Utah is making strides in helping refugees from throughout the world settle in the state, but much remains to be done, the director of the state's Refugee Services Office said Friday.
The 1,274 refugees who arrived last year from Iraq, Burma, Bhutan and Somalia benefitted from new intensive case management, Gerald Brown told nearly 500 people gathered for a refugee conference hosted by his office at the Calvin L. Rampton Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.
The new system "means that no new refugees will be lost in the cracks anymore, at least theoretically," Brown said.
Other accomplishments in the two years since the office was created include spending $300,000 in rental assistance to help refugees avoid eviction; a subsidized housing program for single-parent families; grants to 20 refugee community groups; discounted Utah Transit Authority passes for refugees; 19 graduates of a leadership program through Salt Lake Community College; and creation of the nonprofit Utah Coalition for Refugees.
The largest challenge in the coming year, Brown said, will be to help refugees find jobs.
"We need to convince powerful people in our community to come together with us and have a dialogue about how to get companies to hire refugees," he said.
The state office also needs to find a way to replace $3 million in one-time federal stimulus money and continue to train leaders among the refugees who can help their own communities strive for self-sufficiency, he said.
Brown said the agencies serving refugees must work better together. "We've still got powerful partners that are being territorial," he said. "We've made some progress on that, but we've not made enough."
The director later said he was referring to the relationship between the Department of Workforce Services and the two resettlement agencies -- International Rescue Committee and Catholic Community Services -- that have the earliest responsibility for resettling refugees.
Often, it's a matter of the agencies not trusting each other to provide adequate services for refugees, Brown said.
The keynote speaker for the conference, artist and community activist Ruby Chacon, told her personal story and how, through several generations, her family went from being landowners in what would become southern Utah to marginalized Latinos in Salt Lake City. Among her ancestors are Pueblo Indians, Apaches and Spaniards.
"We are all here together with different stories of movement in different times," Chacon said. "America is the people who live here. We are not one image or one story. If we don't embrace each other as part of the ever-changing America, it hurts us all."
Catholic Community Services resettled 677 refugees and the International Rescue Committee resettled 597 in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The refugees mostly came from Iraq, Burma, Bhutan and Somalia. Catholic Community Services also placed 35 refugee children in foster care.
