Most people are unaware of the dual challenges that homeless immigrants face every day. These individuals must cope with a lack of permanent shelter while negotiating the language, customs and complexities of life in a new country.
The transition to permanent housing can be difficult for immigrants who cannot read or write in English, and therefore do not have easy access to information about housing resources. The transition is particularly touch for undocumented immigrants who are ineligible for government assistance. The lack of a social security number makes it nearly impossible for illegal immigrants to gain access to gove4rnment services such as long-term home place.
Ironically, immigrants pay more in taxes that they received in public services. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a typical immigrant and his or her offspring will pay an estimated $80,000 more in taxes than they will receive in federal, state or local benefits over the course of their lives. Moreover, in 1996, Congress passed the Personal Responsibility Act (PRWORA), which severely limited the eligibility of immigrants to receive federal benefits from Medicaid, food stamps, and temporary assistants to needy families.
Though food stamp benefits were restored for some legal immigrants in 1998, many other benefits are still unavailable to immigrants who entered the country after 1996. For immigrants lacking legal documentation, the only federal benefit the can receive is emergency Me4dicaid.
The barriers for immigrants seeking paid employment and associated income to pay for housing can also be significant. Lack of English proficiency and lack of access to government services denies them job listings (offered by some federal programs) available to others. Immigrants lacking legal documentation cannot work legally, and may therefore have to accept poorer pay, working conditions, and treatment than legal workers. Some employers reportedly use the threat of deportation to silence immigrants who try to improve their working and living conditions.
Women immigrants with children face unique difficulties. Like many homeless women, they often can work only if their children are in school or children. However, registering children for school and obtaining childcare are difficult when a mother lacks English proficiency. Immigrants also often lack the support network of family and friends that can mean the difference between hardship and homelessness; immigrant mothers who cannot rely on family and friends to care for their children may be unable to leave their children to look for work.
Many homeless women find themselves without shelter because they have fled spousal abuse. For immigrant women, this situation can be even more acute. Claudia Gonzales, a 37-year old immigrant from Mexico who came to the United States in 1991 without legal documentation, said that her husband abused her before they left Mexico. But the move to the United States gave him even greater opportunity for violence. “He threatened to hand me over to immigration, to take me there by force. I thought I had to continue with him, and take all I could take so I could one day get papers {legal resident status”. I had three children…How was I going to make it (on my own) with my children without work?”
Gonzalez noted that many of her peers suffer domestic abuse, but remain with their husbands because they need financial support: “They aren’t able to pay the rent, since without papers they cannot get stable world.”
The children of homeless immigrants also face particular disadvantages. Like other homeless children, they may be unable to register for school because they lack proof that they live in a given school district. However, immigrant children may also face language barriers – their own and those of their parents –that prevent them from getting information about school. Immigrants without legal documentation often say they are fearful of any official government entity, including public schools. Parents who have immigrated illegally may themselves keep their children out of school because of the baseless yet common fear that the government will deport them and/or their children of the school discovers the illegal status.
There are few easy solutions to the problems faced by homeless immigrants. However, some resources do exist that address their particular concerns. Immigrants, whatever their own legal status, can report employer abuses to the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Immigrants who want to change their legal status but do not have money for high legal fees can get help from immigrant advocacy groups such as CLINIC (THE Catholic Legal Immigration Network), IRSA (Immigrant Refugee Services of America), the National Immigration Forum, and the Farm Worker Justice Fund. These resources, as well as health clinics and shelters with bilingual staff, can be accessed by calling the bilingual referral service at 1-800-473-3003.
