Older refugees face hurdles

Citizenship eludes Valley seniors who lack transportation

By Diana Balazs
The Arizona Republic, December 11, 2002

Sherrie Buzby/The Arizona Republic

Vietnamese refugees Nghien Kieu (left) and Giap Le learn English at the Area Agency on Aging so they can apply for citizenship

  Lejla Bogdanovic recalls a recent visit to the home of a Bosnian refugee in north Phoenix.

The elderly woman's younger relatives worked several jobs to support the family, leaving her home alone much of the time.

Bogdanovic, coordinator of the Maricopa County Elder Refugee Program for the region's Area Agency on Aging, complimented the woman on her nice home.

"I don't care," the woman said. "This is a prison for me."

For many elderly refugees, getting out to run errands, go to medical appointments, attend classes or simply meet people is difficult. They typically don't have a car, and if there is one, it is used by family members to get to work. Many seniors also aren't familiar with the Valley's bus system.

"Ninety-five percent I would say of them don't have transportation at all because they never learned to drive," said Bogdanovic, 52, of Phoenix.

That lack of transportation is a barrier to seniors who want to attend classes to learn basic English and become U.S. citizens, two requirements for keeping their government benefits.

The 1996 Welfare Reform Act states that refugees who arrived after Aug. 22, 1996, can receive Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, for only seven years. The only way they can keep the benefits is to become U.S. citizens. Locally, more than 350 seniors will need to obtain citizenship to keep their benefits.

The Maricopa County Elder Refugee Program was established in 1997 to help refugees age 60 and older become citizens. It works with several agencies including the Lutheran Social Ministry of the Southwest and refugee groups to organize classes in English as a second language. It is a program likely to be funded by this year's Season for Sharing campaign.

The program is struggling this year because it lacks funds to purchase vans to transport refugees to classes and add more English as a second language teachers.

"Transportation has always been our biggest concern," said Phoenix resident Camelia Assem, former women's education director with the Arizona Refugee Community Center in Phoenix.

"To bring them to the centers or to get them either to ESL, computer classes, citizenship classes, is our biggest problem," she said.

Darla Sebenik, 57, of Phoenix, knows the problem firsthand. She teaches refugees at Mountain View Elementary School in north Phoenix and says she often takes students home or picks them up.

While the school is in a residential neighborhood within walking distance of the homes of many who take the class, walking home at night or in the cold can be difficult for seniors, Sebenik said.

"We all have to help each other," Assem said. "I feel like if they don't get help they are going to be a burden on the society."

Assem, who came to the United States from Egypt, said the reward is in teaching people how to pay their bills, fill out a form and other things that will make their new lives here a little easier.

"I wipe a lot of their tears. And then I go home and I wipe my own tears because I feel so blessed that God has brought me to this country," she said.