Critics Say Manchester's Sole Refugee Resettlement Agency Not Doing Enough

Eighteen-year-old Ephrasie Hatgeetsimana spent 11 years in a refugee camp in Tanzania before arriving in NH.

She is originally from Burundi.

With her family of six, she lives in a Manchester building with a chronic bedbug problem.

She says bedbugs often make it hard for her family to sleep. And did so from the moment they moved in -- a nasty surprise.

Hatgeetsimana (through translator): They were told by the neighbors but not the International Institute.

Hatgeetsimana's interpreter is Honore Murenzi, a refugee from Congo and an advocate for new arrivals.

According to Murenzi, almost all of the 15 families living in the building are refugees.

Here, he translates for a refugee from Burundi who says he was placed in the building about two years ago.

Murenzi: The walls were dirty and full of bed bugs, so why they put him there?

Benedict-Drew: You look for clean housing and make sure there are no complaints about the building you're in.

Carolyn Benedict-Drew is president and CEO of the International Institute of Boston, which oversees the International Institute of New Hampshire in Manchester.

Benedict-Drew says the organization no longer puts refugees in the building where Hatgeetsimana lives and says bedbugs are not a problem she takes lightly.

She also says that refugee families only have so much to spend on finding housing, and that's a challenge.

BD: If they're coming into town and they can only dedicate $600 a month to an apartment, you have to match that. So there's a cap on their finances that is self- imposed It's not an immigration issue or it's not a refugee issue. It’s an issue of poverty.

Yet some observers say there's more to it than that.

Refugee advocates hope this situation gives the institute a chance to turn over a new leaf.

They’ve long criticized the Institute for operating in isolation, and not doing a very good job at it.

Sarah Jane Knoy heads the Granite State Organizing Project, a coalition of church and labor groups that assists refugees.

Knoy:I think in the past we felt that the International Instiute had a closed-door policy and that folks -- particularly from our member churches - who were trying to help the refugees were sort of doing it behind the resettlement agency's back and without their support.”

The Institute's new leader did not return several calls for this story.

But Benedict-Drew, speaking on her behalf, said the agency has been working more closely with Knoy's group.

She also mentioned a new monitoring system the institute believes will improve services.

That said, resources remain a key challenge.

Brother Paul Crawford says NH Catholic Charities, which advocates for refugees, stopped resettling them years ago.

Crawford: People will criticize these agencies, and I always say the reason why we're not in it is because of the funding -- you can't do it well with the funding that's available.

Add to that the city’s low-end rental market, which includes hundreds of older tenements.

Aaron Krycki is with the Manchester Health Department.

Krycki: We’re kind of limited on what’s the house stock availability. How do we place these folks in housing that is suitable for families with young children, for instance.

The city has a backlog of housing inspections.

Dave Albin supervises building-code enforcement.

Albin: We're running now about 8 to 9 months behind in the 3-year inspection cycle, so we're catching up.

In the meantime, the Granite State Organizing Project and the American Friends Service Committee are leading a massive volunteer effort to clean up the building where Ephrasie Hatgeetsimana lives.

They’ve relocated occupants with the help of the landlord, while the building is fumigated for bedbugs.

Maggie Fogarty is with the American Friends Service Committee.

She says bedbugs are a citywide problem that require a citywide solution, involving landlords, public health officials, and second-hand furniture stores.

She hopes that Hatgeetsimanas’s ordeal is something all involved with refugee resettlement can learn from.

And that other refugee families will be better equipped to handle bedbugs, if they show up.

Fogarty: We have a responsibility to make sure we are teaching them about prevention and that we are advocating on their behalf as we gather their furniture, as we select the place where they're going to live, as we communicate with their landlords, and that's part of the process that happens in resettlement. So those are all going to be places, as we look at a process going forward, that we need to put some special attention.

The families are expected to be back in their homes any day now.

For NHPR News in Manchester, I'm Ellen Grimm.