Letter I received on Afghan refugee resettlement.
(from a political friend)
XXXXX,
Hi, I just wanted to reach out because, as many of you may be aware, the United States currently has over 70,000 Afghan refugees living on our military bases. In the effort to resettle these families, the government is looking for 20,000 apartments across the country to move these people into. The government has approved funds to pay the first year lease for all of these families via resettlement NGOs which they fund on the ground. As you may also know, the housing market is at an all-time high when it comes to occupancy, so finding large quantities of these apartments is proving difficult, which is why I am reaching out to see if you or anyone you know has access to apartments the government can rent for this purpose.
Below is the description of the program that Homeland Security has put together to integrate these Afghan allies from US Military Bases to our communities. The leases will be held by local NGOs across the country like Catholic Charities and The American Red Cross who will take responsibility in local communities for resettling these families, including furnishing the apartments, getting their children into school and finding them jobs. The requirements for the types of apartments they are looking for is as follows:
· Apartment units that are available immediately.
· Waiver of normal requirements like credit checks and background checks because these individuals have been fully screened when they enter our bases and obviously these do not have credit histories.
· Provide up to a 1-year lease.
· The majority of the units need to be in communities that have low skilled jobs available.
· This language is intended to explain the housing requirements for our Afghan allies. It is explicitly not intended to solicit housing donations from individuals or corporations.
If you do have any units or have access to units, I would truly appreciate it if you would contact me so I can connect you to the appropriate person to help.
I know that you, like me, want to make these people feel as welcome as possible and to give them a great start to their new life with us. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. You can reach me at (703) 447-0435.
As always thank you for all that you do.
Warm regards,
Mary Pat