Community Matters: Petaluma welcomes Afghan families

“Our new Afghan neighbors are going to need our support and friendship for months to come because the challenges they face won’t disappear overnight.”

- Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service

After the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August, the United States hastily evacuated 76,000 Afghans as part of Operation Allies Welcome. And so began the largest resettlement of refugees in this country since the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s.

But the Afghan families, most of whom hold Special Immigrant Visas because they worked for or with the U.S. Government during the war in their country, have encountered an overwhelmed federal immigration program that is understaffed, underfunded and generally unable to properly serve their needs.

Despite these obstacles, eight Afghan families are now living here in Petaluma after receiving an offer of housing from the ULM Family Foundation which is underwriting rent and utility costs at an eastside apartment complex for six months. The foundation also lined up some part-time jobs for some of the refugees at PG&E. Though a representative from the foundation initially promised to underwrite housing costs for up to two years, for unknown reasons the rental subsidies are now expected to expire at the end of April.

With the clock running out on housing assistance and inundated federal agencies unable to offer much support, members of Petaluma’s St. John’s Episcopal Church and other volunteers have stepped up to help the newcomers who have an especially urgent need to find good-paying jobs and secure long-term housing.

To better understand their plight, I contacted St. John’s Rev. Daniel Green who recalled getting a phone message in October from one of the refugees who’d mistakenly come upon the local Episcopal church while Googling resettlement agencies.

“Although as a church we had no experience working with refugees, we’re in the business of responding compassionately to people in need, so I called him back,” said Green, who quickly realized that the traumatized families would need extensive help far beyond the foundation’s six-month rental commitment.

With several Afghan refugee families having arrived here by mid-November, the church welcomed them with a Thanksgiving dinner and began work on “a broad-based community effort” to help the 19 adults and 23 children who range in age from 1 to 17.

“There was no way that our congregation was going to be able to do this alone, so we’ve been spreading the word and the response has been heartening,” Green told me.

Thanks to leadership from church congregants like Frances Frazier, the group has partnered with other local organizations including the Family Resource Center at McDowell School and the Elim Lutheran Church to get apartments furnished, clothing supplied, children enrolled in local schools and the adults signed up for ESL classes at the Petaluma Adult School. More volunteers are needed to help adults obtain drivers licenses, transport Afghans to medical and other appointments and assist them in becoming familiar with basic household financial literacy.

But the biggest priority, according to Frazier, is jobs and housing.

Pointing out that all the men and many of the women are well-educated professionals who until August were gainfully employed in support of NATO military operations or diplomatic corps, they possess a wide variety of skills in professions such as law, journalism, health care, aircraft mechanics and IT services.

“They have gone from having so much in Afghanistan to having so little here,” said Frazier, noting that their rushed and harrowing exit from Afghanistan forced them to leave behind homes, personal savings and all their belongings other than, quite literally, the clothes on their backs.

I spoke with Ali Fayez, an Afghan attorney who worked in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and has recently taken on the role of representing the families’ interests in getting settled in America. He’s currently spending much of his time in contact with non-profit resettlement agencies and federal immigration officials, but the refugee need has outstripped the available resources.

“We have hope and courage and we’re trying to stand on our own feet,” Fayez told me. “We very much appreciate all the help we’ve received, but the cost of living is very high and 6 months’ rent is not realistic for us to become self-sufficient.”

Fayez is holding out hope for an increased commitment from the ULM family foundation for a full year of rental subsidies that would give the Afghan families sufficient time to secure jobs and save enough money to secure expensive long-term rental contracts.

Petaluma Sunrise Rotary Club members have also begun to help and on Friday heard refugee Mohammad Zahir Qaderi describe how he, his wife and their six children endured a terrifying escape with 150 others all packed into a bus for three days that was blocked by Taliban fighters waving rifles. He left behind a sister and brother and worries because he knows they are in constant danger.

Despite having lived with ongoing war since he was a little boy during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Qaderi was undeterred by the ongoing violence and held diverse jobs as a hospital nursing supervisor and chief editor of a television station in Kabul. He was working as a journalist with NATO when the Taliban seized the Afghan capital.

“Our families are educated and we like to work hard,” Qaderi told the Rotarians.

In what served as a timely testimonial, Rotarian and civil engineer Jeff England shared news that he has just hired Qaderi’s 19 year-old son, Zahid, who had demonstrated a strong willingness to learn new skills and achieve success.

Like millions of American immigrants before them, it’s abundantly clear that Petaluma’s Afghan newcomers strongly value American democracy, economic opportunity and the virtues of working hard.

They just need a fair chance.

Leads on job prospects and housing opportunities can be texted or emailed to Afghan Allies Project volunteer Brenda Barrett at 415-657-6041 or Brenda_Barrett@protonmail.com.To volunteer, go to saintjohnsepiscopalpetaluma.org/afghan-allies-project.

Allies volunteer Frances Frazier said the work has given her a renewed perspective and much deeper appreciation for the enormous privileges we all enjoy living in this free and stable democratic republic.

Knowing the Afghan families are unlikely to ever take such precious gifts for granted, Frazier is hoping others will join her in helping them get a fresh start in their new American community.

John Burns is a former publisher of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. He can be reached at john.burns@arguscourier.com.