrived just over two weeks ago.  Even so, we had only a total of 6 people available for the meeting.  We’d usually hope for more, but things are moving forward pretty good, so a small core was sufficient.

Two of those present were not from our team.  They were visitors from another church, quite significantly, the church that has resettled the relatives of our current family.  Their team was surprised to recently discover all the extra people living in their family’s apartment.  I can imagine that shock.  Our meeting tonight was a good opportunity to explain our situation and also learn from their experience.  This is their first resettlement experience and it sounds like they’ve been doing a great job.

Primary discussion was that of donations and move-in day.  We have nearly complete coverage of all required items (i.e. those items required by the U.S. State Department  ensuring that refugees receive a basic standard of living and are not just being dumped into tough conditions in a new country) and a fair number of niceties as well.

One of the interesting requirements is that each person have a bed.   It turns out that finding complete beds is usually one of our more difficult tasks, especially when we’re working with larger families.  What makes this requirement interesting is that often the beds go unused.  In some case, beds are not typical culturally.  So we provide them only to discover later they are used for storing other items, a gentle cushion upon which other goods can rest.

Often families have been living together in tight quarters so the are most comfortable to sleep all together on the floor.  We’re not here to push them into what we would call “normal” behavior.  But we make our “normal” available to them.  In time separate beds and bedrooms become appreciated.  We’ve not had a refugee family yet that threw away the beds to make more space available.

Our move-in day will start at 9 a.m. Saturday.  We have several teams ready to pick up donations.  Our previous Burmese refugee family, of Karen ethnicity, has volunteered to make lunch, comfort food for the new family.

Our meeting agenda also included discussion of the matching grant, a welfare alternative designed to financially help the refugees for 3 to 4 months while an aggressively looking for employment. 

Whether they receive the grant or apply for the state welfare program is the refugee family’s choice to make.  We strongly encourage acceptance of the grant because it saves our resettlement team from dealing with one aspect of “the system.”  It also frees up the family to job search and study English without the well-meaning, but cumbersome requirements of welfare.

We also shared an update on the status of applying for a food card.  Food assistance is available for low income families in Wisconsin, but each program is run by individual counties.  We typically apply within days of their arrival, but since they are temporarily in Milwaukee county, we’ve been unable to make real progress.  This could hurt later on as a delay will increase our need to provide food longer than anticipated and therefore at greater expense.