San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
THEY SWAP DANGER FOR MISERY
Refugees from war-torn lands often arrive in S.A. only to end up living at deteriorating apartments
Mohammad Alshokri came to San Antonio as a refugee from the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose security forces beat him so severely that both his legs were amputated above the knee. But he has not yet found his happy ending in the Alamo City.
Shortly after his plane landed in April of last year, Alshokri arrived at his new home of Auburn Creek, a 40-year-old apartment com- plex that is the subject of a long list of city code complaints.
Alshokri’s first year in the U.S. was a stressful one, he said, as he tried and failed to get the complex’s management to fix a broken doorknob, a leaky ceiling and a malfunctioning air conditioner. The complex served him with several eviction notices while he struggled to build a life in a city 7,000 miles from his native country.
While they have found safety in the Alamo City, Al-
shokri and other refugees contend with grim living conditions and inattentive landlords at Auburn Creek and other apartment complexes, according to interviews with more than 15 refugees and nonprofit advocates who work with them.
They complain of leaky plumbing, broken appliances, collapsing ceilings, rat and rodent infestations, and faulty air conditioning that can turn their homes into saunas during San Antonio’s brutal summers.
Documents obtained through an open records request show many of the complexes have been the subject of more than 100 complaints to the city over the past five years about rats, bed bugs, mold, leaks, sewage, fire hazards, and a lack of air conditioning, electricity and water.
Many refugees are placed in the Medical Center area on the Northwest Side through a program that local nonprofit Catholic Charities runs on behalf of the federal government.
Alshokri’s complex, Auburn Creek, has been the destination of many of the 6,550 refugees who have made it to San Antonio over the past decade, fleeing the civil war in Syria, the Islamic State in Iraq, ethnic violence in Myanmar and militant groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, among other places.
The complex is one of the most diverse corners of the city, where numerous languages can be heard and the scents of cooking from around the world waft through the hallways.
Yet, it’s deteriorating. Balconies are rotting. Graffiti marks many of the walls. Children play on potholed parking lots and in a boiler room with no lock on its door.
Alshokri’s disability and lack of English, which he is trying to learn, have complicated his life adjustment to life in the
U.S. A long series of maintenance problems and financial misunderstandings at Auburn Creek have made matters worse, he said.
“This is not a house. It is a prison,” Alshokri said through an interpreter.
The doorknob on his front door was broken for four months before it was fixed, and only after the San Antonio Express-News asked about the repairs, he said.
Several months ago, Alshokri said, water leaked through his ceiling, ruining the light in his kitchen. He said his air conditioning didn’t work well; on an afternoon in April, his apartment was stuffy and hot, despite the 74-degree temperature displayed on its control panel, which flashed the message “communication failure.”
Alshokri said he also had problems with rats and roaches. City records indicate about a dozen residents at Auburn Creek have filed complaints about rat and bug infestations over the past six years. Many complaints have been filed about malfunctioning air conditioning, including one tenant who reported that it took seven months to repair a unit after it caught fire in 2016.
Alshokri said management did little in response to his requests, which he made using Google Translate and through interpreters. The management team said the language barrier has made it difficult to help him, and that his only communications were about money he owed.
The Lynd Company, which manages Auburn Creek, disputes many of Alshokri’s claims.
Executive Vice President Alfredo Lopez said Alshokri’s air conditioning worked fine, and he points out that the tenant often kept his bedroom window open. The company said in May that damage from the leak in Alshokri’s ceiling was partly repaired several months ago and would soon be completed; Alshokri said it never was fixed.
The complex is going through extensive rehabilitation work, including on its air conditioning, Lopez said. It isn’t unusual for old complexes to have maintenance problems, he said.
“There are many sides to each situation, which Mr. Mo- hammad plays a huge role in as well,” Lopez said in an email. “The refugee situation in San Antonio is a challenging one for many parties in our community. … We too wish there were easier answers and more support to aid individuals in these situations, however, I assure you that we do our best considering the situation that we are in.”
Alshokri, who has not yet been able to find work because of his disability, admitted he had trouble paying his rent and utility bills, which reached $425 in June. Like all tenants at Auburn Creek, his utility bills were not tied to his actual usage, but instead were calculated based on the square footage of his apartment and the number of people living there, Lopez said.
A copy of his utility bill incorrectly stated that two people lived in his apartment, even though he lived alone, which means he paid a higher rate than that for a typical single tenant.
Fleeing rights abuses
Refugees have a high risk of ending up in substandard housing because they often don’t speak English, have little formal education and are particularly fearful of challenging authority given their experience in their homelands, charity workers said.
The refugees frequently have no choice but to live in rundown apartments because few complexes will accept a tenant with no credit, rental history or Social Security number, refu- gees and advocates said. Some of them can’t read rental contracts, are unfamiliar with their rights as tenants or are afraid to pursue cases against landlords out of fear that they could be thrown out or have their credit damaged, they said.
“These people are really stressed to begin with,” said Diana Kellerman, a volunteer for the Center for Refugee Services, a local nonprofit that helps refugees. “A lot of them have a lot of children, and they’re living in very bad conditions. The emotional toll is huge.”
Since 2013, 34 refugees have come to San Antonio from Syria, 976 from Iraq and 377 from Iran. Nearly 400 have come from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 113 from Somalia, and 831 from Myanmar, State Department data show.
Of refugees around the world, the United Nations picks a small portion — typically less than 1 percent — that it deems the most in need of resettlement. Those chosen few are brought to the U.S. and other developed countries, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.
All refugees are vetted by Homeland Security Department, which accepts only those who have a “well-founded fear of persecution.”
Catholic Charities’ role
The federal government partners with local agencies to find “safe and affordable housing” and help them become self-sufficient.
In San Antonio, that agency is Catholic Charities, the charitable arm of the Archdiocese of San Antonio. The charity settles refugees in seven or eight local complexes, many of them in the Medical Center area, President and CEO J. Antonio Fernandez said in an interview. In 2016, it received $7.5 million from the federal government to help 1,900 refugees.
The charity has trouble finding landlords who are willing to take in refugees, Fernandez said.
“It’s a complicated situation, because there’s not many apartment complexes in San Antonio who want to work with us,” he said. “The refugees don’t have a Social Security number. They don’t have anything. People need to trust us.”
The charity has contracts with owners of apartment complexes who agree to take in refugees at discounted rates, Fernandez said. It tries to place the refugees near family members or others from the same communities.
Along with providing furniture, Catholic Charities pays the refugees’ rent for six months, Fernandez said. A worker with the charity acts as a guide for each family, helping them find jobs and navigate social services.
Before the family moves in, a worker inspects their apartment for mold, frayed wires, peeling paint, smoke detectors and other problems, according to Catholic Charities. Workers are supposed to visit each apartment within 24 hours of the family’s arrival, and again within a month, to check on its members’ well-being.
Some refugees said they were thankful for the help. But others, and some volunteers who work with them, criticized the charity for placing people in shabby complexes and for overloading their case workers, making it difficult for them to devote much attention to each family.
“Catholic Charities does the best they can do with the resources they have,” said Margaret Costantino, director of CRS, pointing out that the Trump administration has cut federal funding for resettlement. The charity’s “model of resettlement has not really changed for 20, 30 years. They still basically do what they’re required to do, but they don’t do any more.”
Fernandez defended the case workers. The charity has started inspecting apartments more often and doing more to educate refugees, Fernandez said.
“I think things are getting better,” Fernandez said. “We are checking a lot more often than we were ever before so they are living in better conditions. We’re trying to educate.”
Mohammad’s story
Before Syria’s civil war began, Alshokri’s family was prosperous, he said. It owned a business that distributed processed chicken to restaurant chains, and sold a tangy lemon drink made with its own recipe.
The civil war, which erupted in 2011 after the Arab Spring inspired a revolt against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, took all that away.
Alshokri’s family sold its
properties and withdrew its money from the country’s banks because it lost faith in the banking system, he said. Security forces from Assad’s government found the money when they raided the family’s home, and were convinced it showed that Alshokri had ties to terrorism. He denied the accusation, saying he never was involved in politics.
Alshokri said he spent 20 months in prison, where he was beaten with cables that left scars that still are visible on his hands and wrists. His legs were beaten so badly that they had to be removed above the knee to prevent gangrene from spreading, he said.
A cousin who worked in Assad’s government finally succeeded in getting him released. He spent nearly four years in Turkey before the U.S. government accepted him as a refugee, he said. He was the only Syrian refugee who arrived in San Antonio in 2017, while 33 came in 2016, the State Department reported.
Catholic Charities paid Alshokri’s rent for the first six months at Auburn Creek. A few months after that sixmonth lease ran out, his rent increased from about $640 a month to $790 because he was paying on a month-to-month basis without a contract, Alshokri said. The apartment complex drew up a new lease, but he said he decided not to sign because of the poor conditions in his apartment.
Alshokri received financial help from friends and a Syrian aid organization, and in March he began getting about $750 a month in supplemental income through Social Security. But he has still struggled to pay his rent and utilities, and Auburn Creek threatened him with eviction several times.
Windbury apartments
Last July, the temperature was nearing 100 degrees as Hem Chhetri sat in the shade of a brick wall to avoid the sweltering heat in his apartment in the Windbury complex on the
Northwest Chhetri, Side. 62, who came to the U.S. about six years ago as a refugee from Nepal, said through an interpreter that he and his wife had been without air conditioning for four days, even after they repeatedly asked their complex’s management for help. The thermostat showed the temperature at just over 90 degrees in their secondfloor apartment, decorated with American flags and a photo of the Washington Monument.
They coped by leaving their door open, drinking glass after glass of cold water and sleeping in a friend’s air-conditioned apartment. Windbury’s management later fixed the air conditioning.
Windbury is across the street from Auburn Creek.
Windbury was built in 1972, Auburn in 1976, and they are home to diverse populations of refugees, reflected in the wide array of ethnic businesses on nearby streets: Halal meat markets, hookah shops, and restaurants offering cuisine from India, Pakistan, China, Vietnam, Thailand and elsewhere. Also like Auburn, Windbury has faced numerous code com- plaints. Since 2014, tenants have filed more than 100 complaints to the city, describing flooded apartments, collapsing ceilings, a lack of smoke detectors and air conditioning that doesn’t work for weeks at a time, city records show. During a visit in late May, rat traps were strewn about, a reeking dumpster was swarming with flies, and a pole that once supported a basketball hoop stood bare. Children ran across a parking lot with a trench of crumbling concrete spanning nearly its entire width. Recycling bins had been placed at either end of the trench, but the caution tape between them had fallen off. Members of another refugee family who lived in Windbury, and who asked to remain anonymous, said that last July they had been without air conditioning for two months, even after the management said it would be repaired. A leak in their bathroom caused the ceiling to collapse while one family member was bathing an infant, they said. The baby wasn’ t hurt. Clementine, a refugee from Cameroon who asked to be identified only by her first name, said her apartment at Windbury frequently flooded when she and her three children lived there. The air conditioning and the water didn’t work and it took “forever” for the building’s management to help, she said. “We didn’t have any space,” she said. “There was no place for the kids to play around or sleep comfortably. The house had mold, it was smelly, it wasn’t really comfortable at all.” The The complex’s complex’s owner, owner, Kansas Kansas City-based company Eighteen Capital Group, has made a “significant and substantial” investment in upgrading it over the last couple years, said president of property management Isaac Gortenburg. Gortenburg said he was “very confident” there have been no recent complaints about conditions at Windbury. City records show that its residents have made 10 complaints to the city in the last year. Three residents called in February, March and April to report there was no hot water in the complex. “We have also worked closely with local refugee groups and their advocates as well as the city of San Antonio to facilitate communication and cooperation,” Gortenburg said by email. Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in an interview that he wants the City Council to take a “deep dive” into renters’ rights policies and for the city to initiate more code inspections for apartment complexes with repeated repeated violations. violations. “What’s most distressing to me is that we have people living in the shadows because they’re afraid to speak up,” he said. “We have to crack down on landlords and other business owners who take advantage of people.”
Muhammad’s future
Alshokri’s life changed earlier this year when he met Marla Dial, who lives near Auburn Creek. She befriended him after noticing him traveling around the neighborhood in his wheelchair and running into him at Center for Refugee Services, where she volunteers.
Dial spends hours with Alshokri every week, teaching him English and helping him stabilize his finances, deal with the management at Auburn Creek and search for a new apartment.
“He has a lot of challenges and a lot of short-term hurdles,” she said. “I think that once we get past some of those, then the financial hurdles will be greatly reduced because there will be so much opportunity for him. Right now he sort of has everything working against him.”
Alshokri’s apartment search was a difficult one. He wanted to stay in the Medical Center area, with its supportive community of refugees, but it was hard to find a place that’s affordable and wheelchair-accessible, Dial said.
He found an apartment complex Oaks, he on liked Wurzbach — Limestone Road next to Auburn Creek — but management required him to show proof of income equal to 2 1⁄
2 times the monthly rent, more than he earns. A Syrian friend offered to co-sign the lease, but then another barrier appeared.
Limestone also has a rule against leasing to someone who has received more than three eviction notices, Dial said. She explained to Limestone’s management that he received his notices during the chaos of his first year in the U.S., before he had the support system he has now. Alshokri recently got some good news: Limestone Oaks approved him for a lease. “I am the happiest person,” he said through Google Translate. His room has a view of the pool, and it’s cheaper, a t $580 a month. Now that Dial has befriended him and he has deeper ties to the local Syrian community, he can get more help with his problems. Alshokri, who has a green card, said he wants to settle in the U.S. and be a good citizen. He and Dial believe that a pair of prosthetic legs would help him re-enter the workforce. He is counting down the days until an appointment in late July at an amputee clinic. “I think it would open up the whole world for him,” Dial said. said.