I know I should not hold my breath but I can’t help it.  The father in our Karenni refugee family started a new job last week!  He completed a 40 hour week; 4 ten-hour days Monday through Thursday.  So far so good!  I think I can let my breath out.

His job is a temp-to-hire position at a company that makes corporate promotional t-shirts and other clothing.  He does general cleaning and shop floor support.

He LOVES it! When I pick him up after work he is practically glowing.

The problem we are working on right now is transportation.  Although it is fortunate that the company is located only ten minutes from his home, it is not on a bus line.  On top of that, he must start work at 6 am.

I did not have a single person volunteer to drive him to work at that early hour.  Go figure!  Thankfully, the W-2 program has arranged for a taxi cab to take him to work temporarily – for one month.  This will give us time to work out a plan.  Currently, four volunteers pick him up from work at 4:30 pm, each taking a different day of the week.  This is working beautifully.

We are busy checking into a possible carpool situation.  He also likes to ride his bicycle and I know he will do that once he is comfortable with the route and the weather cooperates.  This is a heavy traffic area so outfitting him with a helmet and reflective gear is a must.  When we told him about our worries of him biking to work, he laughed it off.  He used to drive a motorized scooter in an overcrowded city in Thailand, weaving in and out of traffic with little concern of his personal safety.  He told us we worry too much.  We told him we like him too much and are prone to worry.  We are not backing down on the helmet!

Our group is so relieved that the demands of the W-2 job search are over!  As a team, we put in 146 hours of time in 6 weeks for serious job search.  Out of this effort came 3 interviews (one by phone, two in person with an interpreter) and 2 calls from companies interested in learning more but discovering the English language barrier too great for the job requirement.  Although nothing we did directly landed him a job, we did learn some valuable things for the future.

For example, the people that arranged the interviews, and the ones that called to find out more, all commented on how much they liked his cover letter…

I wrote a cover letter explaining his refugee status, refugee info in general, and our commitment in supporting him through the job process as well as being resource for providing interpreters and being the liaison between employer and employee.  I also included a phonetic spelling/pronunciation of his name.  This resulted in a lot of positive feedback on the letter, but most of all they appreciated how to say his name when they called! 

We had never had the foresight to send out a cover letter of that kind before.  We used to focus solely on skills, and work ethic but nothing on the situation and support behind him/her.  It certainly helped with the online applications and made him stand out among the other candidates.

In the end, however, it was not the 146 hours we provided for the W-2 program, but rather the staffing company that put him into the first job that lasted only one day back in January placed him in his current position.

It does not matter how he got this job, we’re just super happy he has one.  And so is he!

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!?

Yesterday I brought up “the system.”  Sometimes things go suspiciously well.  Sometimes things are completely crazy.  Try on today’s experience with the local electric and gas utility, We Energies.

One of our co-chairs placed a call to We Energies this morning to get the electric service switched into the name of the refugee family.  The We Energies representative refused.  She was told that it is not permitted to apply for electric service for someone else.  What?

Apparently, the utility does not allow 3rd party applications on new service contracts.  Due to privacy policies the rep couldn’t even tell our co-chair what procedures needed to be followed.  He would not even disclose the location of their office so that they could apply in person.  (Apparently the electric utility is a covert operation!?)  Instead he recommended that the applicant call in and ask for an interpreter.

The co-chair proceeded to the house of our refugee family and called back with the father of the family on hand.  She asked for a Burmese interpreter and explained why she needed one.  An interpreter was brought on the line.  Then the father and the interpreter talked for a while.  At one point he handed the phone back to the co-chair.

The interpreter then asked, “Why did he end the conversation and hand the phone back to you?”  She told him that, “while he may understand what the interpreter said, he couldn’t do anything about it, because he can’t explain it to me.  I don’t speak Burmese and he doesn’t speak English.  So you’ll have to tell me what you told him.”  What a complete waste of time!

Next stop — the We Energies satellite office.  After knocking on the hidden door and presenting the secret handshake, they were allowed in.  (OK, that part isn’t quite accurate, but you’d think there’d be some security like that after the initial treatment.)

At the office they had to present an application form, a copy of their lease, and the I-94 form (acting as a photo ID).  This has to be presented in person not mailed or faxed in.  Then all of this information will be faxed over to the main office where they will make a decision as to whether they will or will not provide electric service.  We Energies will call the applicant to discuss the results of their decision. 

All of this in the name of the Positive ID Act!

After the trip to the secret We Energies office they proceeded to the grocery store.  With a $100 gift card in hand, they spent $99.57.  No one was planning or adding up the costs, it just happened to leave 43 cents on the card.  Not bad.

They also stopped at a community clothing store called the Clothes Closet which provides donated clothing to low-income families.  (The Clothes Closet is a program of the Cooperating Congregations of Waukesha County.)  Each person was able to select up to 10 items of clothing and shoes.

The family did not identify clothing as having intended gender.  They picked out what they liked regardless of whether it was originally created for a boy or girl, man or woman.  If the jeans or the sandals fit, they’ll be worn.  Maybe our normal ideas of gender and clothing might be a bit exaggerated.

Tomorrow is garbage day so we had to demonstrate how to take the garbage to the curb for pickup.

And, the surprise for the day?  We learned that the husband of the 20 year-old woman in the family (who was separated via a different resettlement) will arrive tomorrow morning at 10:00 via bus.  He’s coming in from somewhere in Nebraska.  While this may mean we’re helping to take care of yet another person, he also represents the potential for another income stream in the family.

Wow, there was a lot happening today…

First thing this morning I got a call from one of our co-chairs.  She had gotten a call saying that a wash machine repair person would be at the house at 8:30 this morning, wondering if she could meet him there.  She agreed.

She was wondering if I knew about any other things happening today.  I said I thought we had drivers picking them up for a visit to the Workforce Development center today for their food and medical assistance meeting, but I didn’t think it would be that early.  She assured me it would be that early, but she thought it was tomorrow.   Together we combined to be one correct person.  The meeting was today at 8:30.  Clearly neither of us had checked our collective calender.  Fortunately those involved were all aware.

The driver arrived at about the same time as our co-chair.  With two Americans present they were able to convince the newcomers to leave their children at home to avoid the 4 hour appointment.  The crying only took about 15 minutes to stop so it worked out OK.  A noisy riding toy that was donated yesterday proved to be the trick to capture the attention of the crying boy.

Meanwhile the appointment at the Workforce Development Center (WFDC) did not take nearly as long as normal.  It was only about an hour and a half. 

If you read much of my writing in this blog, in other blogs, or in my book you’ll see that I am quite positive in my feelings toward the motives of other people.  I tend to give the benefit of doubt to others.  Some may call it naive.  I just happen to think that people are basically good and try to solve things in the best possible way, when they know how.  Where I do express some cynicism is in relation to “the system.”  Mostly though it’s a mocking humor because no one person could conceive of the craziness involved in various aspects of “the system.”

For example, in regard to the Workforce Development Center today, the appointment only took 1.5 hours instead of 4.  It turns out that the person helping out today has not handled a case like this in years.  So I joked that she wasn’t experienced enough to remember how to drag out a 1 hour meeting to 4 hours anymore. :)

One member on our resettlement team has worked exclusively with Burmese refugees over the years.  She has developed quite a network within that community.  So, for today’s WFDC visit, she was able to get a former refugee to help interpret.  It’s quite a convenience when we can get an interpretor that has been through a comparable experience.

A story from a few days ago was brought up at our team meeting tonight.  It concerned some blankets that were found at the house on move-in day.  It appeared to be a box of ratty blankets, the type we would wonder who was trying to pass off junk as a good donation.  One of the co-chairs took the box out to the garage, where we triage before committing goods.

The next day the box was back in the house.  Clearly someone wanted them.  The co-chair asked about them wondering if they “really wanted these old smelly things” and received confirmation that she believed meant they did want to keep them.  With the washing machine not working at the time, she decided to take them and wash them.  She had to give assurances that she’d bring them back.

As she pulled the blankets out to wash, she noticed writing on them that was clearly not English.  Finally it dawned on her that these blankets were precious possessions that a member of the refugee family carried with him in his luggage.

When she returned them the owner picked one up and sniffed it.  He said, “not smelly.”  And then, she believes, he tried to tell her they were from his mother.  Another good lesson for us.