‘Faith’ group exploring bringing refugees to Cape
Cod and Nantucket, by Ann Corcoran, 5/22/16
My first
thought when I saw this was, do they actually have cheap subsidized housing
there, or are the well-off going to take them home with them?
I’m posting
this although I doubt very much that Syrian Muslim refugees are going to be
seeded into this expensive real estate in Massachusetts anytime soon.
But, for others of you, this is how it begins—‘church’ groups, whose
‘leaders’ have no clue how the resettlement program works invite in a
resettlement contractor.
Syrians,
Somalis and Iraqis to Cape Cod? What a great idea! Teddy would be so proud! By
the way Senator Ted Kennedy created the refugee program in 1979 (Carter signed
it into law in 1980). I previously joked and referred to Kennedy as
‘don’t bring them to Hyannis’ Kennedy. I guess he isn’t around to save
his neighborhood.
In Vermont, the mayor of Rutland unveiled a
plan last month to resettle 100 Syrian refugees who fled the onslaught of the
Islamic State and are exiled in refugee camps in Jordan. If approved by the
State Department and others, the resettlement would begin in October and
gradually send Rutland more Syrian refugees than are currently living anywhere
else in New England. [Yikes! Did you folks in Rutland know you would
be the Syrian capital of New England joining Lewiston, Maine as the Somali
capital!—ed]
Closer to home,
Worcester is in the midst of an initiative that may prove to be a model for
refugee resettlement. A coalition of agencies and organizations spearheaded by
Ascentria Care Alliance, under a $457,000 grant from the Health Foundation of
Central Massachusetts, has undertaken a pilot program — Partnership for Refugee
Wellness — to coordinate support among participating organizations that include
health care, job training, education, and legal assistance. Ascentria is the
former Lutheran Social Services of New England. [If you live in the Worcester area, you need
to follow what Ascentria is doing, we haven’t had time to write about it, but
there is much in the news—ed]
Traditional
resettlement practices and policies established in 1980 to serve refugees
primarily from Southeast Asia and the former Soviet Union are outdated and fall
short in serving more diverse needs of recent refugees from the Mideast, South
Asia and Africa. A number of refugees struggle once here under the federal
program’s funding that allows for an eight-month resettlement period, and
focuses on employment and economic stability.
Perhaps it’s time for the Cape Cod Council of
Churches and the Barnstable Interfaith Coalition to develop a similar
partnership with Ascentria or the State Department. Tom Ryan, a board member of the Council, said
he has heard from some church leaders on the Cape and Nantucket about their
hopes as congregations or as a network of congregations to receive refugees.
By the way, are
there mosques on the Cape? Does anyone know? An afterthought: Have they heard about the Tuberculosis
in the refugee flow to America?
https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/faith-group-exploring-bringing-refugees-to-cape-cod-and-nantucket/
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