Refugee Job Effort Gets the Ax Despite Its Rare Success

Nearly all his life in Saigon, Tu Tran had repaired cars, from rusty heaps to sleek new Detroit models, anything that succumbed to the punishment of the city’s heavy rains and crumbling streets.

But when he joined his family in the United States in 1984, no one wanted a 57-year-old mechanic who could not speak English. He began to resign himself to the prospect of living the rest of his life on welfare.

His was a common story among the more than 800,000 Indochinese refugees who have entered the country since 1975. At least half of the refugees who have arrived in the last 31 months still receive public assistance, leading some critics to wonder whether the refugee-aid system may collapse of its own weight.

But something unusual has happened to Tran. He became part of a special, federally funded effort to ease his access to the job market, and he encountered an energetic case manager named Joe Dinh.

After 14 months of calling restaurants, hotels, garages, agencies and everyone he knew, Dinh found Tran a gardener-handyman position, a $6-an-hour job that has transformed Tran’s future and removed him from the welfare rolls.

“I really like it,” said Tran, visiting the 1896 wooden mansion that serves as a center for the program here. “I may even work past my retirement.”

Funds Cut Off

A California state evaluation team concluded last year that Dinh’s Refugee Case Management Program, run by a coalition of private agencies, had a 45.3% job-placement rate, significantly higher than the 36% rate for the previous government-sponsored system. It has achieved this, the state social services department said, at a cost of $1,674 per placement, less than the previous $1,773 cost.

Private agency officials were stunned, then, when they learned recently that their funds were being cut off, and the refugees sent back to a social service system that has had much more difficulty matching them with jobs.

State and local officials said that despite the program’s success, it required more money than is available for the initial processing of refugees and did not fit in to the state’s new GAIN workfare program.

Private agencies have rejected these arguments. “The right to be an independent citizen cannot be exercised if people are trapped in a system of poverty and government control,” said Margi Dunlap, director of operations for the International Institute of San Francisco, one of the private groups running the case-management program.

For several years, private agencies in many American cities have contracted with the government to help settle Indochinese refugees. At the end of three months, they have turned the refugees--and their training, work and welfare needs--over to the local government system.

But in 1984 state and federal officials agreed to let the private agencies in San Francisco handle the assorted funds allocated for long-term refugee assistance. The private caseworker who welcomed a refugee family on arrival maintained contact for months or years, pushing jobs and pursuing schooling for the children.

Dunlap said they had concluded that refugees arrived eager to be self-sufficient, but lost some of their initiative if they lingered in the U.S. welfare system, particularly one with payments as large as California’s.

Job Desire Stifled

The state evaluation noted, with some astonishment, that clients of the Central Intake Unit, the agency that previously handled refugees cases, “in many instances were discouraged from seeking employment until they had training, even though they expressed a desire (documented in case files) to seek a job.”

Allan Gall, operations division director for the Office of Refugee Resettlement in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, noted that some officials think refugees should be encouraged to receive all the training they can during their first 18 months when the federal government automatically pays their living expenses. After that, only refugees with children or special problems may qualify for welfare.

Self-Sufficiency Sought

“Some people have expressed concern that the goal of the program should be not just getting people into jobs but to make them self-sufficient,” Gall said.

The private agencies have argued that their program did just that. Their study showed that they found jobs for clients at the same or higher wage level than the previous program and found more of them.

Steve Arcelona, vice president for operations of the Private Industry Council of San Francisco Inc., said that the case management program was a good idea, but that constraints of “money and time” work against it. He said refugees will receive necessary services. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has exercised its option to bring all refugee programs under county supervision and has designated the council as the agency to handle them.

Funding Unclear

Arcelona said he must begin accepting cases from the private agencies July 1 and is still not entirely certain of his funding sources.

Private and government refugee workers here express concern over the future of the program as Indochinese refugees continue to arrive at a rate of more than 50,000 a year, and the number of refugees from other areas--particularly Soviet Armenia--increases markedly. Los Angeles County alone is expected to receive 10,000 Armenians this year because of relaxed Soviet restrictions on emigration.

In the International Institute’s Victorian mansion here on Van Ness Avenue, signs in a dozen languages are taped onto walls and doors, reflecting a steady tide of newcomers. A sign near the huge stairwell warns visitors in English and Cambodian to watch their children.

Washing and Learning

In a third-floor room, case manager Bill Brewington met with Minh Khuu, 23, recently arrived from Ho Chi Minh City. Khuu wants to work in computerized architecture, but for the time being he is learning English and washing dishes 21 hours a week. He is living with relatives who are also recent refugees, so the money helps.

Dinh, talking to Tran at the next desk, said many refugees are reluctant to leave the welfare system if they cannot find jobs with good health benefits. Nonetheless, the jobs are there if he looks hard enough, and many of his clients accept the work immediately.