By Erika Anderson, Staff Writer

ATLANTA—At the end of a week of progress for refugee resettlement efforts, seven refugee families were moved out of a local motel and Catholic Social Services has begun looking toward the future, following recent weeks of crisis.

Jim Kantner, Secretary for Catholic Charities, said that he has requested the help of Aileen Garriott, a consultant for refugee programs for the United States Catholic Conference, from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, N.M.

Garriott, who will come to Atlanta Oct. 26-28, will serve as a consultant for CSS as a whole. Pam Buckmaster, former executive director of CSS, resigned Oct. 4.

Kantner said he hopes that Garriott will be able to serve as a “traveling consultant,” flying back and forth from New Mexico to Atlanta for the next few months.

“She has excellent recommendations by Catholic Charities USA, by the USCC people and by a number of directors in the system,” he said.

As a refugee program consultant and former executive director of Catholic Social Services in Santa Fe, Garriott, Kantner said, will be equipped to “spearhead the search” for a permanent CSS director.

“I am hoping she can help stabilize this,” he said. “She knows both of the programs and to me that’s worth its weight in gold.”

Kantner said that he hopes Garriott will also help to facilitate a Catholic Charities USA Agency Consulting Visitation Team, who can visit the archdiocese after doing a “very thorough paper review of the program.” They can then put together a team who will visit Atlanta for a few days, assess the entire CSS program, give a verbal report to Archbishop John F. Donoghue and to Kantner, and then return to complete a more thorough report, complete with program recommendations.

The archdiocese moved seven Sudanese families out of a temporary residence at a motel Oct. 13. Two families, at their request, were given bus tickets to Omaha, Neb., where a large Sudanese community is established. Tim Reid, a staff member from the USCC who is temporarily assisting in Atlanta, said a CSS caseworker has spoken with those families who said they are “happy and doing well there.”

Of the remaining five families, three were moved Oct. 13 into an apartment complex in Clarkston and two were relocated to the Village of St. Joseph in Atlanta, owned by the archdiocese, where they will remain until CSS can find more permanent housing.

Betti Knott, director of operations for the archdiocese, said that an immediate goal is to find housing for these two families as soon as possible. However, because of the size of the families, this remains a challenge.

“There is only one wage earner in each of these families. One has eight people in it and the other has nine,” she said.

Finding affordable housing for these large families is “a very serious difficulty,” she said, when the wage earner is only making $7.50 to $8 an hour.

Eight families were moved out of the Crescent Hills Apartments on Cleveland Avenue in south Atlanta by the archdiocese Oct. 1 after conditions were found to be deplorable. One family was relocated to a new apartment quickly, while the other seven remained in the motel until Oct. 13.

The move was delayed by one day, after archdiocesan employees and volunteers moving furniture and other items belonging to the families Oct. 12 found the items to be infested with roaches from the original infested living quarters at Crescent Hills.

The belongings were fumigated and archdiocesan employees spent Oct. 13 unpacking boxes of the refugees’ belongings and removing dead roaches and washing clothes. Over $250 was spent doing laundry.

“It was wonderful on Friday to see so many people from the Catholic Center staff willing to pitch in and help,” Knott said. “It wasn’t just Catholic Social Services people, but people from The Georgia Bulletin were here, from the development office, from personnel, from the religious education department, and it was yucky. But they were doing it willingly.”

The responsibility for the families now lies with five parishes that have agreed to sponsor them. Holy Spirit Church, Atlanta; St. John Neumann Church, Lilburn; All Saints Church, Dunwoody; St. Andrew’s Church, Roswell; and the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta, have each adopted a refugee family.

David Statton, a member of the St. Andrew team who will be working with the refugee family, said that their mission is simple.

“The main thing is just to provide support in any way we can,” he said.

Statton said that at St. Andrew’s, various organizations, such as the St. Martin de Porres group and the singles group, have expressed their desire to help.

“Our mission is simply to be of use in any way we can and to meet (the family’s) needs, whatever they might be.”

Ann Bailey, the community outreach coordinator at Holy Spirit Church, said that the parish is “in the process of organizing” its efforts. The parish has adopted a family of nine people who are living at the Village of St. Joseph.

“This is a big family, so it’s a huge undertaking,” she said. “We really expect to reach out to the whole (parish) community to ask for help.”

Bailey said that she would like to divide volunteers into three groups, one to donate items, one who will be responsible for staying in personal contact with the families, bringing food, driving family members to appointments and mentoring, and a core group who will coordinate the entire effort.

“We really want this to be something that the whole parish gets involved in,” she said.

Bailey said that she is grateful to fellow parishioner Jeanne Owens, who spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, Oct. 13 to 16, with the family at the Village of St. Joseph. She hopes Owens’ spirit of generosity is contagious.

“I really hope this energizes the parish,” she said. “It’s a perfect way of living your faith and I hope in that spirit that everyone will want to participate and do what they can to help. It will be a wonderful coming together for a Christian purpose.”

Lesley Rice, special assistant to the program director of CSS Migration and Refugee Services, also hopes that others will continue their spirit of giving.

She said that there has been a huge outpouring of support from the Atlanta community in response to the publicity.

“We’ve gotten calls from Catholics and from non-Catholics and so many people have been willing to help,” she said. “Our challenge is to come up with a plan that best uses their energy.”

Rice said that because the five parishes have now taken over sponsorship of these families, the current need for other outside volunteers is minimal. Interested people living in the five parishes are urged to assist their parish effort. Rice hopes that the desire to help will continue on the part of other people and lead to help for future families.

“My concern is sustaining interest long-term for the other refugees that will come in the future,” she said. “The need for these five families will be met by the parishes, but there is an ongoing need. Eventually, other refugees will be coming and there will be a need for support then.”

Refugees are divided into two case types, free cases and family reunification cases. Free cases are refugees who are free of any attachment to anyone in the United States and have no relatives to assist them to start a new life.

As of now, the USCC has put a moratorium on any free cases of refugees coming into the archdiocese and family reunifications are being handled on a case by case basis.

Reid said that the moratorium, which will last at least until the end of the year, is “standard procedure in a situation like this.”

Reid, who has been in Atlanta from Washington, D.C., for over a week, has spent most of his time assessing the housing procedures for the refugee programs and making recommendations.

On Nov. 1, Karen Clark, a USCC field support coordinator, will come back to Atlanta for an on-site monitoring visit.

“She will basically be looking at every aspect of the resettlement program and making recommendations,” Reid said.

Kantner said that the moratorium is “in a sense a natural moratorium.”

“We need to look at our capacity and what our resources are to deal with these families and methodically figure out what would be a good approach to resettlement,” he said.