As Phoenix City Council members consider how to spend its next installment of federal relief funds, they’re prioritizing homelessness and low-income housing but some say the city needs to give special attention to a specific population.
Over the past six months, the International Rescue Committee says Phoenix has welcomed more than 1,500 refugees from Afghanistan.
Nejra Sumic understands what they’re going through. When her family resettled from Bosnia more than twenty years, she said they immediately faced housing challenges.
“Being placed in a neighborhood that was unsafe, where we did not have access to public transportation and our apartment infested in cockroaches with my parents unsure on how they were going to pay future rent for us,” she told the city council Tuesday.
Connie Phillips, CEO of Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, an agency which helps resettle refugees, said families often spend months in hotels.
“Many landlords are unwilling to work with refugee populations and other refugee clients struggle to understand their tenant rights and responsibilities, so they get placed in subpar housing conditions in challenged neighborhoods where the schools have fewer resources and their access to transportation is impeded,” she said.
Several speakers asked the council to spend $15 million in federal funds on a newcomer community center, a nonprofit-run housing complex offering short term units, along with on-site services.
“This initiative would not only provide more housing resources for refugees but it would alleviate the burden on refugee resettlement agencies, the city and welcomes refugee families with dignity,” Sumic said. “This initiative has gained support from over a hundred businesses and community organizations and over 620 community signatures, including state elected officials.”
Sumic said she met with each council office to discuss the community center and didn’t understand why it was not included in the council presentation.
The city’s draft plan on the second allotment from the American Rescue Plan Act funds, includes $3.5 million to provide services to the refugee community and people seeking asylum.
After hours of public comment that also included calls for the council to spend $10 million on a community-led public health and safety committee to address mental health and substance abuse without police involvement, Mayor Kate Gallego pointed out the county and state have also received federal relief funds and requests could be directed to those entities as well.
Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari said her office would reach out to refugee resettlement agencies to review their needs.
