Iraqi refugees find it harder to rent Hilliard-area apartments
Suzan Alkhafaji and her family left Iraq for an uncertain future in the U.S. two years ago, escaping cultural divisions and kidnappings that still plague the war-ravaged country.
After a few initial hiccups, Alkhafaji, 36, her husband, Mohammed Hasan, 41, and their two children, Adyan, 8, and Nadheer, 4, quickly settled into a Far West Side apartment.
Like many Iraqi refugees before them, they wanted to live in or just outside Hilliard because of the city’s strong schools, low crime rate and growing Iraqi and Arab community.
This year, the couple learned that they couldn’t remain at the Hilliard Station apartment complex because they didn’t meet the income requirements set by new management.
“It’s such an injustice,” Alkhafaji said. “We never missed a payment. We were quiet, good tenants.”
Rising rents, more-stringent screening guidelines and higher income requirements are forcing more Iraqi families to move from Hilliard and the Far West Side to Dublin and the North and Northwest sides in search of more “friendly” affordable housing, advocates say.
“It’s a growing problem as many of the apartment complexes in the (greater) Hilliard area change ownership or management companies,” said Ahmed Al Haek, president of the Iraqi Community Center of Ohio.
Although Al Haek doesn’t know for sure, he wonders whether some of the complexes are “applying the higher standards to Arab and other immigrants and refugees, not American-born citizens.”
He said he has talked with seven Iraqi families who have had difficulty renewing their leases or renting apartments in the Hilliard area.
He suspects there could be more who are afraid to complain or don’t know whom to complain to because they are newcomers to the U.S.
Qusay Alidan, 32, his pregnant wife, Resha, 31, and their two children, Nadeen, 8, and Amin, 3, ended up living with the relatives of his sponsor for more than two weeks this year after they were turned down at four apartment complexes in or near Hilliard.
Even after Alidan offered to pay four to six months rent in advance, one complex wanted him to have a co-signer who owned a home in Ohio, had a good credit history and earned four times the monthly rental amount, said Waad Abbas, a refugee himself who put Alidan and his family up in his Gahanna home.
“It’s ridiculous. How are these new residents supposed to start a new life here?” said Abbas, who worked as a translator for U.S. contractors from 2003 to 2008 and the U.S. Department of Defense from 2009 to 2011.
Abbas’ wife, Laura Berger, the development director at Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services, which helps refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants in central Ohio, said a landlord once told her, “We only take U.S. citizens.”
“That’s not even allowed,” she said.
Since 2007, 2,719 Iraqi refugees have been resettled in the state, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. That figure doesn’t include refugees who have moved here from other states.
Of the 2,719, 1,311 came to Franklin County.
Social-service groups estimate that 5,000 Iraqis live in the state, but Al Haek thinks the total is closer to 7,000. Refugees — legal immigrants — have fled persecution, torture or wars in their homelands and have resettled in countries such as the U.S. because they can’t return home safely.
They are entitled to eight months of public assistance, including limited cash payments, food stamps and Medicaid.
They also receive assistance in learning English and finding a job so they can become self-supporting as quickly as possible.
Many Iraqis are well-educated, had professional jobs in their native country and arrive in the U.S. with money or connections to relatives or friends who can help support them.
Last fall, Al Haek took his concerns to Columbus City Councilwoman Priscilla R. Tyson, whose office referred him to nonprofit groups.
Under federal law, it is illegal to discriminate based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability or familial status, said Jim McCarthy, president and CEO of the Central Ohio Fair Housing Association.
While it is OK for private landlords to raise their rents and tighten their screening procedures, McCarthy said, they would have to apply those changes equally.
The best way to tell whether apartment complexes are discriminating is to send in testers — “ secret shoppers” — of different nationalities and races to see whether they are treated “fairly and evenly,” McCarthy said.
He said he could send out testers if he received a complaint, but he hasn’t gotten one.
Al Haek said he encouraged the Iraqi refugees to come forward, but many are scared about jeopardizing their livelihood in the U.S.
Napoleon Bell, executive director of Columbus’ Community Relations Commission, said his office hasn’t received a complaint, but “that’s not to say it couldn’t or isn’t happening.”
Bell said he was troubled by the stories that several immigrants shared with The Dispatch.
“It would distress me if this is what is happening,” he said.
Housing is the No. 1 challenge facing all low-income families in the area, said Kim Emch, executive director and founder of Serving Our Neighbor (SON) Ministries in Hilliard, which helps families there rise up from poverty.
“It would make me sick to learn that it was because of discrimination,” she said. “I think it is more likely that the mighty dollar motivates, and these apartments think they can make more money.”
There are 240 people on the waiting list to get into Abbey Church Village, a 160-unit complex on the Northwest Side near Dublin that targets low-income families, manager Becky Brooks said. Many of those people are refugees waiting for three-bedroom apartments, which she said are becoming increasingly scarce.
Applicants have to undergo only checks for credit history and criminal background, Brooks said. Alkhafaji and her family were among the lucky few to get in recently.
Despite efforts to recruit more landlords, only a handful will work with the resettlement agencies because the newly arrived refugees have yet to get jobs or establish rental histories or credit scores that can be verified, said Hannah Hartshorn, a resettlement coordinator with Community Refugee & Immigration Services.
The goal is to teach landlords that refugees have government benefits when they arrive, are assisted in finding jobs and are likely to become loyal tenants who avoid criminal activity, she said.
Even if Alkhafaji and her family could have stayed at Hilliard Station, they couldn’t have afforded renter’s insurance with a minimum coverage of $300,000 — another new requirement — on her husband’s Wal-Mart pay.
Officials of Hilliard Station and its owner, Champion Communities, didn’t return phone calls last week.
Alkhafaji said that before coming to the U.S., her family enjoyed a middle-class lifestyle. She worked at the Ministry of Higher Education in Baghdad, while her husband was a bodyguard for reporters of The New York Times working there.
To add insult to injury, Alkhafaji said, the family had to pay two months’ rent and utilities to get out of their lease, even though they found an apartment on the Northwest Side within a few weeks.
“We’re new here and don’t know the laws, so we don’t fight, but I feel so hurt and taken advantage of,” she said.
Source: www.dispatch.com