Des Moines, Iowa: Resettlement agencies criticized for placing refugees where there is no transportation

There is nothing new for me in this long investigative article at the Des Moines Register which asks the question about placement of refugees in an isolated low income housing complex:

“Why do resettlement agencies in Des Moines continue to place refugees there?”

I’ve been hearing about the lack of public transportation for refugees since the earliest days of this program coming to my attention in 2007.

Limon is the CEO of USCRI and this isn’t the first time the organization has been criticized about its housing choices. In 2008 the State Department pulled the contract for one of USCRI’s subcontractors in Waterbury, CT over an issue of inadequate housing. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2008/05/10/state-department-yanks-international-institute-of-connecticut-contract/

And, I’ve been hearing about refugee contractors finding cheap subsidized housing and then creating ethnic enclaves by bringing more family members (chain migration!) to join the ones they brought initially.

Because I am trying to get a little time off, I’m not going to analyze the article for you. Please read it yourself by clicking here.

Refugees must walk long distances in the cold to get basic groceries and the fault is not with the public transportation system, the fault is with the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and with Catholic Charities*** who are so obviously concerned with their own incomes (and the newest refugees) that they aren’t taking care of the refugees they placed months earlier.

They literally walk away sometimes as soon as 3 months (when their federal pay check runs out) from any responsibility for those “clients” they resettled earlier. This is not humanitarianism.

Instead of placing more financial responsibility on taxpayers (to put more money into public transportation)….

How about if USCRI and Catholic Charities set up either a privately funded small van service or at least find church volunteers to make regular driving runs for the refugees and then consider this….

Support President Donald Trump’s refugee reductions because obviously you do-gooders can’t handle the numbers that were coming in through the Obama years!

***These (below) are the nine federal contractors responsible for all refugee resettlement in America. USCRI is 98% funded through the US Treasury (you, the taxpayer). Charity Navigator gives them no rating because they really are an extension of government and receive only a small amount of private charity.

Limon (who was Bill Clinton’s Director of the ORR) pulls down a salary package of about $300,000 (2015 Form 990). When I wrote about her salary (a little less than ten years ago) it was just short of $200,000, see here. Has your income taken a leap like that?

And, by the way, are there no synagogues in Des Moines? HIAS whined recently that they had 380 synagogues across the US wanting to help refugees. How about putting any in Des Moines to work helping these poor refugees who are now walking for their groceries.